2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Pye Parr goes for the gut with his Intestinauts cover!
7th May 2021
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 2000 AD Prog 2230 and the latest indigestible adventures of the Intestinauts by writer Arthur Wyatt and artist Pye Parr, complete with a digestive delight of a cover from Pye Parr…
BORAG THUNGG, EARTHLETS – Prog 2230 is OUT NOW!
Yes, 2000 AD Prog 2230 sees the return of the intestinal investigators, the micro-bots made for all your medical maladies, the Intestinauts!
It’s time for another three part Tharg’s 3Riller in the new series Intestinauts: Symbiotic Love Triangle, by gross-out merchants extraordinaire, Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr.
Now, here’s the artist and designer of these digestive do-gooders… it’s Pye Parr with the making of the cover…
PYE PARR: I start off with step 1, rough layouts scraps done digitally in clip studio paint. Tharg liked the second one the best cos it had a bit of eye contact with the reader. I did a version of the first one with a human instead of the giant gooey monster in the background too, and another with them stood on someone’s tongue, so the whole cover was an open mouth – but technically they’re suppositories in this story and that cover doesn’t bear thinking about.
PYE PARR: Anyway in the one we chose I’ve done them stood on the outstretched arm/tendril of a big gooey creature whose eyes you can see in the background.
Due to the massive difference in scale between it and them I’m not sure how well that comes across, but once you read the story it’ll make more sense! Who is the goo monster? read it and find out!
Onto step 2, the pencil drawing in A3…
PYE PARR: Step 3 is scanning the pencils, resizing and cropping to fit the prog page size. I deliberately gave myself too much bleed here to take into account whatever cover text/logos might need adding round the edge – gives you plenty of wiggle room to move the main characters around a bit without running out of background.
Did a rough cover layout here in Adobe Indesign as well to check it fit ok.
PYE PARR: Step 4 is the linework. I work at 600dpi, again in clip studio paint.
PYE PARR: Step 5 is adding the flat colours. I tend to do these as I work on the linework, just to check it’s looking ok as i go.
PYE PARR: Next up, step 6 and the final colouring, plus all the little badges, eyes, shines, and effects etc put on the robots.
PYE PARR: Next comes the final step with the cover text/details from Tharg and time to update the design. Nothing too flashy tbh, but it was nice to be able to use the same fonts I used throughout the actual strip inside to link it all together, plus I haven’t put a Prog cover together for years so it was nice just for that reason. It used to be a weekly task!
PYE PARR: It’s not finished there though, with more tinkering to get the art for the 2000 AD social media stuff for Molch-R!
You can find part one of the three-part Intestinauts: Symbiotic Love Triangle in the pages of 2000 AD Prog 2230, out everywhere from 5 May, including the 2000 AD web shop.
For more Intestinauts, check out their previous pustule-like appearances, first with a Future Shock in 2000 AD Prog 1822, followed by their appearance in the 2018 Free Comic Book Day Prog (the very first Regened Prog), and finally in the Tharg 3Riller of Progs 2106-2108 where we met the Infestinauts.
