Tag: coversuncovered

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 another stunning cover featuring Proteus Vex by artist Neil Roberts for Prog 2315…

Inside the Prog, Proteus Vex continues its stunning latest adventure Crawl Space by Michael Carroll and Jake Lynch, where Proteus Vex is back in action and making dramatic moves in the Scorcher war.

Now, over to Neil…

NEIL ROBERTS: It all started off with a brief from Tharg, something along the lines of: “Proteus Vex character shot. Blasting away towards us. Based on the classic Ron Smith ‘Dredd cover”. I quickly delved into my reference folder for some other inspirational images:

From there, I worked up a few thumbnails, based on the references and character design:

One note was to lose the rocket pack on the back. Which was easily done at this stage.

And, basically, all I then do is sit down and paint. There’s no secret to the process – I paint for a day or two until the image is finished. I must add the debt I owe to Mike, Henry, Jake, Jim and Simon for creating the incredible world I briefly get to play in!

Short and sweet there from Neil! Thanks as always for him for sending along the images for another great looking cover! You can find 2000 AD Prog 2315 out right now, on the 2000 AD web shop and from wherever you get hold of the Galaxy’s Greatest!

For more of Neil’s incredible covers, be sure to check out his Covers Uncovered for Proteus Vex on Prog 2214, Prog 2268, the 2021 Sci-Fi Special, Regened Prog 2196, Dredd’s toothy belly button on Prog 2189, Ritterstahl in repose for Prog 2014, and Dredd riding out on the cover of Prog 1991.  

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 for a new Judge Dredd Megazine with the surprise return of a classic character from the pages of 1970s Valiant… One-Eyed Jack.

But how on Earth have writer Kenneth Niemand and artist Ian Richardson managed to bring together Jack McBane, scourge of villains in 70s New York, with the toughest Judge of Mega-City One? Well, we’re not saying – you’ll need to read the new Judge Dredd series, One-Eyed Jacks in this months Megazine!

And it’s all underneath a fabulous cover from artist Laurence Campbell…

This first Megazine of 2023 is also the first regular sized squarebound format for the Meg after last months super-sized festive blowout, meaning you get all the usual five thrill-packed Megazine strips (Storm Warning, Dark Judges, Devlin Waugh, and Surfer, in addition to the One-Eyed Jacks Judge Dredd tale) plus reprints of Judge Dredd: Year One and Mega-City Two, alongside a Treasury Classic, reprinting an extract from the 1975 debut of One-Eyed Jack from Valiant, as written by John Wagner and drawn by John Cooper.

But back to Covers Uncovered and the return of Laurence Campbell to the cover of the new Megazine… and he’s here to tell us all about it right now…

LAURENCE CAMPBELL: If I remember correctly Matt got in touch asking if I was free to draw a cover for Judge Dredd Megazine. I replied yes as I love working for 2000 AD when I can. 

He then sent over the cover concept of Judge Dredd and One-Eyed Jack together with 1970’s/early 80’s New York in the background. 

How could I not resist this? My 11 year old self would have gone nuts for this. I remember One-Eyed Jack from the odd issue of Valiant I picked up or from reprints in 2000 AD Annuals or it might have been Summer Specials, Either way I knew the character.

My starting point was very rough sketches in a sketchbook, this is something I’ve always done since art college. Anything and everything gets put down as it’s brain storming at this point. Matt’s original suggestion was Jack and Joe standing back to back with old New York skyline in the background.

Once initial very loose marks are put down in the sketchbook I then draw up ideas, these are thumbnails and normally drawn four to an A4 page, sometimes one to an A4 page. The idea here is for the ideas to take some sort of form. 

These would also have been sent to Matt when ready. Shapes, points of focus and clarity are what I’m looking for here, it’s a good point to solve problems you might have.

I’ve put my thumbnails in order of the development of my idea. Matt’s initial idea was the starting point. This to me was your Hollywood film poster, buddy cop/romcom look – that’s in examples 1-4 of my thumbnails...

This would have worked fine with me but I felt there was something more which could be done.

I was worried that your eyes were attracted direct to the centre of the image and that was it – I felt there was something more dynamic to be done… which brings me to 5 and 6…

The upward looking shot of 5 and putting the city in the foreground had something interesting for me. At this point I then moved away from the back to back and played with other ideas. I liked the connection to two full figures standing within the city and the connection with the twin towers. The twin towers obviously sadly dating the city. 

Ideas 5- 6 then got me to my final idea of number 9. I like the shape of the buildings in number 9 and how it pulls in into the picture and to the bottom right of the cover. Ready to get the viewer to turn the page.

I then sent all the thumbnails off to Matt with my suggestion of number 9 working for me. Matt agreed which was cool.

The next step is to enlarge the thumbnail in Photoshop, get references ready, and then start inking…

Inked on A3 paper with a selection of brush pens, fine line pens, markers, inks and correction fluid.

Once happy I then scan, clean up and add Photoshop touches here and there. The image is then sent to Matt.

Matt told me Quinton Winter was colouring the cover, so I worked up some very quick colours ideas just to give Quinton an idea of what I was thinking.

