2000 AD Covers Uncovered: ‘This is where everything begins’ – Tazio Bettin’s first cover to the new series Azimuth for 2000 AD Prog 2337
21st June 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!
Another week, another stunning new strip in the pages of the Galaxy’s Greatest – with Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin’s Azimuth beginning in the pages of 2000 AD Prog 2337. Trust us, this one’s a stunner.
Now, over to Tazio to describe putting it all together…
TAZIO BETTIN: This cover was a bit of an experiment, as well as the fundamental reference I created for myself to set the aesthetical tone for the entire series. I drew it before I drew any pages, and I only had a vague idea in my head and Dan’s descriptions of a weird science-fantasy setting to start with and give Azimuth its aesthetics and identity.
Dan is a fantastic writer for many reasons, one of which being his ability to give you just enough information to set a direction, but not too much, so that you can build on top of his suggestions with a lot of freedom. I had a direction but was free to explore it.
So I went with my standard concept art process, which consists of amassing a visual database: I collected photos of Babylonian ziggurats, pyramids, Jaroslav Horejc’s Girl With Amphora statue from Prague (which has some really beautiful proportions, and I was kind of obsessed with), the bazaar of Sana’a in Yemen, Cambodian temples, etc. And mushrooms. Tons of reference photos of the strangest mushrooms in nature.
I knew I was going for a Métal Hurlant vibe, a homage to the aesthetics of Moebius, Druillet, and other French masters of the bande dessinée.
This was also a chance to set the tone for the use of colours as well. I concentrated on the use of chroma, the colour hues, more than value, i.e. its brightness, to define shapes, objects and planes, so as to give everything a surreal patina – also thanks to gradients with unusual colours. Shifting your colours in mid-process and just see what happens is a great way for me to find interesting solutions.
This was also the first time I drew Suzi, the protagonist, outside of some concept sketches.
And speaking of those Suzi concept sketches… here’s a couple of stages of Tazio’s very first images of Suzi…
TAZIO BETTIN: Once again, Dan gave me complete freedom to define this character’s looks. Perhaps I was a little inspired by my recent reading of the Mahābhārata, but on the spur of the moment I decided to base her looks on one of the many Indo-Aryan ethnic groups from the Indian continent. You don’t see enough characters, let alone protagonist characters from those origins. Here I wanted to show Suzi in full figure, but close enough to properly show her attire and tattoo details.
Composition-wise, I went with a sort of an opening shot, so as to give the reader a sense of being at the threshold of things to unfold: “this is where everything begins”. It’s a status quo that is about to break, right before the whole story and its action unfolds. Everything gets crazy afterwards. I hope you enjoy!
It might be worth noting that I did the main character and the background in two separate drawings and then worked them all together in the final rendition…
And to show you what he meant with the two separate drawings, Tazio also sent along the finished Suzi image from the quite brilliant cover and the pencils for the backgrounds to the cover…
Thank you so much Tazio for sending along those images for the cover – and what a cover! In fact, having read the first episode, what a strip, a stunning new series for the Galaxy’s Greatest.
Azimuth begins in 2000 AD Prog 2337, you can find it everywhere the Prog is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop from 21 June.
And you can see more of Tazio’s excellent covers for Covers Uncovered here – there’s Sinister Dexter covers for Prog 2259, and Prog 2283, and then there was an unusual guest appearance in this Andy Clarke Covers Uncovered for Prog 2290 where we talked all things Austin Allegro! Finally, there’s his cover for Hope… In The Shadows for Prog 2302.
