The creation of the cover for Sybil’s Garage is always one of the most difficult parts in creating the magazine.  Since the second issue, every cover has been unique.  I originally toyed with the idea of creating a photo collage in Photoshop — a kind of nigh-tech Steampunk fusion of machinery, ductwork, wiring, etc.  And when it came time to produce the latest issue I decided I’d apply this idea to the cover.  I had no idea if it was going to work at all, and my co-editors can tell you how much I stressed about it.

I started with photos of Greenpoint, Brooklyn and its industrial landscapes, like these below:

For the backdrop, I used the Tyrell Corporation building from Blade Runner, and and old rusted out metal cargo ship that was docked in Montreal, like so:

…and then over several laborious days I digitally cut up and stitched back together the many images to form the machine-dense collage you see here (click for high res):

It was a lot of work, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.  I think the result was a resounding success, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

For the more visually (and musically) inclined, I’ve created a short film about the adventure here:

Get Sybil’s Garage No. 7 at Amazon: http://amzn.to/acB5BI
Get it at Senses Five Press: http://bit.ly/dv8sis