I started out the project knowing that I would use the two images on the left, both of which are my own original images. As the project progressed, I realized that there were empty spaces that needed some balance, so I filled them in with related material.

I started the process in Photoshop by scaling the image of the graffiti tunnel and flipping it vertically so that it made sense with the image of the subject. I then masked out the subject from the original background using the "select subject" shortcut and refined the edges with a low-opacity soft round edge brush in the mask layer. I then adjusted the position of the layers and added a dark blue shadow using the same low-opacity soft round brush behind the subject. I changed the layer that the shadow was on to "multiply" so that it would look more realistic. I then started creating the album title, "BAD DAYS AHEAD," by using a large dry brush. I eye-dropped colors from the background and lowered their values to create a palette that fit in with the image but still stood out from the background. Once I was satisfied with the placement and look of the words, I made another layer under that one and created a drop-shadow effect under the words by darkening the value again and outlining the underside of the letters. I noticed that the left side was generally empty, so I found an image of Dustox (a Pokemon that the subject's fictional character has) and pasted it in to my document. I masked it out from its background using "select subject" and then I clipped a "multiply" shadow layer to it to make it look more realistic. I then realized that even though I had the album name, I did not have the artist name on the album cover. Using the same style and brush (but with the white from the subject's shirt), I wrote the artist name "Jessalina & Dustox" vertically next to the subject to create visual interest. I added more shadow behind these words to make sure they popped from the background. Finally, to complete the image, I added the typical "parental advisory" stamp in the bottom left to make it feel like a finished album cover. Once the image was complete, I made sure that I had merged unnecessary layers so that it would be easier to animate in After Effects.

Once I had imported all of my Photoshop layers into After Effects, I set up a Camera and added a second view so that I could get a better understanding of my project.

I started by animating the album name, "BAD DAYS AHEAD." I keyframed the Position at the start, halfway through, and at the end. I wanted the words to seem like they were floating towards the viewer, so on the middle keyframe, I keyed the position to be more up in Y and more forward in Z.

Then, I wanted to make the artist name have an offset up-and-down shift. Because the word "Jessalina" and the words "& Dustox" are on different Photoshop layers, I was able to separate their translations and create a cool offset animation. I also wanted them to be off-time from the first animation I did, so for both of these words, I created a starting keyframe, two middle keyframes (instead of one), and an ending keyframe. 

Finally, I wanted to make the Dustox seem like it was floating around the subject's head. To do this, I had to separate all of the layers in the Z-space to make sure that there was enough forwards/backwards room for the Dustox to move. Once I was satisfied that there was enough space, I keyframed the Dustox moving side to side and back to forwards, as if it was floating around the subject's hair. I also made sure that the keyframes on this layer did not line up with the other keyframes so that the whole end result would seem slightly offset and almost alive.

Once my keyframes were set, I tried to preview it, but the render time was too slow to tell if these keyframes seemed flowy. I tried scrubbing over the timeline to get a general idea of the end result, but that also didn't really give an accurate result. Once I exported it and rewatched it as an mp4 file, I realized that the timing wasn't quite what I wanted. I tried to go back in to After Effects and adjust what I didn't like, but the result was basically the same. Below is the completed mp4 and png.