Howdy! I go by Braz_OS online and I run the record label DESKPOP. I've created a bunch of album artwork over the years, including art for some of the songs on DESKPOP's NewGrounds page. I read NewGrounds' terms and conditions though and figured I should post this image alone as just a test. While it says photography is not allowed, it also says "Photographs of sculptures, paintings or other hand-made items are acceptable..." My style is a bit hybrid, and the image above shows it off best.

First, I take a collection of physical items that I think resonate with the music and I arrange them very carefully for the best image composition in my photograph. Then after taking many shots with real world lighting adjustments I send my photo to Photoshop where I'll crank the saturation and adjust colors (the purple panflute pictured was originally brown) plus edit the background so it looks very smooth. Next I add my 3D assets, which in this case is the artist name, EP title, and those extruded Wii remote pointers. Finally when the overall image is done, I'll go over it with little 2D edits to fill the space as I want. See those white rings around the purple stick of incense? I drew those in, used photoshop to make them appear in the reflection on the soda can, and then used essentially an air-brush to add shading and depth. I love to use photoshop's "burn" tool for shading.

Would this type of art be allowed on NewGrounds? At the end of the day it LOOKS like a photo at quick glance so I totally understand if not. I'm looking for a website that I can host a nice portfolio with process descriptions like what I have above, and I've been loving this site for the music scene so I feel there's some synergy. Thanks for reading this and giving me honest feedback :~)

This album art was originally published by my record label & I 03/15/19 and we have the full rights to it. You can listen to the music here ♡