Tag: 2000adcoversuncovered

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, on the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2219 we have Patrick Goddard and colourist Dylan Teague giving us a wraparound skysurfing spectacular from their Judge Dredd strip, Against The Clock.

Patrick Goddard’s been a mainstay of both 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine since he made his double debut in November 2000 on both 2000 AD and the Megazine.

His first published work came with the John Wagner written Judge Dredd: Jimping two-parter in Megazine 3.71-3.72, quickly followed later in the same month with Sinister Dexter: Lucky in 2000 AD Prog 1220.

His crisp and super clean artwork has featured on plenty of strips since then, including Mean Machine, Young Middenface, Chopper, Savage, Sinister Dexter, Anderson, Grey Area, Armitage, Wardog, and of course Judge Dredd. Most recently, he’s been the go-to artist on Ales Kot’s recent work on the Vampire dandy extraordinaire, Devlin Waugh in the Megazine and given us more Aquila in the pages of 2000 AD where he’s most recently taken the returned from the dead gladiator down into hell in The Burning Fields.

All of which brings us up to date with 2000 AD Prog 2219, out on 17 February, with Goddard’s stunning skysurfer cover art as well as contributing the interiors for Judge Dredd: Against The Clock, where he’s twisting and turning through the skies of MC-1 for the tale of a skysurfing delivery worker.

Now, over to Patrick to tell us all about putting together this super-soaraway skysurfing cover…

PATRICK GODDARD: I drew six rough thumbnails for Matt to choose from, it was a pretty straightforward brief of having a double page wraparound cover of the skysurfer flying over an imposing Mega City 1.

We went with option 2 but having her showing the baby on her back ( I was trying to hide it for the reveal in the strip).

I think I drew the city at A4 and then enlarged it to trace over using a lightbox.

I drew Mona (skysurfer) separately so I could play around with her placement over MC1, I tried a few different poses and chose the most dynamic one. 

Once it was finalised, I just had the task of drawing it! I think my eyes may have suffered a bit mind!

I knew Dylan was colouring it and he asked for any colour suggestions for Mona, so I sent some colour ideas and he worked his magic and we got the final cover, simple really.

It was nice to be asked to do a cover for a strip that I’d drawn, so you already had all the ref and a feel for the character.

Thank you so much to Patrick for taking the time here to share that absolutely gorgeous wrapround cover with us. Make sure to pick up 2000 AD Prog 2219 from the 2000 AD web shop from 17 February where you have not just the pleasure of staring in awe at that cover but also get to see Patrick and colourist Dylan Teague drawing the Judge Dredd strip inside.

As an added extra, Patrick also sent along his initial character studies of his skysurfing heroine…

For more great cover breakdowns from Patrick, be sure to check out these Covers Uncovered for Prog 2021, Prog 2185, and Prog 2205.

And you can also see and hear Patrick on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes where he’s talking Aquila: The Burning Fields

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 talk to the insanely talented art droid Simon Fraser, whose gorgeously muted palette of colours and striking linework is making the second series of Hershey – The Brutal – look simply stunning!

On the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2218, Fraser takes brutal to a whole new level, giving us a beaten and bloodied Dirty Frank (and canine companion)…

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2218 out on 10 February in all good newsagents and comic shops and from the 2000 AD web shop. Inside, you’ll be able to thrill to the penultimate episode of Hershey: The Brutal, written by Rob Williams, art by Simon, showing us just how bad an idea it is to get on the wrong side of the former Chief Judge.

Now, over to Simon to see just how he went about doing the dirty on poor old Frank…

SIMON FRASER: So this cover was almost comically straightforward. There’s barely a story here but I’ll stretch it out as far as I can.

Matt asked me for a cover of Frank, ” a battered looking Frank with his bare fists up, about to fight El Demonio. Can just focus on Frank, though, looking like he’s been through the mill.”

So I drew this...

It’s a reasonably polished pencil ( for me ) not a rough layout because I really don’t think there’s a lot to quibble with here and I’m under a bit of deadline pressure to finish the last two parts. If I can cut out a stage then that’s a win!

So I chuck some colour on it from the limited palette I’ve been using for the story itself. Like so…

As for my Palette for Hershey:The Brutal – it’s comically small!

