FOR ZIGGY’S ICONIC COVER, IT WAS TERRY PASTOR WHO MADE BOWIE A BLOND. BY MARTIN ASTON.

WHEN TERRY PASTOR first met Bowie in 1971, the illustrator was sharing a studio – christened Main Artery – with Bowie’s school pal George Underwood. Asked to colourise a black and white photo for the cover of Hunky Dory, Underwood felt that airbrush specialist Pastor – who had illustrated Top Rank film posters, book jackets and magazines such as Playboy – was more suited to the task. “Bowie liked what I did, and asked me to do the same for Ziggy’s cover,” Pastor tells MOJO today.

Retouching Brian Ward’s photographs for front and back images, Pastor chose yellow-blond for Bowie’s hair “so that it would stand out, a bit Midwich Cuckoos-looking, especially radiating under the light in the phone box.” Likewise, turquoise for Bowie’s jumpsuit. “It was otherwise quite a sombre, dark, grainy photo,” says Pastor. “I chose purple for his boots, and green for the door because of the old song Green Door. A hand-coloured photo has a very different, odd, atmospheric quality to a colour photo.”

Pastor met Bowie only a handful of times. “One time, we went to the pub. I don’t remember him talking about art, or Ziggy, though he was into sci-fi. But he did visit the studio with Angie one day, and saw my cover for [UK band] Byzantium, of laced-up leather mittens holding a crystal, and they were like, ‘Ooh, S&M, love it!’”

Despite his Bowie covers’ iconic status, Pastor exhibited neither in his portfolio. “The work didn’t indicate my real talent,” he says, “for fully airbrushed illustrations, like cars and surreal stuff. It’s only since Bowie died that people have noticed, like, ‘What you did for Bowie, do for us,’ which Arcade Fire just have for their album, We (left). They wanted that hand-coloured feeling; nothing digital.”