2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Dave Kendall covers new thrill Silver for Prog 2390
10th 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!
Grabbing the cover and shaking it this week is Dave Kendall, giving us a glimpse into the new thrill you’ll find inside… Silver: Unearthed…
.
Yes, something mysterious and brand-new starts in this Prog, as Mike Carroll and Joe Currie begin their tale of… well, we’re not going to be spoilering it for you. After all, when our Lord and Master Tharg writes in the editorial this week that he’s keeping details about Silver ‘vague’ and tells us that ‘you’ll gain the most from this ghafflebette debuting strip, Terrans, going into it knowing as little as possible, so plunge away!’ we know when it’s in our best interests to keep schtum.
All we’ll say is that it’s set in England, 2001, where a group of armed survivors have arrived in the depths of the night at the ruins of a burned-out house. They’re on a catch and cage mission, so it’s time to break out the shovels and start digging for something they’ve been told could be the key to saving the human race.
What are they digging for? How will it help save humanity? Just why does humanity need saving? Well, all will be revealed as Silver unfolds over the coming weeks.
But, if everyone promises to tell TMO, we can share this one teaser panel from part 1 of Silver: Unearthed…
Dave Kendall’s cover gives you some subtle clues as to what you can expect, drawn in his incredible style that’s most recently made his and Kek-W’s Fall of Deadworld such a strange, enthralling, and just plain magnificently dark view of a world falling apart, something Kendall’s lushly drawn style suits so well.
But enough, time to welcome you to the world of Sliver, the latest in a series of Zarjaz new thrills that have debuted in 2024. Here’s Dave Kendall to tell you all about the cover…
DAVE KENDALL: The brief for this cover was quite indistinct. It was a new story with very little reference provided for the story. The story concerns a ███████ taking on █████ ████████. Tharg wanted a saucer breaking up under the effect of the ███████ ████.
Too much Dave! Too much! But here are his sketchbook pages… see if you can work out what we can’t have him telling you from theses…
.
DAVE KENDALL: I always start with lots of sketchbook designs. It’s probably my favourite part of any process. It’s when the possibilities and excitement is highest. I tend to work purely in ink. I like the lack of safety net and the need to concentrate so you make better decisions. My sketchbook pages tend to be a flow of ideas one thing warping into another. I think keeping ideas genuinely sketchy is important.
I see so many people presenting near finished art as sketches. For me that destroys the whole concept of sketching. It has to have that meandering feel. Sometimes the best ideas will come from a mistake or random mark. I work very fast and just fill the page with designs.
The bulk of the cover is the ███████ ███ and the saucer. As I had no real reference, I just designed the elements with an organic feel. The saucer, particularly, having pipes and organic-feeling aspects.
In fact, you can see the germ of an idea for the cover right there on the third double-page of the sketchbook…
.
And this is Dave’s colour workup of the saucer that dominates the cover…
.
DAVE KENDALL: The brief asked for the ███ and Saucer to be front and forward. Using the sketchbook designs I put together a couple of different designs.
One is symmetrical while the other has the elements tilted. Tharg went for the symmetrical design…
.
Once the final concept is decided I then pencil out the cover with full details...
.
This cover is an acrylic painting with some small digital enhancements. When painting I tend to have a print out of the colour rough so the final image is as close to the approved rough as possible.
.
Wow. That is a stunning cover! Thanks so much to Dave for sending those bits along and letting us into how it was made. Prog 2390 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.
For more brilliant – if disturbing – covers from Dave, check out his Covers Uncovered for Progs 2029, 2210, and 2237.
Now, because they’re so damn good, the full-size versions of each of Dave’s sketchbook pages for you…