I basically just downloaded a couple of picture postcards of Brazil and Colombia and sampled some of the colours into a photoshop palette. I stuck to this palette for 94.7% of the time.

Occasionally I used a different tonal value of one of the palette colours. The thing about keeping things so disciplined is that when you eventually do break the rules, it’s quite shocking. For example, there’s no vivid red in the whole story (all that blood you see is purple) so when I push that right at the end, it adds an extra kick to the storytelling.

Matt gives me the ‘GO’ to do the final art based on my rough. I inked in ClipStudio, Blue-lining the pencil rough and working on it using a Pen called ‘Frenden Feathering’ which I’ve grown to love. It’s very squishy and a bit square so I can get a slightly erratic line out of it if I want, but at the same time, it does beautiful delicate feathering if required to.

The other pen I use a lot is a fineliner with a very small amount of flexibility and Stabilization turned up to 100%. I call it ‘Architecture’ and I draw buildings and machines with it. The line has some feel to it (like a fineliner pen), but stabilization keeps my hand steady enough that I don’t need to use rulers very much at all. I try and use rulers as little as possible as they can make things too rigid and tense. Anyway, I digress.

I coloured it up in my trusty old copy of Photoshop CS5. I added a bit of lens flare (don’t hate me!) and that was that, Hershey’s favourite punching bag in all his gory (not a misspelling).

And that’s it – another thrill-powered 2000 AD cover in the bag! Once more, thanks so much to Simon for sending these over to us.

That beautifully brutal Dirty Frank cover is on the front of 2000 AD Prog 2218 – and you can pick that up from the 2000 AD web shop from 10 February.

And if you’re looking for more from Simon and Hershey, check out the Covers Uncovered piece he wrote for us about the surprise return of Hershey in Disease with 2000 AD Prog 2176.

And of course, the collected Hershey: Disease comes out on 17 August 2021. You can find details of that, along with all of 2000 AD’s collections for the year here.

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, with 2000 AD Prog 2217, it’s a very special occasion for Dan Cornwell, whose artwork we’ve been seeing on various Judge Dredd strips since his debut in 2017 on the John Wagner written War Buds in 2000 AD Prog 2045.

He’s been drawing Dredd inside the Galaxy’s Greatest for three years plus now, but up until this week he’d not had the thrill of getting on the cover. That changes right here, right now, with this rather stunning Judge Dredd on the cover of Prog 2217, out 3 February…

Dan’s also the Dredd artist inside the Prog this week on the rather revealing done-in-one Dredd, Naked City, written by Ken Niemand.

Ever wondered what you’d see if you had some kind of psychic x-ray vision in Mega-City One? Well, Moe Hallam, mall security cop, doesn’t have to wonder… but she does have to make sure she averts her eyes…

All that and much more in the latest Prog (and if you ever wanted the thrill of seeing a naked Dredd, this is the Prog for you!), but right now we’ll hand over to Dan Cornwell to tell you all about putting together this debut cover… and it was all a complete accident!

DAN CORNWELL: There was no remit from Matt for this cover, in fact he never even asked for a cover. This all happened by pure chance.

Long story short, I was having difficulties with the paper stock I would normally use – 280gsm Bristol board, so decided to try other types. The problem was, in the heat of the summer the inks weren’t soaking into the paper quickly enough and I found myself waiting for 5 minutes after inking a section of the image before I could continue, and even then in some cases the ink was still wet. I decided to try Windsor & Newton 220gsm smooth surface heavy stock cartridge paper. This worked – I still use it now.

I thought I should do a quick sketch and ink it to see the results. I penciled out my ‘go-to’ character, Judge Dredd. Took about half an hour.

Once he was sketched I thought it was quite a good pose, so added a little more detail.

I decided that this could be quite a cool picture so I started to play with the idea of adding a background. This is when I had issues. What to add? His badge? His Lawmaster? Mega City One? All been done before. Anyway I chose the latter. But I wanted it to be different. A bizarre angle that was not as the same perspective as the foreground character. 

Making things difficult for myself I chose a 5 point perspective cityscape. When I was happy with the result I inked the whole thing. This was the purpose of the task after all. Thankfully I went well.

Next up, time to scan and clean up the image…

I then had to figure out the colour palette for this image. As I was drawing it, in the back of my mind I was seeing an 80’s synthwave, Bladerunner colour vibe. That’s how I see MC1 in my mind’s eye.