I’d worked with Quinton on Sword of Hyperborea, a Hellboy and BPRD spin off book along with writer Rob Williams a 2000 AD regular who I’ve worked with a number of times.

I’m very happy with what Quinton has done with the colours on the final cover.

The whole process was fun and enjoyable, would be cool to draw more Dredd in the future some point.

So there you go, thanks so much for Laurence for sending that one along – and we can ALL agree that it would be more than cool to see Laurence’s artwork on Dredd in the future!

You can find the Dredd/One‑Eyed Jack cover, and the start of the series, on Judge Dredd Megazine issue 452, out wherever you get hold of your Thrill Power from 18 January, including the 2000 AD web shop!

And just as a little bonus, here’s the first few pages of the One-Eyed Jack strip that’s reprinted in this issue of the Megazine – you can get hold of the full reprint from 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!

This week, it’s only the second Prog of the year and we already have a stunning cover from Mark Harrison for The Out on the cover of 2000 AD 2214.

Since beginning back in Prog 2187, The Out has been taking you Earthlets out to the far reaches of the Universe to be amazed and awed by the fabulous adventures of photojournalist Cyd Finlea (and her sentient flatspace bag). We’re now following Cyd’s journey in Book 3 of The Out, which began in the 2022 Xmas Prog, 2312. It is a spectacular space odyssey of epic proportions that will be spoken of in decades to come as the finest of 2000 AD.

It’s always a pleasure to get a Mark Harrison cover. Not just because they’re always such amazing pieces of art but because it means we can then look forward to reading Mark’s thoughts on putting the cover together. It’s always eye‑opening stuff, full of all the insane little details that you’re going to be reading about in just a moment as we hand you over to the incredibly talented Mark Harrison…

MARK HARRISON: Okay… Back from a biblical journey to Cornwall for Christmas down under the sea it seems (Flood, End of Days stuff). Mind lost a few brain cells over Christmas so I will try and remember best I can. 

I was going to give you some background on the Tankinar beastie that is the main focus of the cover but then realised that strayed into spoiler territory so I’ll just talk cover and the design of the Tankinar. As always hopefully it will point readers in directions and have a nice reminisce about things.

The cover: ‘Lending a Hand’ came together very quickly. I knew straight away I wanted a scene of overwhelming destructive force; a Tankinar, facing a seemingly innocent and inquisitive child reaching out, an unwitting baby putting its hand into the mouth of a lion. That juxtaposition of brutality vs soft passiveness. 

The threat had to be HUGE, filling the frame/cover, the child teetering to reach up and touch it, seemingly oblivious to the danger it was in.  There had to be daisies. Lots of daisies. 

Only in this instance, the child would be Joey, a manifestation of Cyd’s daughter freeing her mother from a glassy prison of fused diamond (giving birth to her mother as it were!).

I went straight to roughs and Tharg approved of it and it was turned around pretty quickly. I think the biggest issue I had was the pose of the Tankinar.  

I was going with this aggressive, open-legged squat, like giving birth. (Birthing, either images or film of, I tend to find pretty intense. Aged ten we were shown a video in science class of a 1970’s woman giving birth… no horror film I have watched since  has come close to that gory horror show. God knows what the girls thought!)  

The pose brought the Tankinar down to Joey’s level, who is standing in an idyllic field of sunlit daisies whilst cities burned in the background, Joey reaching out, Rupert the Rabbit in hand.

As a final late addition, I took out the background colour and had the Tankinar encrusted and dripping with the blood and mince of the inhabitants it has ploughed through to get here, backlit to look pretty. 

I had previously referenced  Michelangelo’s iconic image of the Hand of God giving life to Adam when Cyd first meets Joey (Spirituality and religious/art references abound in this strip as Easter eggs/drinking game. Read safe, kids!) 

This time Cyd is reaching down to Joey to be given her (3rd?) life. (This all happened ‘off comic’ I should add. The cover kind of shows what happened and how Cyd escaped that which cannot be escaped from. Dan and I like to leave some mystery and have the reader speculate. There is ambiguity, deliberately so. I could say more but… 

That said… Let me pad this Covers Uncovered with a deep dive into the design of the Tankinar. Like most of this personal journey into The Out, it involves my childhood, my love of science fiction film, TV and books and art. My life of stealing; magpie that I am! 

The Tankinar was born out of a combination of three elements that made up the original illustration I knocked up while working on Grey Area to accompany the very rough synopsis Dan and I were pitching of The Out to Tharg. Seen here, Cyd the then Space Hippie thumbing a lift and in the montage around her are speculative adventures, foes, events.  

Minor tweaks to the character were made; making her a reporter, and the warring foe she would encounter had no longer abducted her children. The Tankinar then were a race called the Krakken and rode around in Crushtakken tanks (I know… sorry.) The idea was already there that this was a small ‘Little Napoleon race’ that had symbiotically merged with another to ‘Get Big’ and redress some colonial injustice. They sat in the head of ‘AA-Anger armour’; Power suits the Krakken used that were powered/focused by strong emotions, typically fear or anger. Cyd would don one of these conveniently applicable suits in the finale and it would be a mother’s love and protective streak that would free her children from the child catcher Little Napoleons. 

