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Twelve years after I made the album art for Over Hills and Underground, Chris Eminizer came back with a new album. Galactic Rivers was three years in the making, a twelve-song journey through jazz, electronic music, and prog rock, and it needed a cover. I don't think there's a better compliment in freelancing than a client returning after a decade, so I was in before he finished asking.
The concept we landed on together: a robot playing saxophone at a porthole onto space, with a small bird for company. Chris wanted 60s psychedelia in the DNA, lavender and orange with bold black line art, in the family of old Doors posters.
Auditioning robots
The robot went through auditions first, in my sketchbook, shown to Chris over a call with the pages held up to the camera.
| The audition | The callback |
|---|---|
 |  |
I pulled candidates from every droid I could think of (Iron Giant, the Rockafire Explosion, C-3PO) and wandered somewhere annotated "this is getting creepy..." before pulling back. By the next page the character had found its headphones, and a saxophone had wandered in.
The direction that survived was the friendliest one: a rounded head, calm green eyes, and headphones as the tell that this robot is a listener as much as a player. The creepy cyborgs stayed in the sketchbook, and so did the Iron Giant jaws, for a very practical reason: a big hinged mouth looks great right up until you ask it to form an embouchure, and this robot had to look like it could actually play. I also spent a tangent trying to build bellows and air pumps into the body as a nod to woodwinds (mini bellows for ears, an air pump torso) and never landed a design that made sense, so the robot stayed a robot.
Two layouts, both hired
I sketched two layouts: one with the robot against a wall of synthesizers, one backlit with space pouring through the porthole and the album name written in the smoke.
| Synth wall | Porthole |
|---|---|
 |  |
Chris's reply: "Wow! Ok so I LOVE BOTH of these! ... Can I get both???"
So both it was. One became the front cover, the other the back.
Working for a musician
Working for a musician means the details get audited. When I asked what kind of bird, Chris answered with a photo of a chickadee perched on his own hand. When an early draft had the robot's hands reversed on the sax, he caught it immediately ("Left hand should be on top. We're gonna play sax duets the next time you're here!"). I'd drawn it facing the other way and mirror-imaged it, forgetting the hands would flip.
I play saxophone myself (hence the duet invitation), so I drew the keywork with my own alto sitting in my lap, and Chris later confirmed the fingering: "BIG KUDOS on the sax keys and the fingers!!! It looks like he's playing a 'G'!" When the front cover's tenor became the back cover's alto, I adjusted the neck curve on request to read properly.
| The reference | The character |
|---|---|
 |  |
Color rounds
Color took a few rounds: swirls pouring out of the bell versus none (I lobbied for the "rivers" of swirls, given the title), flat 60s color versus gradients, grainy texture versus clean. Somewhere past 1 AM I sent a batch where the stars had vanished entirely, with the note "I think this means it's time for me to stop today."
| Full 60s flat | No outlines | White outline and glow |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Chris picked his winner with a numbered list of reasons, including "Robot's mouth is fab, almost looks like a pretty good embouchure, lol," and closing with "Fantastic work. Lets go with that!" His favorite detail was the bird's expression: "It looks like he's thinking, 'really? You playin' that thing again?'"
The back cover had one more idea in it. Rather than repeating the view from inside, I flipped the camera: the whole scene seen from outside the ship, through a smaller, frostier porthole, leaving dark space around it for the track list.
The file
All of it is hand-drawn vector work in Illustrator, organized into named layer groups down to the screws on the porthole frame. Here's a tour through the file, four minutes compressed into forty seconds:
I delivered PNGs and SVGs at multiple scales plus the original Illustrator file, so the art could be adapted wherever the album went.
Out in the world
The single "Something in the Field" released in September 2025, with the full album a week behind it, typography set by designer Lindsey Morano. The outside-in porthole fronted the single; the sax player fronted the album.
| The single | The album |
|---|---|
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The robot now doubles as Chris's avatar, and Galactic Rivers is on his site and Bandcamp and streaming everywhere. Go listen; it's an hour and two minutes of one man playing nearly everything. You can even start right here:
