2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Toby Willsmer with the final ever Proteus Vex cover to Prog 2389
3rd July 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 the absolutely final EVER episode of Proteus Vex as Michael Carroll and Jake Lynch bring you the zarjaz double-length conclusion of Devious – and it’s Toby Willsmer bringing you a suitably thrilling cover for that finale…
Over the last few years, Proteus Vex has delivered perfection as a ghafflebette epic sci-fi saga, documenting the galaxy-spanning events of the empires of the Imperium Alliance, the Scorchers, and the Citheronians, and just what part Imperium Alliance agent Vex has to play in it all. It’s been a stunning series, full of everything you could want from something truly vast in proportions.
Originally co-created by Michael Carroll and Henry Flint, artist Jake Lynch has been onboard since the first tale, and now Carroll and Flint bring the whole thing to a suitably thrilling conclusion in Prog 2389, under that fittingly perfect cover from Toby Willsmer.
Although Toby’s a New Zealand-based artist, his formative years in the UK gave him a love of 2000 AD that he’s been regularly bringing to the cover of the Prog for a few years now, not to mention dazzling your eyeballs on several strips, including Robo-Hunter in the zombie takeover tale The Darkest Judge, Cadet Dredd in Prog 2325, and a Regened Future Shock in Prog 2346.
But now… as we say a fond farewell to Proteus Vex… over to Toby to tell you all about the cover…
TOBY WILLSMER: Matt asked if I’d like to do a Proteus Vex cover and as this was to be his last appearance he was after an action-packed idea.
I’m a big fan of Jake Lynch’s work on Vex and jumped at the chance to go all out on a farewell cover.
I start with the usual mess in the sketchbook to get the ball rolling. I had a lot of ideas for different action scenes but settled on three that I thought I could pack some action into.
I took the ideas, opened up the trusty cover template and loosely drew them into something that Matt could choose from…
Matt chose number 1 and, as happens more often than not, I went back to my original scribbles as I felt they captured the dynamic I was looking for and refined the idea from there.
I wanted to use some vibrant colour in this and I put together a colour scheme that I intended to use and sent them off to Matt to run them past his eyes.
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With Matt happy I went ahead and drew up the line work and added some basic shadows and values...
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From there it’s onto all the fun stuff, adding the planned colour, lighting and details until it’s all done.
As I painted it I changed the exploding robot at the bottom making it a little more curvy in places as I felt it was too ‘boxy’ looking...
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As this was to be the last outing of the odd-looking Mr Vex. I wanted to do something to give it a little extra oomph.
I asked Matt if he was up for shattering the logo to connect the action and logo together. Matt was down for the idea and sent me over the logo for some shattering.
I had way too much fun doing this one!
Oh yes, there’s always something very special to see that logo-smashing going on. And Toby’s delivered a cover that really does mark that final Proteus Vex perfectly – thanks so much to Toby for sending it to us.
Prog 2389 is out on 3 July 2024 and available anywhere and everywhere Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.
Now, if you want to see more art from Toby you can see his Art Stars winning entry here and there’s more Covers Uncovered here – Prog 2240, Prog 2262, Prog 2269, Prog 2318, Prog 2332, and Prog 2352. And you can find out more about him here.
As for more on Proteus Vex – we interviewed Mike Carroll and Henry Flint about the very first story here, and you can read a ‘Who is Proteus Vex?’ character primer here.
You can read Proteus Vex’s first stories in a collected edition, Another Dawn, which collects the first two storylines – Another Dawn and Shadow Chancellor. And no doubt the rest of Vex’s incredible, galaxy-spanning, epic sci-fi adventures with get the collected treatment in the months to come!