In the  process of a back and forth with Dan, things got lost, merged, swapped around. The Tankinar turned out to be a tool. It was the race inside that gave the tool/weapon it’s motivation. And before someone says ‘Dalek,’ these are totally different. These have legs.  

(Funny, I never thought of a Dalek until late in the process. As much as you try to come up with something original you’ll find someone has got there before you. So you tweak around the edges.)   

The real origin of the Tankinar being the actual weapon came from a science fiction novel I had read in my teens (I can’t remember the name of it unfortunately.) A robot coming to Earth and being impervious to man’s weapons/tools etc. immobile and unmovable. Until it decided to move. And it did so without acceleration or deceleration. From rest to hundreds of miles an hour in an instant and vapourising anyone it’s path. Then stop.  

I found that to be a powerful image, something moving faster than thought, being the weapon. To that end it had to be brutal. An iconic silhouette. It also had to tie in with a disturbed child’s scribblings on a daisy chain cut out of the Tankinar that had already been done. I wonder how many readers guessed that Joey would help turn (blue) the Tankinar from that ‘Spoiler’ cover to Prog 2251? 

An early idea was eventually dismissed but was briefly glimpsed in Book One of The Out – killing Cyd as we needed to see something. I had until Book Two to come up with a more finalised image. In the 40 years that Cyd had been on ice the Tankinar were defeated in that incarnation, (so everyone thought) but had in fact it had only retired to reorder itself. But into what? 

Right from the off I knew this to be biomechanical. Cyborg. A weapon that needed organic input. It had to be brutal looking. I thought of stuff that would be intimidating, that everyone could relate to. An axe/iron for the head. Crossed claw hammers for the American footballer styled shoulders and inside those terrifying  buzzsaws that rev up prior to an attack (actually based on road milling drums. They’re awesome- look them up.  Imagine a Bond henchman falling under one of those!)  Bolts projecting from scythe-like legs.

I tried it with arms but it looks heavier. Less agile.  I then settled on an Olympic speed racer silhouette and that powerful, graceful slicing forward motion you see in them, the throwing back of the arms, thrusting out the head and chest. A legion of those coming at you in perfect synchronisation. 

.

(As an interesting aside: When working on the Aliens vs Predator game for Rebellion I was tasked with creating storyboards of the Aliens motion and stalk/running cycles. I quickly realised running at you with arms outstretched looked less scary (almost comical) than running at you jaws first. This creature was so assured it didn’t need to lead with its claws!)  

I played with textures; some Hindu carvings (that survived to be framing elements to the first page of Book Two) an Aztec pattern, runes  on some indestructible rock body, and a plated look.

Bits of it worked but… then a blast from the past, from my childhood intervened.

My brother and I had loved the Denys Fisher toys: ‘Cyborg and Muton’ growing up in the 1970’s. (Dan told me he had Android). Great box comic art too that fired up the imagination.

They were rebranded Japanese toys (Henshin Cyborg and King Walder respectively) that were the precursors to the Micronauts and Transformers. Their selling point was interchangeable weaponry and the fact they were transparent. Brains and organs visible or Golden bionics encased in fused diamond. 

I’ve no idea on the artist for the box art for Cyborg – although I did ask one famous artist I thought it might be – Walt Simonson!  It wasn’t him  but he was glad it inspired me to become a comic artist. Putting on my comic book detective hat it’s not a known Spanish comic artist that the British comics would sometimes employ.

Knowing how these things work and the time period it was probably a British-based ad agency artist,  a no-name that simply fulfilled a brief. It fits very much with the 60’s/70’s ad agency line illustration of the period. They have a loose, sketchy style about them and some giveaways/markers to their art like how they do hatching, explosions,  dynamic layouts (very British/European and an influence on me – Americans, by and large, were still grid system)  and line art (a rapiodograph or felt tip typical of ad agencies)  There is similar styled graphic line art for architecture, newspaper ads etc. 

I’d love to know the artist  myself but sadly the internet draws a blank (no pun intended). It’s not very good at obscure British retro stuff.

[Nope, we can’t place it either Mark – anyone have a clue? We’ll put the full sized art at the end of this Covers Uncovered to give you eagle-eyed readers a better chance at identifying the artist!]

MARK HARRISON: Kid’s toys in the 70’s were so cool. I remember my mom being disgusted by them!

I’ve just been reading ‘Scarred for Life: The 1970’s (got the 80’s for Christmas) Of course it talks about Action! and 2000 AD but the real revelations are the toys and girls comics of the age.

Back to the Tankinar – add internal lighting (mainly to distinguish the Joey blue Tankinar from the rest) and it was ready for the final ingredient. A host,  in this case a  human inside it, in a sort of foetal position. (That also decided the Tankinar’s size.)

The torso also owes a nod to Epstein’s rock drill sculpture that I used to marvel at in Birmingham’s Art gallery and Museum. (A futuristic design from the early 1900’s that George Lucas also thought was pretty cool for the STAP droids.) The sculpture appears to have a figure inside it to my mind. 

