2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Megazine 441 – Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague ‘Peeky Blinder!’

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!

Surfs up for Zane Peeks in Judge Dredd Megazine 441 as the dream team of Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague wipe us out with this incredible cover! It features star surfer Zane Peeks kissing sky as he prepares for his role of body double for Jako Strutt in the forthcoming Supersurf 7 movie.

As ever, Cliff hasn’t skimped on a single detail as he puts a dazzling amount of time and effort into the MegaCity One architecture, simply incredible!

The cover began with some reference material kindly supplied by the mighty one. Cliff said “Here’s an excellent Colin MacNeil reference page that I received from Tharg…”

Surfing in the fast Zane!

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Cliff then searched down the back of his sofa, behind his ear and under park benches to find enough old chewing gum to make this amazing reference figure! Cliff says “Here are some action photos of my handmade poseable model figure, and a truly ZARJAZ surfboard made from a piece card!”

As a result, Cliff is now the subject of a bidding war between Hot Toys and Sideshow Collectables to be chief sculptor. 

Morph for Oz!

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Next, Cliff demonstrates just why he is the best in the business by somehow taking his featureless little sculpture and turning it into an incredible prelim, in three eyeball-meltingly zarjaz steps. Incredible!

He says “These are A4 sized printouts with tracing paper overlays, unfortunately featuring the wrong logo!” Sadly, Tharg did not take too kindly to the use of the incorrect logo and poor Cliff spent an afternoon being ‘schooled’ by Mek-Quake. Thankfully he has managed to retrieve most of his brushes and pens, and given them a good clean…

Zane shoots the “O”!

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Cliff continues “The prelim led to the finished rough which Tharg okayed…”

“Ha! Rock beats scissors!”

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Ever the perfectionist, Cliff was not happy with some elements of his image and felt the need to make some adjustments. He said “I had just eyeballed the perspective for all the buildings. I think it shows too…”

This image, and the previous one, will be the first puzzle in Tharg’s forthcoming ‘2000 AD Spot the Difference’ book. Good luck!

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Cliff then converts the rough to blueline, ready for his immaculate inking. He said “Here’s the Blueline printout. I inked Zane and the board first, then gradually pencilled and inked all the buildings using a Hunt 102 crowquill pen and a Rotring Isograph.” Don’t worry dear reader, I’ve checked and he hasn’t just made those things up.

Midnight Blue!

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And now, let’s just take a few hours to pour over those sublime finished inks which are absolutely incredible! Cliff is unsarcastically coy here, he says “The finished line art! How long did it take? Don’t ask! I did enjoy working on it though.”

I have it on good authority that he enjoyed it for the first 1000 hours…

One can only imagine how Dylan must feel when THIS arrives in his inbox!

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With Cliff now presumably reduced to a pile of sparking circuitry and burnt-out diodes, it is time for the mighty colouring machine that is Dylan Teague to step up to the plate – and step up he did! Like all of us, Cliff was extremely happy with Dylan’s exquisite work. He said “Dylan Teague’s colouring of this cover is amazing! It’s absolutely beautiful.”

“Everybody’s goin’ surfin’! Surfin Badass Zane!”

And here’s how the cover should look on your newsstand, just before you pick it up and buy it! Absolutely outstanding!

“Stomm! Which Spugwit left that drokking logo there? Coulda took my head off!”

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A HUGE thank you to Cliff for being kind enough to send his, and Dylan’s, incredible images. The skill, talent and care that have gone into this cover from both formidable artists is palpable!

You can find Megazine 441 everywhere Thrill Power is sold from 16 February, including the 2000 AD web shop!