Wicker's World


I was contacted in February by an old mate of mine, Keith Peacock who I'd worked with on the 'Thieving Magpie' and 'Internal Exile' sleeves for Fish, and some other bits and pieces. He asked whether I would be up for getting involved in a project that his design group were co-ordinating for Iron Maiden's management 'Sanctuary'. Had I heard of 'The Wicker Man' movie? Yes I had. Well this was to be the title of the band's first single off the new album. I
remembered the film well, a strange one made in 1973, (purportedly Christopher Lee's favourite), about pagan worship on a Scottish isle, and even stranger still... a cult with many fans and websites dedicated to it! The mind boggles!

A rough had been approved, drawn up in-house by one of Keith's designers, Stuart Crouch and he popped down to see me a few days later with a brief, after Rod Smallwood, Sanctuary's head honcho, had checked me out first on this very site. I had done a 'Monsters of Rock' illustration for Bravado Merchandise Company when Iron Maiden were headlining that year and they subsequently used the design for the 'Donnington - Live' album sleeve, so that was all he knew of my work - outside of Marillion of course.

Stuart's rough (see pic 1) depicted a baying crowd in the foreground, looking up at the Wicker Man (which was meant to be Eddie) and he'd just been torched. The crowd, as in the film, were to be wearing animal face masks and head gear as befits a Pagan ritual. This rough had been approved by Rod and so I set about doing some rough sketches in preparation.

First off though, I needed some reference shots of a crowd, and so I contacted a friend whose son Oliver and his mates were in a couple of local metal bands called 'L3R' and 'Rocking Horse'. They were into 'The Crow' which was a bonus and would dress up for me 'no problem'. I supplied the head gear from the local Pagan Worship shop in Colchester and we were away! (see pics 2, 3 and 4).

The pencil sketch (see pic 5) was e-mailed to Rod as was each development of the illustration. This was approved as the basis for proceeding with the comment that the head (Eddie) needed some tweaking.

I sent off the first colour image of the scene (see pic 6) and once again this seemed to be on the right track although there was still some concern however over the fact that the head of Eddie should not look 'stuck on' and I could think more in terms of presenting him as a spirit that inhabits the 'Wicker Man', perhaps the flames could delineate the face somehow (jeez! Tricky!)

Pics 7 and 8 show futher developments but when Rod saw pic 9 he thought that was it. I had decided to put some wickerwork around the mouth area as a Wicker Man would not have teeth now would he? Although this seemed to get over the problem of the 'stuck on Eddie', losing his mouth made it all the harder to make it look like his well - loved mugshot.

I tweaked the body some more after that and got more expression in the static pose of the body after Rod suggested a change in the hands. Pic 10 was shown to the band and they approved it with the one suggestion to lose the 'Wolfman' bottom left.

No reason given, so I changed him to 'Ratboy' (see pic 11) and hoped for the best.

This was approved and I was given the green light to finish the picture, front and back (see pic 12). I worked up the sky a bit putting more rays of light in the sky, and did endless rejigs to the 'Wicker Man' body and head to fit in more with the foreground, adding more flames and smoke etc. The back cover worked well, particularly 'the Fool' and the character on the left (Christopher Lee's part in the film, a dancing Man/Woman with face paint rather than a mask who 'directs' the parade just before the burning sacrifice). In the film, there are also animals inside the Wicker Man, and of course a man, who is a virgin (and a policeman to boot!) who had ignored the advances of a naked Brit Ekland (eeek!) and dresses as the 'Fool' in the parade, only to end up as the sacrifice inside 'The Wicker Man'. It was not felt necessary to show him in this picture tho', thank God! You would'nt see anything anyway at that size!

So there you have it, as of today, (4th May) I haven't seen the end products yet, but I've heard the single which sounds great, any lyric that mentions 'The piper at the gates of dawn' is alright by me!