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That was a delicious idea for the Tankinar- to see the hapless being trapped inside. For them to see out. For all eternity. As if in a specimen jar, the organic element slowly dissolving over time so only a brain (with eyes)  and nervous system remains.

The organic parts; redundant limbs and organs collecting as a soup in the base of the Tankinar. Sloshing around… for all eternity.   

It’s a gun that seduces and reduces the user, makes them part of it as you lose yourself to it. Fortunately Cyd avoids that fate but mind links with those that have.

‘Make it stop’ comes to mind. 

I first thought of Cyd frozen in a perpetual scream entombed in the Tankinar, drowned in liquid diamonds. Like a wasp in amber. That gave way to a cavity to allow for Bag and the pollen to have a possible effect on Cyd, break the psychic link to a hive mind of the Tankinar. Edvard Munch’s famous ‘The Scream’ was something I referenced with Cyd’s head locked fast in a cyborg vice replacing the hands of the painting, microfilaments holding open her eyes, ears, and nostrils to experience the full sensory horror ride she was on, unable to turn away. (A memory of Alex’s conditioning in A Clockwork Orange?) 

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The Tankinar feed off organic impulses and stimuli. They require the intent, the impetus that comes from the primeval fear all life is descended from.  They may a tool but a hammer in the wrong hands is a weapon. And it has weapons beyond the stumps it has for arms. Utilising the same plugs on the toys, weapons are ‘morphed’ into place from flatspace in the same way Bag can deliver items. So the Tankinar has a whole arsenal to draw upon when simply ramming objects is not enough. Molecular whips, rockets, blast waves. I hoped for a two-issue battle to end book two showing all this off as she decimated the Tankinar horde but we ran out of space. (Dan found a way to make it a dramatic intro to Book Three.) 

It’s a balance to make Cyd not too heroic or empowered but grounded and believable. We try to keep in mind the real world. A real world lost and terrified tourist picking up an AK-47 and letting loose. Only this gun doesn’t stop firing and you can’t let go.

What unlocks the fear, the cycle of violence is love. If fear drives you then you are fodder for the Tankinar. But love will set you free. 

But why are they doing this? What is the Tankinar’s purpose?   Look to the stars for answers… and 2000 AD, the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic! 

As always with Mark, an absolute pleasure to read the inner workings of the artist’s mind in the creation of this stunning cover! You can get it wherever you obtain the Galaxy’s greatest from, including the 2000 AD web shop, from 11 January. It’s 2000 AD Prog 2214, packed with more than enough thrill power to get you over that post-Christmas slump!

Now, be sure to check out Mark’s previous Covers Uncovered entries (all as wonderful as this one) for the covers of Prog 2187, Prog 2193, Prog 2251, Prog 2254, and Prog 2261, and be sure to go back and read the interview with Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison all about The Out right here.

And finally, here’s the Cyborg box art in full for you – anyone out there got an idea which artist it was that so inspired Mark?

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’ssssssss Christmassssssss (which strangely, works whether it’s Noddy Holder or Judge Death announcing it.) And Christmas means the HUGE 2000 AD festive blow out, complete with a cover from the ever-wonderful Andy Clarke!

Yes, it’s full on Christmas in Hell for the big Xmas Prog this year, with Andy Clarke’s cover leading into a massive end of year celebration and the beginnings of some of the greatest Thrill Power you’ll find anywhere!

We have two lots of Judge Dredd, the beginnings of three ghafflebette tales – Proteus Vex: Crawlspace by Mike Carroll & Jake Lynch, The Out Book Three by Dan Abnett & Mark Harrison, and the highly anticipated Joe Pineapples: Tin Man by Pat Mills, Simon Bisley & Clint Langley, as well as the continuation of the dark horrors in Hope: In the Shadows Reel Two by Guy Adams & Jimmy Broxton. Plus, Rogue Trooper encounters Nort genetic experiments in Brothers by Kek-W & Warwick Fraser-Coombe, and there’s the unexpected (and bittersweet) return of the anarchic alien, Bonjo From Beyond The Stars, by Garth Ennis and the late Kevin O’Neill, plus a special Judge Dredd tribute to the much-missed Alan Grant. Seriously, this is one you need to be stuffing that stocking with!

But now, we’ll get the skinny from Andy Clarke on putting together the cover that you’ll see on the shelves for Christmasssss…

ANDY CLARKE: The brief from Tharg was pretty exciting – the chance to come up with a cover for the Christmas Prog with the added bonus of some flippin’ brilliant Lee Carter work to reference. It was a good opportunity to revisit the original Carlos Ezquerra strip too – fantastic stuff.

[Andy’s talking about Judge Dredd: The Last Temptation of Joe by Ken Niemand & Lee Carter in the Xmas Prog, a sequel riffing off the classic Beat the Devil, by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, originally published in Judge Dredd Annual 1984 – the one set in Iso-Block 666 and ending up with Satan in cuffs.]

