Fall Ashes

So the description is actually somewhat important for once, that said I'd highly appreciate it if you took a few moments out of your life to peruse through this please and thank you. 8D
_{...The description is also very long but that is irrelevant}

Also, detail shots of each page are below, please check those out… the photos of the pages here look all washed out and blurry.
Page 1: [link]
Page 2: [link]
Page 3: [link]
Page 4: [link]
Page 5: [link]
Page 6: [link]
Page 7: [link]
Page 8: [link]

K so. For my illustration class our final project was to illustrate some kind of a storyline or concept with a minimum of 7 drawings. We got the actual assignment sometime at the end of March, and about a month later and a week or so before the project was due I was sitting in my dorm at some obscure hour of the night/morning, still without any idea of what I wanted to do for the project and starting to freak out. It occurred to me that perhaps I would get some kind of inspiration from listening to music, seeing as that's where 99.9% of my ideas come from anyway... so I put some AFI on shuffle and within about 20 minutes I had an entire storyline and a page full of concept sketches. Go figure. The soundtrack to this piece would go something like [link] [link] [link] and [link] ... I guess the main song that gave me the idea for this would be Malleus Maleficarum, which is what gave me the idea to draw something to do with the concept of the phoenix rising up from its ashes, and the others just kind of fell in place to make a storyline.
I know this isn't exactly "fanart" or whatever but I figured I'd submit this to a couple AFI groups, seeing as it was so heavily inspired by them and I think those of you out there who actually know the lyrics and the themes/symbolism/meanings/etc behind the music will understand this story and get more out of it than those who don't. Not to mention a lot of this imagery here should seem pretty familiar.
As for what the writing says, don't ask me because I'm not gonna tell you. If you don't know, you weren't meant to.
Also yes, I did this entire thing (pages of concept sketches, cutting out the pages for the illustrations, drawing, inking, coloring, roaming all over Boston to find the supplies I needed for the book, creating that ridiculous font, painting the words, painting the outer edges of the matboard pages gold _{that part was the worst oh my god DX} and throwing it all together to create something presentable) in basically a week. More or less shut myself in my room, skipped some classes, drank a very large amount of tea, and didn't sleep too much. It was nice to watch the sunrises though.
Something else I feel the need to point out, there are supposed to be 2 chains in each of the binding...things, not just the bottom one, but a chain in each of the top 2 broke and I have no way to fix it now. D:
All of the illustrations are 5"x7".
Materials used: bristol paper, India ink, colored pencil, acrylic, matboard, gold ink, chains, leather, glue... and an insane amount of focus that I didn't think I was capable of.

SO UH... YEAH, I THINK THAT'S IT.



tl;dr: AFI.