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Description
Artist's Notes: This is the first in a series of drawing that I have been planning to do for a very long time now. With this series I wanted to put to paper the images evoked by the songs I like to listen to. I wanted the first image in this series to be special so I chose to base it on Quest for Fire by Iron Maiden which was the song that first peaked my interest in heavy metal leading me to seek out more music of a similar style. It's interesting how getting into metal is different from getting into any other genre of music, it's not something you can find out by listening to what is played on the radio and it can be difficult to find friends who share this interest to provide recommendations as it is not as widely enjoyed as other types of music because, admittedly, it isn't for everyone (although Iron Maiden itself is a bad example of this as they are definitely one of the most mainstream metal bands but you have to find metal somewhere and I think most metalheads started listenning to mainstream bands before they started looking for the obscure stuff). Exploring the genre is comparable to being an amateur archaeologist or historian digging up rare finds on your own making it a personal quest of sorts, discovering your own personal tastes independently of others on their own "metal quest". Eventually one does find other people wha share their love for the genreand together they expand each other's horizons sharing the bands that they have discovered with one another. What I've also found is that more seasoned metalheads have an almost sixth sense not only in finding each other but detecting when someone isn't really into metal but simply wants to seem differnet from other people (although sometimes these individuals are just starting out on their own metal journey and therefore only know the most popular bands). With regards to the song itself, I will admit that I like Quest for Fire more so out of sentimental value than due to its own merit as a song, infact it is widely regarded as Iron Maiden's worst song (a sentiment with which I do not agree, there are so many worse songs in the Iron Maiden discography mostly from the Baze Bailey era but even off of The Number of the Beast, I'm looking at you Gangland). The song has a kind of rolling or galloping rhythm to it (I'm not well versed in musical terminology as I am not a very musical person), which made me think of a small raft on a violent ocean or a learge dinosaur lumbering though a dense forest. Those who have been following me for some time will recognize the return of two of my creature designs. Interestly, I first came across this song through one of my pre-existing interests, dinosaurs. While looking up dinosaur videos, as any dino dork in middle school would, I came across a compilation of scenes from the Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series with this song played over it. Despite its cheesiness, or maybe because of it, I was instantly enthralled, I had never heard anything like it before (most of my classmates, with a few exceptions only listened to whatever pop or rap song was popular that month and thought that Metallica was the only metal band in existence) and I wanted to find more music like it, but the song and artist was not credited in the video, or at least I did not see it, and so my quest of unaided exploration began with this very song prompting to scour the internet for the one song that starts with the line "In a time when dinosaurs walked the Earth" (I can't even imagine how metalheads found music before the internet without gambling on albums based purely on cover art, maybe that's why metal unquestionably has the best album covers of any genre of music). I think it is very fitting that this was my "first" metal song (I'm pretty sure I had heard some Black Sabbath and maybe even Judas Priest before than but it din't catch my ear at the time), not only because of the subject matter clumsily explored in the lyrics but because this Quest for Fire was what ignited my neverending quest for metal.

Apologies for the long description, as these works are personal I wanted to make the descriptions personal as well. Because this is more of a sketch of what I am going to finish later on it is a lot rougher than my usual stuff and not as touched up. The idea for this work and many of the others in this series is to frame tham like a stained glass window or an illustration in an old story book, with scenes and object that are not really in the same place, which you can see the beginnings of in this work, with the ocean above the forest. My reason for posting these works in progress was not only to give you guys a taste of what I will be producing in the (far) future but so that you can let me know the things I have to work on inorder to make the final version as great as possible. My main problem with is one is that the ocean does not look convincing at all, but let me know what you guys think. Also Iwant the fianl version to be in full color so that's another thing I have to practice. If there are any metalheads out there I'm curious; what was your first metal song and where did your journey through the genre go from there?

Link to Song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppwIZ…

Description
Artist's Notes: This is the first in a series of drawing that I have been planning to do for a very long time now. With this series I wanted to put to paper the images evoked by the songs I like to listen to. I wanted the first image in this series to be special so I chose to base it on Quest for Fire by Iron Maiden which was the song that first peaked my interest in heavy metal leading me to seek out more music of a similar style. It's interesting how getting into metal is different from getting into any other genre of music, it's not something you can find out by listening to what is played on the radio and it can be difficult to find friends who share this interest to provide recommendations as it is not as widely enjoyed as other types of music because, admittedly, it isn't for everyone (although Iron Maiden itself is a bad example of this as they are definitely one of the most mainstream metal bands but you have to find metal somewhere and I think most metalheads started listenning to mainstream bands before they started looking for the obscure stuff). Exploring the genre is comparable to being an amateur archaeologist or historian digging up rare finds on your own making it a personal quest of sorts, discovering your own personal tastes independently of others on their own "metal quest". Eventually one does find other people wha share their love for the genreand together they expand each other's horizons sharing the bands that they have discovered with one another. What I've also found is that more seasoned metalheads have an almost sixth sense not only in finding each other but detecting when someone isn't really into metal but simply wants to seem differnet from other people (although sometimes these individuals are just starting out on their own metal journey and therefore only know the most popular bands). With regards to the song itself, I will admit that I like Quest for Fire more so out of sentimental value than due to its own merit as a song, infact it is widely regarded as Iron Maiden's worst song (a sentiment with which I do not agree, there are so many worse songs in the Iron Maiden discography mostly from the Baze Bailey era but even off of The Number of the Beast, I'm looking at you Gangland). The song has a kind of rolling or galloping rhythm to it (I'm not well versed in musical terminology as I am not a very musical person), which made me think of a small raft on a violent ocean or a learge dinosaur lumbering though a dense forest. Those who have been following me for some time will recognize the return of two of my creature designs. Interestly, I first came across this song through one of my pre-existing interests, dinosaurs. While looking up dinosaur videos, as any dino dork in middle school would, I came across a compilation of scenes from the Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series with this song played over it. Despite its cheesiness, or maybe because of it, I was instantly enthralled, I had never heard anything like it before (most of my classmates, with a few exceptions only listened to whatever pop or rap song was popular that month and thought that Metallica was the only metal band in existence) and I wanted to find more music like it, but the song and artist was not credited in the video, or at least I did not see it, and so my quest of unaided exploration began with this very song prompting to scour the internet for the one song that starts with the line "In a time when dinosaurs walked the Earth" (I can't even imagine how metalheads found music before the internet without gambling on albums based purely on cover art, maybe that's why metal unquestionably has the best album covers of any genre of music). I think it is very fitting that this was my "first" metal song (I'm pretty sure I had heard some Black Sabbath and maybe even Judas Priest before than but it din't catch my ear at the time), not only because of the subject matter clumsily explored in the lyrics but because this Quest for Fire was what ignited my neverending quest for metal.

Apologies for the long description, as these works are personal I wanted to make the descriptions personal as well. Because this is more of a sketch of what I am going to finish later on it is a lot rougher than my usual stuff and not as touched up. The idea for this work and many of the others in this series is to frame tham like a stained glass window or an illustration in an old story book, with scenes and object that are not really in the same place, which you can see the beginnings of in this work, with the ocean above the forest. My reason for posting these works in progress was not only to give you guys a taste of what I will be producing in the (far) future but so that you can let me know the things I have to work on inorder to make the final version as great as possible. My main problem with is one is that the ocean does not look convincing at all, but let me know what you guys think. Also Iwant the fianl version to be in full color so that's another thing I have to practice. If there are any metalheads out there I'm curious; what was your first metal song and where did your journey through the genre go from there?

Link to Song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ppwIZ…