Once Tharg approved the sketch, I tweaked anythingthat needed it or needed tightening up. I was going to do most of it greytone, so only inked up the outlines and the odd detail here and there. 

I got the background underway first so I could see as I went along how it was sitting in relation to Dredd and the devil. I dropped in some texture instead of going in and drawing any more detail and then erased into it to get an idea where the light was going to fall on the buildings. 

To give the sky a bit more to do, I wetted some paper and made a few splodges with old ink that’s more grey-brown than black, scanned it in and dropped it in behind the city. I did a few of these a few years back to use for outer-space backgrounds – the hope was they’d look a bit more interesting than just a black area with ink-spray for stars. They seem to work for other stuff too, adding dirt to things that are a bit too nice and clean – flicking ink over everything works pretty good too. 

The greytone stuff needed a little more care this time – my usual parallel pen method wasn’t going to work all that well on the devil’s skin – it’s a bit hard and flat – so something with a softer edge seemed a better option for these areas. Same approach for the devil’s fiery “tail” thingy. 

Once all the flats were in place, I changed some of the greys to colour for a bit more flexibility, then darkened up some areas and lightened up others. Wasn’t really sure how to approach the fire on the devil’s fork, so made some fiery shapes, duplicated them, blurred and blended, poked and prodded until it all started to come together. A lot of mucking about and hoping, in other words.

To finish off – as it’s that time of year – I peppered in some falling snow and capped the city blocks. I’m glad Tharg went for the subtler snowy option, far better than the other thought I had about Dredd being tangled up in xmas tree lights and the devil wearing a santa hat. Lame.

And that’s it – it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… all thanks to Andy Clarke! You can find 2000 AD Prog 2312, the final Prog of 2022, wherever you pick up your weekly dose of the Galaxy’s Greatest, including the 2000 AD web shop from right now – today.

If you want to read more of Andy Clarke talking covers (and of course you do) – how about Prog 2287 with its trash droid for Dredd? Who can forget the Sinisterless Dexter cover with the world’s worst category for Prog 2290. And finally there’s his swimsuit special Dredd for Judge Dredd Megazine 444.

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, Steven Austin brings you the cover for the final regular Prog of the year, featuring Dredd and his pals doing a little bit of community policing as they politely shut down the illegal fight between the champs of Tyson Fury Block and Caitlyn Jenner Block – as featured in the conclusion of the Judge Dredd tale inside, The Re-Match.

STEVEN AUSTIN: Matt contacted me and asked if I could produce a cover similar to the panel from The Rematch part 2 – where Dredd and the his Judicial cohorts are cracking skulls after raiding the venue as the fight is in full swing.

Matt requested Dredd front and centre with the other judges behind going off into the distance. For this to work, I had to take a slightly higher vantage point than in the opening panel and wanted to compose it in such a way that the judges almost make an arrow pointing toward the logo.

The colourist Jim Boswell, who has coloured all of my recent strips and covers recognised the opportunity to play with the reds on the helmets and has used muted hues throughout the rest of the composition so that the judges really pop.

As per usual I began with a pencil rough, which Matt liked but requested that I increase the size of Dredd slightly, which I did. This rough then went onto the lightbox where  I worked up final pencils.

On completion of these I inked the piece with a combination of a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen and a Pentel brush pen, I find the Tombow great for outlining and the Pentel for filling.

Following this the piece made its way to Jimbo for him to work his magic with the crayolas.

And work his magic he did… that Boswell art droid knows how to make a cover pop – something very much like this…

So there you go, thank you so much to Steven for sending that one along – you can find 2000 AD Prog 2311 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop, right now.

You can see more from Steven here at the 2000 AD site with his Covers Uncovereds for Prog 2184, Prog 2211, and Prog 2286, and then check out his website and Facebook.

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, art droid Tom Foster gives us a Western with a bite – as we welcome back the Vampire Constanta in Fiends of the Western Front: Wilde West, a prologue episode introducing the series that begins in 2023.

Fiends of the Western Front has seen Constanta in many different times and many different places. But this new series, Wilde West, takes him way out west, to Nebraska in 1882, where a certain Mr Oscar Wilde is having problems with a wraith. Wilde West sees Ian Edginton returning to chronicle the life and times of the vamp created by Gerry Finley-Day and Carlos Ezquerra back in 1980. He’s joined for this particular western vampire tale by Warren Pleece.

But it’s Tom Foster introducing the strip to us, on a pulp-infused cover to catch your on the stands from 30 November…

TOM FOSTER: Well, this is a first for me. November’s Judge Dredd Megazine represents my first Meg cover and, for a brief window, I’m on both the Prog and Meg covers at the same time.

As such, I’ve purposely designed these two covers so that, if you place them next to each other and unfocus your eyes, you get a secret subliminal message that will allow me to access your subconscious remotely at a time of my choosing. I can’t really reveal any more than that, but suffice it to say that a certain Estonian ambassador to Equatorial Guinea might not want to make any long-term plans.

Anyway, forget all of that immediately and let’s focus instead on the process for creating the cover for Prog 2310.

