I had been unfamiliar with the band at first when approaching the project, and when looking into their past album artwork, I saw that they had at times ventured into more surreal depictions. When discussing ideas with Niko, we had come to an understanding that combining the similarities to the nature of space and the nature of people, there were many symbolic parallels. One of those parallels was in the similar shapes of galaxies such as the milky way and the human iris. The circular shape made it easy to create a frame for our design and the disc/vinyl placement.

Originally on my first pass of the design, I had created more of a mechanical look using x-particles in Cinema 4d. The piece resembled a circuit board more than a nebula at first, and to be honest it was my favourite iteration, but after further discussion, it obviously had to be changed. In a second pass, I created more of s solar system off of the ideas, this however was also passed. After this, the team and I really locked in on a design.

In order to make sure it started to move more in the direction of an iris shape I used x-particles and the C4d hair system to make more strands towards the centre of the image. The hair system made it easier to then model and shape afterwards to give it a more organic look. To finish off the shape, I then used a series of vdb shapes to create the smoke and gas clouds. The final colours were created in C4D and Photoshop, and combined/blended to create the final look. The REACHMOONBASE team then added additional CRT post effects and packaging to complete the project.