2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Dylan Teague brings the law for the cover of Judge Dredd Megazine 459
19th July 2023
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 week, it’s another stunning cover by Dylan Teague for Judge Dredd Megazine issue 459, that looks very much like this…
Yes, it’s Dredd out on the streets on Mega-City One, locked and loaded and in a mean mood. Although, thinking about it, when isn’t the city’s finest lawman not in a mean mood?
So, without further ado, here’s how another brilliant Teague cover comes together, all starting with an idea to pitch to Tharg The Mighty. Dylan had this to say…
DYLAN TEAGUE: ‘I know that Tharg can sometimes need a sort of generic Dredd cover, as he features in both mags all the time. I was trying to come up with something quite graphic and after a few failed sketches came up with this as a concept.…
After that initial sketch – which Tharg of course said an emphatic yes to – it was time to get down to the business of getting the cover sorted out.
Back to Dylan again…
DYLAN TEAGUE: From this it was just a case of getting Dredd right and then the background. Dredd always takes me ages to work out, every part of his costume takes a while to get right and then render, eventually got it done and then moved on to the background.
This was a bit more straightforward, though I didn’t manage to keep it quite as graphic as I’d initially envisaged.
Art droids, always finding problems where readers only see brilliance!
All that’s left to show you is how it all came together. First, what Dylan described as ‘getting Dredd right and then the background.’ So it’s a case of building the layers on Dredd bit by bit, just like this…
After that, all that’s left to do is add a few colours and that’s it, another magnificently moody piece of Dredd cover art from the Teague droid.
Okay, okay, adding the colours takes hours and hours to get right – something the Teague droid always does so well…
Thank you so much to Dylan for sending over the artwork – it’s another great cover that you can find on Megazine 459, out on 16 August wherever you get your Thrill Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.
For more from Dylan, and another great study of Dredd, take a look at his Covers Uncovered piece for Prog 2236.