This is a poster I did for my best friend's (now my fiance!) band, Strident.

It's a huge, huge piece. Lots of layers, you could almost hear my poor old computer groaning in agony every time I saved it.

I went through a long process of developing the image. It is based on their song, Power Metal From Space, which is about a bunch of aliens who destroyed their own planet and are now heading towards Earth - and the video, which was very deliberately cheesy and full of pyrotechnics. Originally the figure was much more alien with lots of tentacles, and the hyperspace guitar (mentioned in the lyrics) was going to have a little spaceship for the head, energy beams instead of a solid neck, and a black hole for the body, but that began to lose the shape of a person playing a guitar and looked like a flailing alien. Maybe a better artist could have pulled it off - I couldn't. I dialed it back to a more human figure with extra arms and a sort of insect/demonic face. The sucker-tipped tail was the last thing I added, since there seemed to be a blank spot there that needed filling.

Strident's FB: http://www.facebook.com/Stridentofficial

The PMFS music video it's based on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpQnvM08HZc

DA stock sources:

Earth and other celestial bodies: hameed

Lava: Mavrosh

Debris: Zigaboooooo

Asteroids: ISOstock

Nebulae: ineedfire

Flames: LadyDeath666, Eris-stock

Hyperspace guitar parts: bookscorpion, FoxStox