Tag: 2000adcoversuncovered

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2000AD Covers Uncovered – Bow Doodley!

Welcome to a special edition of 2000AD Covers Uncovered which celebrates the beautiful work of award winning portrait artist Simon Davis. A fine artist of some repute, Simon is an associate of The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists as well as the Vice-President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. We are extremely lucky to have such an esteemed artist adding his unique talent on one of Tharg’s most beloved characters. His dazzling style of broad brush strokes and unconventional blocks of colour complement the world of the Warped One beautifully.

In this special feature, we will look at all of Simon’s covers and cover sketches since he took over as Slaine artist in residence. I didn’t think it too many…

When the announcement was made that Simon would be taking over from Clint Langley on Slaine duties, Tharg wasted no time in getting the artist to provide his debut cover for the character. Prog 1844 celebrated thirty years of the character and saw the beginning of The Book of Scars story. This twisted tale saw Slaine revisit some of his earlier adventures with some stellar artists that have made their mark on the strip.

Below is the sketch for the cover…

Slaine never got the hang of smiling for the camera…

And the finished masterpiece…

Slaine learned the hard way about messin with elecricity…

Simon’s tenure in the strip began in ‘A Simple Killing’ in Prog 1874, however we had to wait until 1880 to get his glorious study of the mysterious Sinead. We’ll start with a couple of sketches…

Slaine the chestburster!

Sinead’s new tattoo was lovely…

Followed by the sumptuous main event!

Little Miss Sunshine she aint…

Two progs later, Simon knocked it out of the Causeway with this beautiful wraparound (should that be Warparound?) cover showing Slaine take on a Collossus on the lush island of Monadh…

Let the wild rumpus start!

They did the mash! They did the monster mash!

And finally for that arc, Slaine races against the Miscreations to save Sinead from Gododin’s blade…

Ugly scenes in Newcastle following their relegation…

Shane McGowen has let himself go…

When Slaine returned, Simon provided this stunning portrait of the Warped Warrior, sadly no sketch for this one and it’s easily one of my favourites…

Portrait of a Sassairian Killer!

Slaine’s adventures led him to a fierce battle with a Trojan army in Prog 1930, giving us this gorgeous cover…

“Trojan Fett? Trojan Fett? Where?”

Trojan Phwoooor!

WARPSPASM!!!

Slaine was a mess, first thing on a morning…

Get Ugly!

When Slaine returned in prog 1979 he’d been battling with Gort for yonks, was beaten black and blue and sported this rather fetching shiner! Still, you should see the other guy…

The whupped warrior!

Someone put the Shroud of Turin in the wash with a blue sock…

A fortnight ago, we learned about Slaine’s rather yummy mummy Macha, an excellent archer and somewhat questionable role model for her son!

Bowny Mum

“You’ve got red on you…”

Which brings us up to date with this weeks’ spectacular as Slaine (still sporting that lovely shiner) follows in his mother’s footsteps and unleashes some arrows! Hmmm, makes me fancy a pint of cider…

“Oi Harold! Look at this…”

“Keep out of the black and into the red. NUTHING in this game, for two in a bed.”

Huge, huge thanks to Simon for sending the images, he deserves a hero harness of his own! 

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2000AD Covers Uncovered – Dredd’s Back!

Welcome to the first official 2000 AD Covers Uncovered – with your host, superfan Pete Wells! Take it away Pete…

Each week we will explore how the covers of Tharg’s mighty publications are created with commentaries by artdroids, exclusive images and a whole host of Grud-awful puns!

It is fitting that this inaugural cover breakdown features the debut cover of the brilliant Tom Foster. Tom kicks off the brand new Reclamation storyline in fine style with this cover that is already an instant classic. Dredd has been shot, blown up, teleported to a Brit Cit hospital, probably got infected with MRSA and is still taking the fight back to those rotters from Texas City. Yeehaw!

I asked Tom to tell us about his exciting first cover, he said “I had had the idea for a Dredd image with this basic design for a while – ever since I finished my first assignment for 2000 AD. I thought I’d do it and put it up on my Facebook page as a way of oh-so-gently implying that I might be a good fit for Dredd. Thank god I didn’t because a) It probably would have been considerably worse, given my inexperience b) It wouldn’t have been published c) I wouldn’t have gotten any money. So, when Tharg approached me earlier this year, asking for some ideas for a generic Dredd cover, I had one in the chamber ready to go. I did a 3D digital mock-up (as is my usual practice) and sent it to him along with two ideas I quite liked. I quite liked them, but they remained in the clip (this one being in the chamber), as the original idea, having had the longest gestation period, was probably the most fully formed.”

The world’s first naked relay runner…

Tom continues “Luckily, I had also taken some reference photos of a big, strapping friend of mine when I originally thought of the idea. You can see how little the basic idea really changed since then…”

That’s how he rolls…

“The pencils were done according to my usual method: basic proportions and layout traced from a printout of the digital mock-up, and then worked into heavily with reference to photography and the original 3D render itself.”

Dredd looked upon his dirty protest and was happy…

“Then inks with a sable brush. I ditched my first attempt at the inks about a third of the way through as I was a little out of practice and wasn’t satisfied with the quality, but, second time ’round, I was pleased enough with it to only make changes with white-out. Then I cut out a Frisket Film mask to cover Dredd, taped the piece to my bathroom wall and splattered ink all over it with considerable relish. This was risky and, at one point, I thought I’d completely gone too far. Luckily it sort of just worked out as those one-shot deals often do.”

“Yes! Stand in the corner Joseph and we do NOT want to see your silly face”

“After that, a scan, a colour removal, a conversion to bitmap and I was ready to rock. And by ‘rock’ I mean sit in front of a computer for hours, drawing with a big plastic pen.”

“Hmmmm, Chopper seems to have changed his MO…”

“The colours I did digitally. I don’t use a lot of layers when I’m colouring, certainly not for the purposes of rendering, as I think they can give the work a bit of a weird, translucent look and I like my rendering to look as solid and three-dimensional as possible, even if that means taking a bit more time over it.”

Dredd was SURE someone was trying to tell him something…

So, was Tom okay with the printed piece? He said “I’m very happy with the finished digital image. I think I may need to work on getting my stuff print-ready as I’m never 100% confident of how they’ll come out of the four colour ink-beast, but generally I’m really pleased with what I’ve done with it. He looks like Dredd, and that was my first priority. There are a couple of little niggles here and there, but nothing I’d have an anxiety dream about. All around, massive fun and a great little assignment to cherish as my first cover.”

Too drokkin’ right! That cover is absolutely amazing and has quite rightly received universal acclaim! Congratulations to Tom on his first of hopefully many brilliant covers and a HUGE thank you for sending the fascinating glimpse into his workflow (and kitchen!)

Check out Tom’s Deviantart gallery here for more of his amazing work.