First job – and as all colourists will tell you, the most boring and tedious part, laying out the flats – blues and pinks...

Once the city and Dredd were flatted on separate layers (easier to select specific areas to work on) I then added tones to the city itself. I was working on the basis that the light will emanate from deep within the city and the tops of the buildings will be relatively dark. This in turn will make Dredd pop...

Then I worked on the light and shadows on Dredd and the city. Trying to find the right balance. Looking at the colour layers without inks, or looking at the whole image with a black and white filter which allows you to see the tones of the picture and where you can adjust the image...

Once I was happy with the overall composition and feel of the piece I added the final details here and there, adjusted the colour balance and levels. Then I flattened the picture. I made two versions, one slightly darker than the other. Printing can darken images.

I sent both to Matt to see if he would be able to find any use for it.

He’s a hard nut to crack. I’ve tried before. But this time he actually said he loved the image!

Of course, at this stage, there’s still no guarantee it’ll be a cover – that’s something you just have to hope for. But to quote Pa Angel “PRAISE THE LORD”, it was chosen as a cover! 

After making my debut in the Mighty Prog four years ago, and now the Meg, I am lucky enough to get a cover. And all by chance!

.

And thanks to Dan Cornwell for sharing that happy accident with us – you can find that Dredd cover on 2000 AD Prog 2217, out on 3 February from all good newsagents, comic shops, and the 2000 AD web shop.

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!

Prog 2216, out 27 January, brings us not just the conclusion of Michael Carroll and Will Simpson‘s Judge Dredd: Desperadlands, with Dredd wrapping up his latest Ciudad Barranquilla adventure, but also finishes off with a cracking cover by Will Simpson. This one…

Now, we’ve already had chats with both Mike Carroll and Will Simpson, including seeing plenty of examples of the fully-painted artwork Simpson has produced for the series in a Behind The Art feature. So, quite understandably, with this Covers Uncovered entry, Will simply sent along his process pictures. But, oh, they’re great images!

As far as process goes, Will explained how he does what he does in the interview:

‘I’m still a caveman. I get the charcoal out of my fireplace and after I’ve cooked the wild boar, I mix the fat in with my egg yolks and then…..I pick up my 2B pencil and start scribbling! Pencils, paper, artboard, ink, acrylic, watercolour, gouache and sometimes oil paints, and then after I’ve scanned and pieced together my pages, maybe a little bit of photoshop highlighting, and that’s the art! I’m very old school. I’m in awe of what is done on computer, but I’m better with my tools. It does mean I have lots of physical artwork and a need for great amounts of storage space!!! Other artists could probably do it digitally, but not me. There’s lots of happy accidents creating a page and moving paint around.‘

And putting together this cover was essentially the same process.

Firstly, it’s the planning stage, for which Will came up with two different poses for Dredd, describing it as, ‘The one I thought about doing….and then the pencil of the one I did. More powerful hero angle.’

Here’s idea #1

And now the one that did make the cut, the more powerful hero angle…

As you can see, there’s a fair bit of Western iconography all the way through Simpson’s ideas for the cover, fitting as Desperadlands is effectively Mike Carroll taking the lawman down to the corrupt Western town to sort out the problem, just with a bit of sci-fi and a South American setting.

After the ideas and planning stage, Simpson takes it through loose pencils, to inks, complete with that Simpson splatter!

Next, the painting stage, with Simpson building up his colours as each stage unfolds…

And that’s it. Painting done, it’s all scanned in, cleaned up, maybe a few alterations and then off to Tharg for another cracking Will Simpson cover.

Once more, thanks so much to Will for sending over all these beautiful looking pieces. And remember to check out the interviews with Mike Carroll and Will Simpson, along with the extended look at much of Simpson’s process work from all four parts of Desperadlands.

You can get hold of his Dredd cover for 2000 AD Prog 2216 – and you can pick that up from the 2000 AD web shop from 27 January.

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 welcome Mark Montague to the esteemed ranks of cover artists for the Galaxy’s Greatest.

