A tribute to My Dying Bride, inspired by every one of their songs. The song "The Raven and the Rose" was obviously the primary source of the idea for this image and the title, but every song fills me with the same emotional atmosphere of darkness and beauty. Whenever I hear or see the words "My Dying Bride", I get two very distinct images in my mind - one being the sharp-edged symbol from the CD art of Songs of Darkness, Words of Light and the other looking a lot like this - a raven, a rose and the darkness that sustains them. I would have incorporated the aforementioned symbol into this image but unfortunately, I have been unable to find a decent picture. If anyone knows where I can find one, please please, let me know - I think that would make a perfect tattoo for me. I hope I did them justice with this because all their albums have helped me through a lot of really dreadful hours and I owe them a lot for that. I find a deep sense of solace in My Dying Bride's music that I can't get many other places, so every note is of immeasurable value to me.

I had a bunch of other ideas for things to include in this image like the band's title logo, some lyrics or a moon among other things but, as usual, in the end I decided to keep it simple and stick with my original vision. Besides, any other imagery would have taken space away from the darkness and that's just not right... Half the time I spent on this was just fiddling with the color and lighting settings to try and get that perfect element of darkness I envisioned. I think I finally found it, or at least I got pretty damn close, so I really like how this came out. I guess this took me about 3-4 hours total - MDB albums spinning in the stereo the whole time.

Stock photos came from sources here at deviantART and from stock.xchng ([link]). I try to keep a pretty good record of where I get my source material from, so here's where everything came from specifically:

Skull and rose - ([link])
Raven - ([link])
Blood - ([link])
Ice - ([link])

That's about all I can say right now - I'm too tired to think of anything inspired or clever to spit out at you - so, I'll wrap this by saying I hope everyone enjoys this. Please don't hesitate to leave comments and such, I always appreciate any responses I get. Now I'm going to finish listening to the last half of Trinity and then I'm off to my own private darkness in dreamland. Take care, friends.

TOTAL FUCKING DOOM
Love, ~infernosilver

UPDATED NOTES (11/24/2007): I never, ever expected this image to be so popular - it still amazes me how well this has been received by everyone, so 1st & foremost, thanks to everyone for all of that. Even my Dad loves this one - he had it printed on a t-shirt & gave 1 to me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, with all the emotion that went into the creation of this image, it's not something I really want to walk around literally wearing on my sleeve. Still, I'm glad he, as well as all of you, have managed to take something away from this image. Looking back on this endeavor now, it really is less of a tribute to My Dying Bride (per se) & more of a general expression of sorrow & grief, inspired by and conveniently using the imagery & influence of MDB. I've thought about doing another MDB type image, using some of the symbolism from their latest album, A Line of Deathless Kings, but I haven't had the right inspiration yet - though the new song "Love's Intolerable Pain" has quickly become one of my favs from the band. Other favorites of mine include "My Wine in Silence", "Grace Unhearing", "The Cry of Mankind", "Black God", "The Crown of Sympathy", "Catherine Blake", "Your River", all the versions of "Sear Me", "The Stance of Evander Sinque", "The Isis Script", I could go on all day... How about you?


_{© Inferno Silver & The Jackals in Inferno Silver's head, who speak on behalf of The Blessed Dead. all wurds, voices & visions © XXXIX Anno Satanas / 2004, Total Fucking Doom Creations - All rights taken, used and abused. See also: My Dying Bride}