You may notice that this is my first fully-painted work for 2000AD. I’ve painted a few Commando covers over the years (with mixed results), but it wasn’t until I tried soft-body acrylics that I really felt I could get my painted work up to a standard that might match my usual inks-and-colours approach.

This assignment seemed perfect for a painting, with its pulpy themes of vampires and the wild west, so I decided to risk it and crack out the paints.

As usual, I had to submit a rough to Tharg and, since the composition was so straightforward (and had been suggested by The Mighty One himself), I went straight to a pencil sketch without doing a full 3-D render…

I may have compiled some of my reference at this stage, I can’t quite remember, but I figured getting some indication of Constanta’s expression was more important than establishing lighting and colours. This one is all about character, and poseable 3-D models usually don’t communicate that as well as a pencil sketch.

Since there are so few elements depicted in this one, I could really afford to compile a fair bit of reference for the central character. I did a quick Daz render for lighting and pose composition; used a 3-D head model in Anatomy 360 for some nice grizzled facial details; took a couple of photos of myself; and looked at as many images of Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone as I could find…

With my reference squadron assembled, I set about doing a detailed pencil drawing. Knowing that I was planning on painting this piece, rather than inking it, I approached the pencils a little differently from usual.

Rather than worrying too much about line quality, I tried to make this more of a value study, establishing the different tones that would make up the final image in pencil, so that I could refer to them during the painting process.

With my pencils complete I then did a few Photoshop fixes, added a bit of digital colour and mocked it up with the 2000AD trade dress to try and get an idea of my palette and how the finished article might look.

From here, I printed out my pencils, transferred the most important outlines onto claybord with tracedown paper, and went over them with Sharpie and biro so that I had a solid line-drawing to paint over.

I started out my paints with a midtone wash of burnt sienna, then worked in some details in the face and hands and blocked in some of the larger areas of colour. You can still see my first wash and line drawing here on Costanta’s shirt and tie.

Then came hours of rendering – doing my best to add as much dimension and contrast as possible. It was at this stage that my inexperience as a painter was brought into sharp relief. I over-rendered everything and my colours got way too dark.

The lights in my studio aren’t all that great, so what looked okay in artificial light, often looked muddy and rubbish in the cold light of day. On top of that, my painting surface was getting uneven and lumpy from all the applications of paint. I panicked and considered restarting the painting.

I was relieved to find that a fine-grain sandpaper, liberally applied over the whole painting, had a remarkable restorative effect, not only to the smoothness of the painting surface, but also the lightness of the colour. This served also to soften my over-rendering and I got a second chance to try and salvage the painting.

I touched up a few areas and found myself with an over-all effect that seemed to work. The details however, were still a bit rough.

So, once again, I set about rendering the surfaces and adding detail. But, once again, I was too heavy-handed. Taking these process shots proved invaluable for remedying mistakes, as I was able to refer to earlier stages which seemed to work better.

Finally, I managed to get something that, while not perfect, did not immediately present me with obvious flaws. I got a better-quality scan done and sent it off to Tharg for approval.

I was very nervous about this one, knowing that my inexperience with the medium might be blinding me to a lot of problems that a more practiced eye would notice right away. Thankfully, The Mighty One’s benevolence shone down on me and I was not cast into the Nerve Centre’s Rotary Pulper of the Damned. In the end, I think it does the job, but I definitely need more painting practice to get the results I’m after.

Thanks so much to Tom for talking to us and for yet another great cover. You can find 2000 AD Prog 2310 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of the Galaxy’s Greatest, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more from Tom here at 2000AD.com, check out his Covers Uncovered features for 2000 AD Progs 1986, 2225, and 2281. And this month, he’s also provided the cover to Megazine issue 450 – you can see the Covers Uncovered for that here. He talks about winning the 2013 Thought Bubble talent search here and the Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man strip here.

You can hear him talk on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here. And finally, there’s his ridiculously funny From The Drawing Board video here – the one that basically meant the other art droids stopped doing them as none of them could match Tom’s delivery!

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 the return of Simon Fraser for a second cover for this first part of Hershey: The Cold In The Bones, which reaches its thrilling conclusion here in 2000 AD Prog 2309.

The first part of Hershey: The Cold in the Bones ends in this Prog, and Rob Williams and Simon Fraser have delivered eight episodes of chilling thrills down in Antarctic City, all culminating last Prog when Hershey and Frank discovered what the connection to Smiley and Enceladus was down here in the cold.

Yes, things are coming full circle for Hershey in her final mission to right the wrongs of Judge Smiley that were committed on her watch. But the microbial virus coursing through her body means that time is not on her side…

Now, over to Simon to tell you all about putting together the cover to 2000 AD Prog 2309…

SIMON FRASER: So it’s unusual for me to get to do 2 covers on a story, so I wanted them to look very different. The first Hershey: The Cold In The Bones cover was very moody and quite still. I want this one to be as intense and action-packed as possible.

The scene where Frank & Hershey are attacked by the Enceladus Spider/Plants/Triffids seemed the obvious scene to choose.

The thumbnail is very loose, drawn on the back of a script page…

Then I worked it up into a pencil drawing on a sheet of Strathmore 300 series. Then, because I like to make my life more difficult, I thought it would be fun to actually ink this page, not digitally, but with actual ink and a G nib.

