We chose to create a fantastic depiction of a consonance with the meaning and musical structure of the “White Papers” title. This concept is commonly used to designate a ceremony or ritual that occur when an individual leaves a group to enter another. These moments are found in every society and form the “ceremonial cycles of life”. It was French ethnologist Arnold Van Gennep who first pulled light on these symbolic passages that are either social or spiritual.

Van Gennep defines a rite of passage as a change of state divided into three phases: separation (from a former place or status), transition (the inbetween) and reaggregation (a new status). This system perfectly fits the musical structure of “White Papers”, and we decided to build our narrative accordingly. We created a character evolving in a world where magic and spirits lead him through these stages towards emancipation. Life being a cycle, our character will return to his original position, until the next rite…

Our project finds its artistic origin in a series of masks I designed for the covers of King Sheep’s songs “Golden Age” and “All in Line” (find them in the website gallery). The idea was to personalize an emotion, a spirit. Each mask also represents one of the members of the band. The video clip is the final stone to the surreal world we created together, a magical universe born from the union of music and illustration.

We used graphites of different greasiness on paper to create the figurative elements. Our goal was to bring sensitivity and smoothness to the video clip. Besides, we tried to create depth through the imbrication of light and shadow. For the abstract elements, we explored different kinds of techniques of inking, water colouring as well as painting with paint brushes, dabbers or using air-brush guns. Once this experimental process was over, we had a set of motives and materials we used to create the skies, waters and nebulas. Even though it is probably more time-consuming than using a graphic tablet, it was essential for us to draw “the classic way” to bring depth and credibility to our artistic universe. Once the illustration work was over we ended up with more than a hundred drawing boards.

From the start, we designed our illustrations as layers that we could add or delete to create different scenes. It was, in our opinion, the easiest way to build these differences. Every drawing has been scanned, cut out, coloured and finally integrated. We used 3D to give life to the character, the stone masks and the planets. We had to use digital magic as their movements were too complex otherwise. However, we tried to stay faithful to our illustrations by using as much hand-made textures as possible.

The last stage of work was the application of the atmospheres, lights, depth and realism to the scenes. We gave life to our illustrations by adding organic and natural elements such as the movement of the faint breeze interacting with the different components of the drawings. The goal was to create rhythm and to bring soul to our work. This mix of “digital” and “hand-made” processes is at the heart of our interpretation of “White Papers”’s magical and musical world.