2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Toby Willsmer’ssss back for Prog 2374’s Fall Of Deadworld
20th March 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!
This week we have a pleasing symmetry for you – it was Toby Willsmer that did the ssssstunning cover to Prog 2352 where The Fall Of Deadworld: Retribution began and now it’s another fabuloussss Toby Willsmer cover that marks the finale to this particular visit to the nightmare of Deadworld on Prog 2374…
Yes, Kek-W and Dave Kendall’s The Fall Of Deadworld closes another fear-filled series as we get the 12th and final part of Retribution in this weeks Prog. And those horrorssss to be found in the world of the Dark Judges before it became Deadworld are clear for all to see with a truly terrifying Willsmer droid cover.
Toby’s been in the Prog so often that it’s easy to forget that it was only in 2021 that he won the 2000 AD Art Stars contest. But since then he’s been a regular cover artist; his art’s graced the insides on Robo-Hunter in the zombie takeover tale The Darkest Judge, Cadet Dredd in Prog 2325, and he had a Regened Future Shock in Prog 2346. And we reckon there’s a hell of a lot more to come from this New Zealand-based illustrator and comic artist whose childhood was spent in 70s Britain, meaning that his heart will always come back to 2000 AD!
Now, here’s Toby to tell you all about his latest trip into the realm of nightmaresss with The Fall Of Deadworld, one that’s a pretty damn fine homage to another iconic cover by the late, much-missed, incredibly talented Brett Ewins…
TOBY WILLSMER: Matt asked if I could come up with a Judge Death cover with a similar composition to Brett Ewins Dredd cover from 1986. The difference being the city would be in ruins and have ‘lots of dead people’. Sounds like my cup of tea.
My usual starting point is by dumping all my initial ideas into a sketchbook to see what works best. I like to draw over things a lot at this stage to work out certain parts…
From here, I’ll choose the parts that worked for what I had in mind and draw them up into the roughs…
I came up with Mr Death firssssst (couldn’t help myself) to get the placement right then added the ruined city around him.
I wanted to have a focal point in the foreground as I planned to light and detail this part a little more than the rest of the city. That and it was a great spot for some of those dead people!
I’d planned to use some under lighting on Death and came up with a couple of options for Matt to choose from.
With Matt’s layout and colour scheme selected I’ll go onto the linework. At this point I decided to change the foreground a little to frame the top part of the layout a little better. Matt OK’d the change and I went ahead and drew up the linework and added where I wanted the initial shadows.
From here it’s my usual route of adding all the base colours to get the overall tone right. Then onto the fun stuff adding all the lighting and details until it’s all done.
I’ll never get bored of drawing this guy.
Oh yes, Toby’s never going to get tired of drawing him and I don’t think we’re going to get tired of seeing his fabulousss (one last time, I promise!) art on and in the Prog! Thanks so much for Toby to sending that absolute beauty of a cover along – you won’t be able to miss it on the shelves wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Thrill Power, including the 2000 AD web shop, from 20 March.
As for more from Toby, his ever-excellent covers have featured quite a bit here – we have Covers Uncovered for Prog 2240, Prog 2262, Prog 2269, Prog 2318, and Prog 2332, not to mention that first Deadworld cover for this latest series on Prog 2352. Plus, you can see his winning Art Stars entry, the thing that started all of this off, here. And for more about Toby himself, just head to his site here or Insta here.
And now, a little Willsmer bonus… first of all a clean, logo-free version of the cover, followed by blow-ups of his incredible sketchbook ideas, his two initial roughs, and then the two colour roughs sent through to Tharg! Enjoy!