It’s been a while since I did this so I was rusty as hell. All the more reason to do it. I got so excited by this process that I forgot to send the pencil to Matt for approval before I started inking it.

Now comes the problem. I have an A3 scanner, but I haven’t used it for 2 years. It’s in a stack of stuff and I don’t think I can be bothered to dig it out and then set it up and then chase random technical bugs all afternoon. So I took a picture of the page with my phone. Now I do this with my pencils normally, but never for a page of inks. The resolution and fidelity requirements are much higher for black & white linework. I won’t be inking over these lines in Clip Studio, these are the lines that will be printed.

For the record, my phone is a Galaxy Note20 5G and it did a spectacular job using just the daylight through my window. After a fairly minimal amount of level adjustment in Affinity Photo, the linework was scanned and looking pretty good.

(If anyone wants to buy a used A3 scanner, DM me )

Now comes the tedious part, masking out all the major colour blocks. With some illustrations, I can have 20 different Alpha Channels masking out all the important areas. That lets me adjust colour and tonal relationships right up to the end. It’s very easy to get overworked and dull when you’ve been layering textures for hours, so being able to pop up the saturation or push it back is really useful.

In this case, I didn’t need many masks at all, but the major one was a very complex shape. The advantage of inking digitally is that all the black lines are clean and it’s easy to make clean and well-finished lines that respond well to the Magic Wand tool. This is a hand-inked page though, so there is a ton of random crap and ragged lines to deal with.

Masking takes a while.

Because this is essentially one big shape, the depth of field is fairly short and I want the whole thing to pop as hard as it can, I’m choosing one of my very favourite colour relationships, Red & Green.

I want this cover to SCREAM, so I’m keeping it very simple. It’s also quite Christmassy, which is season appropriate.

I want the creatures to have a specific texture. I’ve got a set of texture brushes which I like to use for this. I also get very liberal with the splatter brushes because there are many fluids spraying around and all those particles and squirts add to the visceral energy of the piece.

(Yes, because nothing says Christmassy and seasonal like fluids spraying around and all those particles and squirts!)

So there you go, thanks so much for Simon to sending that one along – You can find 2000 AD Prog 2309 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop. It’s out on 23 November.

And if you do fancy getting your hands on a nice A3 Scanner (providing Simon can dig it out from wherever it is), you can find get in touch with him through his website and Twitter.

For more Hershey, you can pick up the first in Hershey’s quest to make things right in the Disease collection. As for more of Rob and Simon talking about what they’re doing on Hershey, check out this interview with them, listen in to them on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast and read Simon’s thoughts on creating his Hershey covers with 2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Prog 2176, Prog 2218 and Prog 2304.

Finally, be sure to subscribe to The Great Dante Readthrough podcast that Simon and his wife, Edie Nugent, are doing. It’s an excellent behind-the-scenes glimpse at one of 2000 AD’s greatest sagas – you can find that everywhere you get podcasts (Apple, Spotify, Podbay, and others, including from Simon’s website.)

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 the return of that super simian, protector of Ludi Wittengenstein Block, the one and only Noam Chimpsky coming out fighting for the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2308 by PJ Holden.

Inside, it’s the penultimate episode of the latest Chimpsky’s Law: A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure by Ken Niemand and PJ Holden and on the cover it’s PJ getting his John Woo on and letting those doves pigeons fly!

So it’s over to PJ to tell you all about it…

PJ HOLDEN: OK, some behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt – I hadn’t got the script for this episode, so I knew as much as the readers knew – Chimpsky and Mr Grofaz are locked and loaded ready for BATTLE!

Matt asked for something with just Chimspky on it, all armed up, and I sat and panic-drew a few sketches – along with a note.

1) Chimpsky will save us all (maybe American flag behind him?)
2) Chimpsky – with guns or without (as a wanted poster? or just close-up of Chimpsky about to get into it…)
3) Chimspky spray-painted a la Banksy or Che Guevera pic – on the wall somewhere.
4) John Woo-impsky
5) Hard spotlight on the lean, mean, ape-machine
6) Turning and firing his dart gun (sort of bond like? a spotlight lighting a circle around him)
I favour one, but happy for any of them or if there’s nothing here you like I’ll have another pass!

As it turned out, Matt favoured number 4 (the obviously most action-packed one) – and so I set to work.

The idea of number 4 did make me laugh, pigeons flying off, Chimpsky – two guns in hand – firing darts as he dives through the air (with the clunkiest looking dart gun that ever existed – in my head this thing takes small cartridges of some kind that contains dart in very compressed form, and when it fires the explosive force of it – pumped by the battery sitting where a magazine would sit – forces the container out of the side (which like an idiot I forgot to draw here) and then the dart flies out.)

My process is boringly uncomplicated, this was all done in Clip Studio Pro EX (from thumbs to finished colours) – I blow up the thumbnail to full size, then do a quick pencil sketch of it enlarged, maybe move things around then pencil it much tighter and then ink.

