2000 AD Covers Uncovered – PJ Holden gives you his ‘hypnotic, psychotic ape-dangling’ cover for Prog 2301
28th September 2022
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 the return of both art droid PJ Holden and the ape extraordinaire Noam Chimpsky in a new adventure written by Ken Niemand and drawn by PJ – A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure.
Since he first appeared back in Prog 2131, Noam Chimpsky’s swung into Mega-City One legend in style, the super-intelligent ape who’s set himself up as the protector of his block – all under the noses of the Judges!
But this time, with the appearance of a certain pair of psi-kids, Timmy & Thruppence, it might be that Noam’s not going to be able to protect his block from this particular troublesome twosome – as you can see from the cover!
So, over to PJ to explain all about the making of the cover…
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PJ HOLDEN: As ever, when it comes to covers, I fire off some ideas to Matt Smith (editorial ubermind and Tharg’s body)
Since Chimpsky isn’t in the first episode I’ve tried to go the psychological route… so here’s what I sent…
1) The twins looming over the city holding up Chimpsky (who is not happy about it).
2) Chimpsky caught in a maze.
3) The twins, as per the first page – except this is the idyllic version, everything is nice and sweet, and beside them is a little Chimspky doll. (Could be coloured like a children’s book?)
4) Similar to #1, but much closer on Chimpsky, below him are various hypnotised citizens and a couple of Judges.
5) Chimpsky just sitting minding his own business on the skyline of Mega-City 1.
6) Chimpsky, confused, surrounded by hypnotised citizens & a couple of Judges.
7) Realistic-looking Chimpsky on white background with stylised black hands reaching in from overhead – like he doesn’t know what’s about to happen.
8) Looking up at the twins, in their hands Chimpsky – like he’s a toy, but he’s not happy about it (maybe struggling to escape?)
9) Chimspky with the twins on either side, trying to grab his attention…
Matt, not one for messing about, wanted number 1, so I took the rough and enlarged it in clip studio...
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The next step is to do a first pass on the pencils (this is now my normal routine, this starts the image properly forming on the page for me, and I’m fairly forgiving of myself, as long as I get a good idea of where it’s going I’m happy.)
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Then another pass – pencilling over those pencils … tightening things, changing angles, making it work better. Trying to figure out how big I can go with the hands…
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And then to inks! Obviously, there’s no real ink here, it’s all been done digitally from beginning to end.
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Colours next, starting with simple flats. Flats are all about separating elements of the drawing so I can select them later to colour – so, while I usually go for realistic colours (or at least appropriate colours) sometimes it’s better to hit some weirder abstract colours – remembering this isn’t “colours” you’re doing – these are flats. So, for example, Thruppence’s hair – I’ve separated each chunk of hair into a different “flat” – ultimately they’ll all be the same (or similar) colours. I also didn’t really bother flatting the background, I figure I’d take care of that in the rendering stage (the foreground being the real important element)
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Background colours here were just me spraying stuff around in clip studio – you’ll note I wasn’t too concerned with keeping the foreground figures neat and tidy with the spray – because I knew when I rendered the foreground I’d have the flat layer to help me select them.
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Next… foreground colours – I’d sort of hit a wall here, it all felt too flat, too literal...
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I realised I’d need something to try and pull in the idea of hypnotisim, and that’s when I went psychedelic…
Adding a circular ruler to clip studio, I started drawing concentric circles, then masked off Chimpsky and the background and set the layer to dodge – which brightened the figures up.
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And there we have it – hypnotic, psychotic ape-dangling cover for your viewing pleasure.
You’re often faced with the question “Did I lose some essential quality of the sketch when getting to the finished version” and … maybe?
I think I still like the idea of massive hands – almost God-like trying to pull Chimpsky’s strings (we’ll get to see how successful they are at that later in the series) and in the end I sort of bottled that, BUT I do like Chimpsky little face and the stuff falling out of his pockets… so … swings and roundabouts.
There you go – And there you have it, another great looking cover from PJ and the beginning of another Chimpsky adventure awaits! As usual, thanks so much to PJ for sending all that along for us.
You can find 2000 AD Prog 2301 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Thrill Power, including the 2000 AD web shop from 28 September.
There’s plenty more from PJ here at the 2000 AD site, so make sure you take a look at his previous Covers Uncovered work. There’s the previous exploits of Chimpsky – Prog 2178 and Prog 2234. Then there’s the time PJ homaged Carlos Ezquerra with Prog 2221 and more Dredd on the cover of Judge Dredd Megazine 420. And if you want to hear what PJ has to say, there’s a couple of interviews with him about his Department K series here and here.