Salty's 12in12 Wrap Up!

Posted by Salty at 12:43 on April 17th, 2010.

OK so it's time for my 12in12 wrap up blog.  It took me a little while to get to it, but i'm gettin' to it!

So let me start of by saying that this project wouldn't have been at all possible without a few things.  One, obviously, was me.  The second, less obviously, was the fact that there are 12 months in a year, which luckilly went hand in hand with the fact we were going to do 12 EPs.  It also wouldn't have been possible without everyone who got on board and bought the releases each month and supported it so well.  Oh yeah, and some dude wrote a bunch of music.  I think his name is Mark Miles or something.

Of course, I'm just screwing around.  Without Mike Mills this thing would never have gotten off the ground and I'm not ashamed to say that I've never ever in my creative life worked with anyone who is not only creative in his own right, but also constantly inspires creativity in me.  There were so many times throughout the process that we'd basically just jam ideas off each other which would lead to an idea for either artwork or a song and we'd go from there.  The very first Toehider track, the self-titled "Toe Hider" was actually writtin in short bursts.  Mike would record a few bars or a section, send it to me, I'd do some sketches based on where the idea was going, send them to him, and he'd then write as the sketches took his ideas other places.  It was an awesome way of working and sort of what sparked this whole thing off.  I also found in Mike someone who like me was tired of how things are in the music industry right now, but is just as slack as me about doing anything to change it.  So we come up with this idea of releasing all of this music completely digitally, on a "pay if you like it" basis and allowing everyone to listen to it in full online as much as they like.  It was never REALLY about making huge wads of money (it so was) but about doing something different and trying to show that it can work!

So a super massive thanks has to go to Mike for being such an easy and inspiring dude to work with.  Lets do more of it.

Anyway, so this is where I get to wrap up the project in 12 points.

1. I absolutely SUCK at time management.  I think at least 9 of the 12 EPs I did the cover art for in the last 48 hours leading up to the release.  Some with even less time.  The extra artwork that they all include was done usually on the same sort of basis.

2. The funnest cover to create for me I think was 9.  We set up a table covered in white paper and just went nuts with Froot Loops and milk.  I set up all of my camera gear including two flashes, a softbox, remote flash triggers and remote shutter release and took photo after photo of a lightbulb dropping in the bowl of cereal.  Or lightbulbs floating in cereal.  Or lightbulbs laying on cereal and pouring milk over them.  It was AWESOME.

3. The cover I don't really feel completely happy with would probably be In All Honesty.  I wanted to do something that looked really generic and mass manufactured, and while it does look pretty bland and generic, I don't think it really come off as well as I hoped.  If I could re-do that cover, I'd probably make it a photo cover and do a shoot with Mike and possibly the band and give it that real cheesy airbrushed pop supergroup angle.

4. Of all of the extra artwork, my favourites are probably the poster from one of the last ones…where Toehead is sitting on a floating chair looking at a fish and the TONAN comic.  That Tonan one was a lot of fun.  I'm also partial to the last comic too.

5. My least favourite extra artwork is probably the grow-a-toe thing from Old, Old, Old.  I was really hard pushed to come up with something for that, so went with the old 70s comic ad type dealo.  I probably should FEEL the worst about the comic from In All Honesty seeing as it was a complete cop out and just a stick figure thing I drew in literally 45 seconds, but that was the vibe we were on with that EP so I quite like it haha!  I didn't do extra artwork for Do You Believe in Monsters…because…err…a monster ate it?

6. I think my favourite of the EPs is probably a four way tie between Children of the Sun, Toehider Too, In All Honesty and Not Much of a Man.

7. My least favourite, though not because I don't like it, but purely because it's a different listening experience, so I usually skip it if I'm just listening to music is How Counterquistle Lost His Pyjamas.  It's a great EP, just always throws me out of my musical odyssey space when I'm listening on random.

8. I did a lot of the artwork for this project sitting at my desk at work.  Woops, there goes my productivity!

9. Two EPs had their covers changed right at the last minute.  These were Metaltarsus and Done and Dusted.  I blogged about Metaltaarsus and how I did it and hated it and was then going to just use a black album cover as a joke, but then managed to fix what I didn't like about the digital painting.  It ended up being a smash with the fans!  The Done and Dusted cover existed as a sketch, and then when I started actually working on it I discovered that it SUCKED and I couldn't get it working the way I wanted it to.  So the cover that I ended up going with, with the broom and mouse etc was a last minute thing done at 3am the night before release jamming ideas back and forth with Mike on Skype.  Ah deadlines, how you rule.

The Unused Done and Dusted Concept

Check it out here - http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_3019372

11. I used the following techniques and tools for the artwork throughout the project - Pencil and pen on paper drawing (biro, felt tip, clutch pencil), full digital illustration (Intuos 4 and Photoshop), digital painting (same as previous), digital photography, digital collage and in some cases a mixture of all of those!

12. This is point 12.  Give me a break alright!  12 is a lot of shit to come up with.

So there we have it.  We did a project that took us a whole year.  At some points we thought it'd kill us, at others we rode a wave of total exhilleration and enjoyment in what we were doing.

Would I do it again?  Hell yeah!  But probably not right away.

I hope you enjoyed it, it was a hell of a ride.  Again massive thanks to Mike for being such a champion.  Special thanks also need to go to Amy, Lachlan and Richie who are the Toehider live band.  Those guys have done a great job at taking the craziness of Mike's music and making it happen on the stage.