2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Alex Ronald welcomes an Alien Invasion of Enemy Earth!
17th January 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!
This weeks’ Prog 2365 sees Enemy Earth by Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman enter its endgame as the aliens behind the devastating mutations of the Earth’s flora and fauna arrive on Earth, captured perfectly on this week’s cover by Alex Ronald…
Alex Ronald’s time at 2000 AD began way back in Prog 984 with Judge Dredd, followed soon after with his first cover on Prog 1869. More work on Dredd followed, along with runs on Dredd, Vector 13, Rogue Trooper, and Sinister Dexter all pointing towards a long stint as an art droid to come. But it wasn’t to be, as he took off and switched to working in the computer graphics industry and 3D modeling. But the lure of 2000 AD was too strong, eventually pulling him back in as a cover specialist making instantly recognizable digital brilliance.
As for this latest cover from Alex, it all started out, as it usually does, with a call from Tharg and a cover brief for the latest Enemy Earth cover. Tharg was kind enough to send over a bit of alien reference from Enemy Earth, giving Alex a look at the way series artist Luke Horsman drew them making their first appearance…
2000 AD Prog 2365 – Art by Luke Horsman
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ALEX RONALD: The brief was fairly loose, just a cover featuring the aliens from the reference image provided.
I opted for a shot of them conspiring over a relatively alien-esqe map with all the colours and mood to compliment that.
I sculpted an upper torso of the aliens based on the referenced artwork. Luke Horsman’s design of the creatures was pretty special and it was a lot of fun to recreate then in 3D. Once complete, I duplicated the model and made each into a unique pose for the cover.
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Once posed and lit, the next stage is to take a screengrab and head into PS where I draw over the models onto a cover sheet adding tone for an idea of the lighting effects...
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When the B/W rough was approved, I painted up the finished art adding a strong greeny/yellow uplight for the glow from the alien map. The backdrop was created in 3D using a simple subdivided plane which I sculpted from in Z brush for an otherworldly look.
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And that’s that – another great-looking Alex Ronald cover delivered to Tharg and now to you, dear readers – it’s out right now on the shelves of all ghafflebette newsagents and comic shops, as well as the 2000 AD web shop.
As for more from Alex, there’s been plenty of covers uncovered from one of 2000 AD’s modern cover specialists… Prog 2191, Prog 2206, Prog 2255, Prog 2294, Prog 2306, Prog 2353, and for Megazine 435 and 462.