2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Dan Cornwell & the last G.I. standing on Prog 2391
17th July 2024
Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!
Another week, another Zarjaz Prog cover – this week featuring the blue boy, for the last episode of Rogue Trooper: Souther Belle, all drawn by Dan Cornwell…
Artist Dan Cornwell’s certainly come a long way from driving a bus a few years ago – first there was the email from John Wagner asking him to be part of John and Alan Grant’s Rok of the Reds (which you’ll be seeing in the Judge Dredd Megazine soon), and then he established himself at 2000 AD with some really stunning artwork, whether that was on Judge Dredd or taking over from the much-missed master, Carlos Ezquerra, on Spector. Now, he’s just finished the six-part run on the Geoffrey D. Wessel written Rogue Trooper: Souther Belle, which wraps up right here in Prog 2391.
So, it’s only right that Dan’s here on the cover of the Prog to give us the boy in blue in full-on action…
DAN CORNWELL: When Matt asked if I’d like to draw a new six-part Rogue Trooper story (which I obviously said yes to!) he also asked if I could do a pin-up to promote the story before it’s publication.
He probably also wanted to see how I’d approach the character and if my style would suit. Anyway, I asked if he had any ideas or preferences for the pin-up and he suggested an image of Rogue on a pile of dead Norts. Hell yeah, not a problem.
I did a few sketches and sent them his way and he chose one…
And here are those sketches and the final sketch chosen by Tharg’s Earthly representative…
Yes, that’s what Dan calls a ‘sketch’ – We really need to reevaluate what sketch means here!
Okay then, with the sketch in the bag and approved, back to Dan for the next stage…
DAN CORNWELL: I then pencilled the image on a piece of Bristol board, and at some point I was losing focus on certain areas of the image, more on that later.
When I was happy with the image I then inked it traditionally. Added a few textures and splatters then I scanned it into Photoshop and adjusted the levels and generally tidied it up.
Then I laid out all the flat base colours. I knew I wanted a red background and the foreground to be a blue/green as a stark contrast. Rogue himself would be a brighter blue, so he should pop.
For the background tank and explosion I added a new layer so I could do colour holds, effectively colouring the inks which helps push the background back in the image.
Then I added all the highlights and effects. I also brightened the colours in and around Rogue, so it made him front and centre in the image.
When I was happy, I flattened the image and sent it to Matt for approval. It was after this I noticed some mistakes in the image.
Sometimes you can get sidetracked by focusing on one part of the image and not noticing other mistakes in the image as a whole. In this case, there were some glaring ones.
First it was Rogue’s head. It was too high on his body, and this in turn made his shoulder too low on one side. I had also forgotten to add the other grenade to Bagman’s shoulder strap. Thank God for Photoshop. These mistakes were all rectified and I sent the new revised image to Matt. No harm done…. I hope.
Tharg can be merciful some times Dan! I’m sure when Earthly representative Matt sent him the final cover, TMO was impressed and will probably only reduce your oil rations for a few weeks over the mistakes!
And just so you can see what Dan’s talking about, here’s a zoom-in on the before and after… moving the head, adding that extra grenade…
Well, there you go, another ghafflebette cover from the pen of the always-wonderful Dan Cornwell! Prog 2391 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.
For more of Dan’s excellent covers, you should go look at the Covers Uncovered for Prog 2217, Prog 2241, Prog 2277, Prog 2279, and Prog 2345. And you can also watch and listen to Dan chat to Molch-R on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here, all about the bus driving, getting that fateful email from John Wagner, drawing Rok of the Reds (which is coming to the Megazine soon!), all the way through to Judge Dredd and Spector, not to mention what happened when his mum threatened to phone Tharg!