2000 AD Prog 2215 features Mark’s very first cover and he’s absolutely hit the ground running with a stunning rendition of Slaine doing what Slaine does best, as he comes up against the Dragons of the Trojans. You can see more stunning Slaine artwork inside the latest Prog with Leonardo Manco’s gorgeous work on Pat Mills’ Slaine: Dragontamer.

Mark’s name first appeared in 2000 AD with his 2018 winning entry for the very first 2000 AD Art Stars competition, the incredible competition that regularly gives you the chance to see your art inside a future issue of 2000 AD!

His winning Art Stars entry, featuring a captured Dredd, appeared in the Prog as a Star Scan, the pin-up page that’s been graced by some of the finest artists of 2000 AD history, including Brian Bolland, Brett Ewins, Brendan McCarthy, and so many more!

And now he’s back with a debut cover that’s already setting a high bar for the best cover of the year – and we’re only into January! It’s an absolute classic Slaine and Mark was thrilled to get the gig!

Mark Montague: Tharg contacted me & asked if I’d like to do a cover for 2000 AD. I felt thrilled and honoured to be deemed worthy of contributing to the galaxy’s greatest comic.

Tharg wanted a picture of Slaine, which would depict him up close, dominating the cover, with a dragon approaching from the background. I did 3 prelims sketches for Tharg to chose from. I tried different poses for Slaine but the first one I drew, seemed to work the best, so I just concentrated on the dragon poses.

Once a prelim was approved, I did a colour rough, which I would use for my colour palette.

I’ve found that knowing the overall colour scheme a painting, speeds up my work flow by not having to play around & experiment with colour, until I get something that I like, which could mean that I might miss a deadline. 

The next thing was to draw the picture in tighter detail. I spent most of my time getting the drawing correct, because I don’t want to be making major corrections once I start painting. It’s easier to correct a drawing, than trying to colour match a repainted arm or leg. There will still be corrections towards the end but hopefully they will only be minor ones.

I started painting the background first, as this will inform how the colours of the environment will affect the colours on the characters. I masked out the characters & went very gestural with the paint brush.

Once I finished the painting, I left it for a day & then looked at it again with fresh eyes, to see if there were any changes that needed doing to it. There were a few corrections but they were very minor & then I sent the finished piece of work off to Tharg.

And that’s that! The making of a gorgeous looking Slaine cover all done.

Thank you to Mark for giving us that glimpse behind the scenes. And we’ve no doubt that it won’t be too long before we see more 2000 AD covers from this very talented artist.

It’s not the first time Mark’s delivered the goods with Slaine though, as his second Star Scan appeared in 2000 AD Prog 2181, showing us all the promise and talent that comes good with this first cover.

For more, go and read the interview Mark gave us back in 2018 after winning the inaugural 2000 AD Art-Stars competition with the piece below, a captured Judge Dredd in the clutches of Brother Morgar and the Brotherhood of Darkness from The Cursed Earth saga.

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 the return of artist Neil Roberts with an action-packed cover to Prog 2214, featuring Proteus Vex jumping into action. Michael Carroll and Jake Lynch’s sci-fi spectacular continues inside with the latest episode of The Shadow Chancellor, along with more from Judge Dredd, Hershey, Slaine, and Durham Red in a Prog full of Ghafflebette adventures and Scrotnig sci-fi action!

2000 AD Prog 2214 is out right now and you can get it everywhere that great comics are sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

Neil Roberts has been making these stunning 2000 AD covers for a while now and this is yet another fabulous looking thing that is shouting out from the shelves of your local newsagent right now.

Neil sent over a couple of images in the making of it all, but first, it’s a moment of thinking about influences…

NEIL ROBERTS: I wanted my cover for Proteus Vex to lean heavily in to the artistic influences of the strip. Henry Flint, Moebius, Shaky Kane with a dose of Mick Austin and Wally Wood – all brilliant and influential and also a delightfully eclectic mix.

That is a wonderfully eclectic mix of influences right there. And yes, you can really see them all in the cover, not to mention seeing them in the pages of Proteus Vex.

Okay, back to Neil…

NEIL ROBERTS: I was guided by intuition, my thumbnail inspired by panels from the strip.

Tharg approved it and I was off, painting my way to the deadline!

I hope I’ve done those artists some justice in adding their influences into the piece, hopefully people out there like it as much as I had fun working on it.

