2000 AD Covers Uncovered: It’s a Dimension-Hopping Department K with Neil Roberts for Megazine 471
21st August 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!
It’s time for this month’s Judge Dredd Megazine, packed full of more zarjaz thrills than ever, including the conclusion of Department K: Mecha-City One by Ned Hartley and Mike Walters, where MC-1’s wildest department of Tek-Div find themselves parallel jumping to stop Mecha-City One’s Chief Judge Atlanta. And just a little bit of what they’ll find on those parallels is here on a fabulous cover by Neil Roberts…
Long one of Tharg’s cover specialists, Neil’s also an art droid guaranteed to deliver something rather special for ever cover he turns his impressive digital painterly skills to, and this latest is absolutely no exception. The rainbow explosion of colours, the dive into the next dimension, the fighter plane, and surely a breakout character of 2024, Judge Grrrrr, all pulled together on a cover that pops!
NEIL ROBERTS: The brief from Tharg was quite straightforward – a dinosaur and a fighter plane chasing characters through a time portal. Simple enough, right?
Although, this had to be a quick job for me since I was about to head off on a family holiday and needed to move fast.
Tharg sent over some reference materials of the latest Department K, and I got to work sketching out a thumbnail, which he quickly approved, phew.
So, here are those bits of reference that Tharg sent over from the Department K: Mecha-City One, art by Mike Walters, first giving Neil an idea of the main characters from episode 1…
… and then the inked Mike Walters page from the third and final episode giving you just a hint of the madness you can expect…
All of which led to, as Neil says, a rather wonderful idea for a cover…
After sending that off to Tharg and getting approval, it was time for Neil to work his digital painterly magic on the cover…
NEIL ROBERTS: Then came the painting, using 3D references to nail the shapes of the fighter plane and pose of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, followed by more painting to achieve the result I was looking for!
NEIL ROBERTS: On a side note – I went on my holiday, and the first person I met by the pool was a lifelong 2000 AD fan reading the latest issues of the Prog and Megazine.
Gotta love this job and everything – and everybody – that comes with it!
So say we all Neil, so say we all!
More painterly magnificence from the Roberts droid there – and you can find that technicolour marvel on the shelves of your local Megazine-selling emporium right now, as well as on the 2000 AD web shop!
For more Covers Uncovered wonders from Neil, do check all these out – a trio of Proteus Vex for Prog 2214, Prog 2268, and Prog 2315, the 2021 Sci-Fi Special, Regened Prog 2196, Dredd’s tummy-tooth-terror for Prog 2189, the Law riding out for Prog 1991, and a restful Ritterstahl for Prog 2014.