Interview: Planet Replicas on ‘Carlos Ezquerra’ Judge Dredd Badge
24th May 2016
Planet Replicas have unveiled the latest in their range of Judge Dredd replica badges – the ‘Carlos Ezquerra’ 1:1 Metal Judge Dredd Badge.
The 2000 AD blog spoke to Planet Replica’s Dan Carey-George about why he’s added this iconic badge to his store and what the challenges were of bringing a 2D badge to 3D life…
“The Carlos Dredd badge came about because I wanted to produce a new metal Dredd badge,” he said. “I didn’t want to offer a generic design, so I chose Carlos’s badge as it is the centre point of reference for pretty much every Judge badge design that has evolved since.
“It seemed a logical homage to Carlos to open up a new range using his original design, as people will then be able to see the influences of his work as the badge range progresses…
“Producing it in 3D was quite a challenge as Carlos’s work is very fluid and layered – so once things need to be a physical shape, his line weights do hide critical points of reference I needed to work from. The hardest part was the size and shape of the eagle head, and the lettering layout.
“The eagle head is very small and so is often shown more as a suggestion than a finished shape. Only a few cover shots and close ups have shown the head clearly, and even then, the shape and angles change to fit the requirements of that particular panel or cover.
“With ‘DREDD’, the word flows from left to right filling up the entire badge panel, so each letter edge is curved into this flow. Replicating this nicely was hard because its very organic, even subtle changes to correct one letter’s height or curve can make quite a change to the overall visual image!”