Here’s Neil’s rough of the cover… although this is yet another one of those moments where the artist’s idea of just what contributes a rough is wildly at odds with what us normal, non-artist types would ever consider what we’d mean by rough. I mean, just look at this and think about what sort of thing you’d be able to muster as a ‘rough’…

After the rough (well, he calls it rough anyway) stage, time to get everything together and get the finishes and inks and tighten it all up, with it all looking like this…

Thank you so much to Neil for taking the time out to show us his influences and his process work here.

If you want to see more, you can find him on Twitter, see his Artstation site here, and catch his work on the covers of Games Workshop’s New York Times best selling Horus Heresy novels and other series, as well as cover art for Judge Dredd novels, Commando Comics, historical magazines and various video games and TV/ film productions. And, of course, we’ll be looking forward to more from him on the cover of a Prog sometime soon!

And finally, just a quick look at Neil’s one and only interior work at 2000 AD, Prog 1678 and Chrono-Cabbies, a Time Twister written by Alec Worley…

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!

With the final Judge Dredd Megazine of the year, issue 427, Nick Percival shows us just what happens when poor ol’ Father Christmas comes to empty his sack on Deadworld… no spoilers needed, it doesn’t go well…

Megazine 427 comes out on 16 December and you can get it right here at the 2000 AD web shop. Look for the wraparound cover with Ssssanta getting ssssleighed.

Inside, you can find something suitably seasonal with Judge Dredd: He Sees You When You’re Sleeping by Rory McConville and Agustin Padilla, the continued exploration of an alt-universe MC-1 in Megatropolis by Kenneth Niemand and Dave Taylor, the stunning look at the earliest days of the Justice Department in Michael Carroll and John Higgins’ Dreadnoughts, and a haunted house mystery unfolding in The Returners: Heartswood by Si Spencer and Nicolo Assirello.

And seeing out the year as the final strip, you’re getting the latest in the continuing adventures of Judge Death and the gang in Deliverance, where David Hine and Nick Percival have been bringing their A-game month after month. And, to celebrate this most festive time of year, what better way than to let Nick Percival show us exactly what happened when poor old Santa made the mistake of seeing if the Dark Judges had been naughty or nice this year with a wraparound cover full of ssssseasonal sssssleighing.

Nick was good enough to take time away from the drawing board to tell us all about putting together this fabulous cover…

Nick Percival: Creating a Christmas cover was a bit of a ‘bucket list’ item for me. I’d loved Christmas covers ever since I was kid, where they’d always put some snow on the comics’ logo. You knew the big day wasn’t far away when they appeared in the shops.

When Tharg gave me the opportunity, I couldn’t say no. Since my Dark Judges series, Deliverance is currently running in the Megazine, it made sense to feature them on the cover – I suppose I could have tried to tie the image into something to do with the series but didn’t really think I could find any relevant story details where that would have worked, so I opted for a stand-alone piece of festive fun.

I wanted it to be bright colourful even though it was featuring those pesky Dark Judges and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Going for a widescreen wraparound image gave me more room to focus equally on each Dark Judge doing their thing. So, we have Death in the process of breaking Santa’s neck (he must have been on the naughty list), with snowballs at the ready.

I originally intended to have half of Santa’s torso missing but Tharg wouldn’t let me go that far…shame.

Next up was Judge Fear who got a cute Judge Dredd dolly for Xmas Day but his ‘gaze into the face of fear’ routine isn’t doing much here.

Poor old Judge Mortis can’t catch a break, since each present he touches decays in front of him. I hope he kept the receipts…

Finally, Judge Fire having big problems trying to build a snow man. Not doing a good job for obvious reasons.

Overall, it was a fun piece to do and took me away from the usual chaos and carnage of the Dark Judges series, which is now time for me to get back to as the deadline Polar Express is fast approaching and none of Santa’s elves are going to do my pages for me. Bah, humbug…

Thank you to Nick for sending along his contribution to turning Christmas into a terrifying thing – you can get your Christmas Megazine from 16 December in comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 AD web shop.

Remember kids, unlike Judge Death, it’s not too late to get yourself off the naughty list! And fear now – once Santa recovers from the broken neck (ssshh – magical healing powers), he’ll return on Christmas Eve and expects to find you sleeping!

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 – the Simp-ly stunning cover to 2000 AD Prog 2211 by Steven Austin and colourist Chris Blythe, marking the final episode of the Judge Dredd 5-parter, Simply Normal, as written by Kenneth Niemand and drawn by Austin and Blythe.

And if you recognise the image, you’re probably right – but we’ll let Steven Austin give you the story of that as he gives us the lowdown on the cover…

Steven Austin: I was asked by TMO to come up with some ideas for for prog 2211, the issue featuring the finale to the Dredd strip I had worked on with Kenneth Niemand, ‘Simply Normal’.

I already had an idea based upon images from the 1967 Vietnam protests where demonstrators are placing flowers into the muzzles of the police rifles, I felt that the symbolism illustrated from this image was both apt and striking.

This is the Pulitzer Prize-nominated image, taken by photographer Bernie Boston during the ‘March on The Pentagon’, 21 October 1967. You can read more on it at the Wikipedia page and Boston’s obituary from the Boston Globe here.

Steven Austin: However, as I was asked to come up with ‘some ideas’, I felt that I should present a variation – coz that seemed the professional thing to do – but was quietly confident that Tharg would choose this one.

I beamed across some thumbnails and thankfully Tharg did exactly that, stating it was, ‘Something a bit different’.

Initially, I was going to draw the Lawgiver coming in from the left of the image with the hand and flower on the right but from a design perspective, it didn’t work for me as the gun is supposed to be static and the hand moving in to place the flower into the muzzle – a flower which, by the way, you’ll notice is a Daisy relating to the main character – and so as the reader naturally reads the image from left to right I used some artistic license and swapped it around.

Once I was happy with the initial idea I went about drawing the final piece. Most of my work is drawn without reference but I do use it for images whereby one small error will blow the whole effect and so I photographed my own hand in the position I required and photoshopped a daisy into it.

I then blew up my thumbnail to A3 size, lightboxed it roughly, using the photo of my hand and flower for ref, pencilled it and inked it using the old brush.

Once the image was complete and the inks sent off to the nerve centre the colouring of the piece is out of my hands. However, my hope was that Chris Blythe who coloured the strip would be colouring it. In fact, I realised that I’d drawn it with him in mind hence all of the background space I left – I love how Chris fills the spaces with those lovely textures he achieves.

 Well, he did, and I wasn’t disappointed – and that light on the mode selector…genius!

And there you go, cover complete from initially thoughts through to the inks – it all seems so Simp-le when the artist talks it through, but it’s a classic iconic cover in the grand traditions of the Prog.

Thank you once more to Steven Austin for sending that across – and of course, a tip of the hat to colourist Chris Blythe for the incredible job he did on this one!

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2211 in shops and from the 2000 AD web shop from 9 December.

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 time to join the artist responsible for bringing Deadworld to life, in all its putreying perfection, Dave Kendall, who’s responsible for this absolute stunner of a cover for 2000 AD Prog 2210, out on 2 December –

Yes, the nights are drawing in, making it a perfect time for something spooky and scary – which is exactly what you’re going to get from the latest Deadworld series, Visions of Deadworld, by Kek-W and Dave Kendall. These Visions are new one-off visits to the world where those who do not live rule over all, spreading their contagion across the world, wiping out all life.

We open with a tale of The Boneman, whoever that might be, remembering the world that was and the Deadworld that took its place. But enough from us, let’s just let Dave Kendall, the artist responsible for filling your head with these beautifully grotesque nightmares. Over to Dave –

Dave Kendall: Tharg was running The Bone man tale first. This involved Bone man, whoever he is, exploring the post-genocide of Deadworld. He encounters the Mile high statue of Death made of teeth. A fantastic concept from Kek that nails the sheer scale of the genocide.

The first Stage is rough sketches in what is now the fifth Deadworld Sketchbook. I keep all the Deadworld sketches and ideas in one place so I can easily find reference.

It’s such a big project and this story is the first real-time that Deadworld has been explored so there’s very little already designed. Almost every script requires lots of new designs either in terms of creatures, environments or characters.

I wanted Bone Man, the statue and a representation of the planet to feature. The first cover design involved close-ups of all three, however, at that point, there were lots of images of Dune and cinematic posters out there. That inspired me to produce the second sketch of Boneman towering over The Death statue and city.

A little bit of digital colour and a quick logo placement and I shot them off to Tharg for approval.

He agreed that the cinematic image worked well so that was what we went with.

Next stage is final pencils. It’s a relatively simple case of taking the rough sketch, creating a blue line representation of it and printing it onto Bristol board. I then pencil it in detail.

Those pencils are then scanned, given a sepia tone and printed onto smooth watercolour paper. That’s then mounted and sealed on MDF with matte acrylic medium. It’s basically a liquid PVA substance. When it’s painted over the printed pencils it stops acrylic paint seeping into the paper and dulling down.

The final stage for me is painting in acrylic. I took no photos of the stages for this but, it involved under-painting and careful build-up of mid-tones and shadow with the lightest areas painted last.

Thank you so much to Dave Kendall for opening up the Deadworld to us all! And you can all discover the deathly delightssss of Visions of Deadworld in 2000 AD Prog 2210, out right now!

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 winter, with the nights drawing in, it’s the perfect time for traditional Christmas ghost stories – and here at 2000 AD and the Treasury of British Comics, we’re delighted to be able to give you two perfectly creepy tales of winter chills in the brand new Misty Winter Special!

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It’s all coming your way on 2 December, with a brand new cover from that master painter, Simon Davis (Sláine), which will look like this when you see it on the shelves…

Published between 1978 and 1980, Misty was the weekly anthology comic aimed at young girls that told tales with supernatural or spooky themes, and this winter special features two brand new tales designed to honour Misty‘s legacy and send a shiver down your spine! 

First up, there’s ‘Infection‘, written by Anna Savory (Tales from the Satanic Library) & V.V. Glass (Doctor Who), and illustrated by V.V. Glass. ‘Infection’ is a disturbing tale about how far people are expected to conform to societal standards no matter how warped the rules become! And in ‘Home for Christmas’, writer Lizzy Boyle (Scream! &  Misty) and artist David Roach (Anderson, Psi Division) unveil a harrowing ghostly home-invasion that reveals dreaded sins of the past!

But first, that cover, a stunning rendition of Misty herself by Simon Davis, who we were lucky enough to catch up with as he prepared himself for another nightmare lockdown.

As usual, everything began with Davis prepping a couple of cover roughs before getting into the far more complicated than usual process of getting the cover drawn…

I was very excited to be asked to paint the Misty Special 2020 cover as I really like that comic and any excuse to do something spooky should never be passed up.

I started with a couple of watercolour roughs and finally settled on the first one being the one I’d develop. The first idea is often the one that I go with but it’s helpful to do more as it’s not always the case. Sometimes the very act of doing variations points you back to the original and is therefore not a wasted endeavour.

I wanted it to have a wintry feel, as it was for Christmas after all, so knew there had to be snow in it and, in particular, snow-covered standing stones. The original rough had a looming goat head in the background but it was suggested that maybe a reindeer skull would be fun and a little more seasonal.

A friend of mine, Manko, is a professional artists’ model and I really wanted her to be the basis for Misty. Unfortunately, I was starting the cover in March so we were all about to go into lockdown so being able to see her to take photographs face to face was going to be tricky.

So as a way around that, I emailed her the cover rough and asked if she could take photos of herself in positions similar to it so I could decide what would work best. Manko is always incredibly collaborative and helpful with the creative process so she made sure she had the perfect red dress, wore a long black wig and even used a real human skull.

And here we have a selection of the ideas Simon worked up into the final cover image, all wonderfully posed by Manko…

What was great about this was that my rough was a little vague, so Manko’s poses were often much better. Indeed the final composition that I settled on was one she had done that was beautifully symmetrical and far more pleasing than what I had originally planned.

I paint in oils on board , using short flat brushes that give the painting a ‘choppy’ angular feel.

The Standing stones reference I used was of the Callanais Stones up on the Isle Of Lewis as I thought their angular blockiness perfect for this.

Bats were added to the composition as this is a bit of a Misty cover tradition as are pentangles … who doesn’t like a reindeer skull with one carved on?

All of which painterly brilliance gives us this, the final image sent off by Simon…

Thank you so much to Simon for sending along all of those incredible images and talking us through putting together his cover.

You can get your Christmas chill on from 2 December with the Misty Special 2020, perfect for a Christmas Stocking on the big day!