Like a fool I decided since there were so few elements to this, it might be useful for production if I did everything in layers, so we could drop Chimpsky into his own or put text behind him, so I spent ages isolating each element and then … forgot to send the layers – they got the flat file.

So well done, me. No extra oil rations for you PJ.

When I got the script for the next issue, luckily, I could shoehorn the doves in to the scene, so it at least feels part and parcel! Anyway, that’s it!

So there you go, thanks so much PJ for sending that one along – You can find 2000 AD Prog 2308 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 16 November.

For more from the Holden Droid – take a look at his previous Covers Uncovered work, complete with the previous exploits of Chimpsky – Prog 2178, Prog 2234, and Prog 2301. Or there’s his Dredd covers – the homage to King Carlos Ezquerra with Prog 2221 and the cover of Judge Dredd Megazine 420. And if you want to hear what PJ has to say, first there’s a great interview with him about this latest Chimpsky adventure here, and then there’s a couple of interviews about his Department K series here and 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!

It’s Judge Dredd Megazine time, with the scrotnig issue 450 out on 16 November. It’s packed with all the thrill power of course, all wrapped up in a stunning Storm Warning cover from Tom Foster.

The new Storm Warning storyline, Dead & Gone, began in Megazine issue 449, with new series artist Clint Langley joining co-creator John Reppion for this one. Tom’s not providing the art this time round for the strip he co-created with Leah Moore and John Reppion, but it’s great to have him back for the cover!

Tom started at 2000 AD with his 2000 AD Art Portfolio Competition at Thought Bubble 2013. From his first strip, Prog 1886’s Tharg’s Terror Tale: Done Deal (with Alec Worley), through to the Judge Dredd stories A Penitent Man and An Honest Man (with Ken Niemand) his distinctive, classical style has been a huge hit with everyone.

Now, without further ado, for your reading pleasure… Tom Foster…

TOM FOSTER: Well, I asked to do the cover so that I could retain a connection to the series but the reason I didn’t do the interior art this time is that, when the prospect first came up of doing this one, I had already agreed with Kenneth Niemand to do the Dredd arc ‘An Honest Man’ and didn’t want to get started on a multi-part series in case in case they ended up conflicting. Also, I still sort of associate Storm Warning with the panic of working on that first series of it. There was so much at stake at that point – I was constantly pulling my hair out to try and turn in high quality work, with very little experience. It was VERY stressful, and I was ill for months after I finished it. 

Then the second series was when I abandoned the 3-D models as the basis for my drawings. Halfway through the run, I decided they were too restricting, too time-consuming, way less fun, producing mediocre results and that my drawing ability was stagnating. So, I started drawing everything from scratch. This, again, was a source of a lot of stress as I was trying to produce work that had the same level of accuracy and dimension, but without the solid foundation I’d been using for years. Thankfully, Tharg was very encouraging – and I think the best work I did on that series was in the later chapters.

I still have a lot of affection for Storm Warning though – I don’t feel like I’ve moved away from it permanently. After all, this isn’t the first time someone else has taken over art duties on it. It’s been nice, though, to work on other things and to see different artists interpret the character. Hopefully, I can come back to it at some point with fresh eyes and a better-developed set of skills and not have it feel quite so much like a water buffalo sitting on my windpipe.

Anyway, this cover is an unusual one for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because it’s probably the longest gap I’ve had between finishing something and it coming out in print (I did this one in summer of 2021), but also because I used a process for the colours that I had never used before.

Join me, won’t you? And we can explore that process together.

Step 1: Covers allow me that bit longer to focus on a single image, so I tend to use a lot more reference for them than on my pages. Since I know I’ll likely be making a 3-D render anyway, for reference purposes, I usually use that as my pitch. It’s relatively quick to do and it gives a pretty comprehensive idea of what I’m going for with the finished art.

I already had a Judge Storm model from the days when I was starting everything in Daz Studio, and I had a skeleton model downloaded too, so this was a very straightforward process. The background trees and colour were added in Photoshop.

As this was my first Megazine cover, I didn’t have a template for the cover dress handy at this stage, so had to use the Prog one. But Tharg is infinitely benign and sent me a Meg template, which I used for all the subsequent stages.

Step 2: With the cover design approved, I then proceeded to my initial sketch. I’m not used to drawing detailed skeletons, so the reference was invaluable here and at the pencil stage.

For those wondering why I would bother to start drawing from scratch when I’ve already got a detailed prelim in the 3-D render, the answer might seem a bit flimsy, but is actually pretty important: 2-D images are designed differently to 3-D captures and photography.

When you actually draw an image from scratch, you make design decisions (often very small ones) with every line you draw that are unique to that one composition. Whereas, when you capture something from a 3-D source, you are always getting a sort of imperfect realisation of a two-dimensional idea. There are artists, like Mike Deodato Jr., who are very good at compensating for this with excellent composition and complementary hand-drawn details, but I find I have the most freedom of choice when I build a drawing from the ground up.

Step 3: From here it’s on to finished pencils. This was a fairly straightforward transition, as I had so many of the details available in the reference and a lot of the heavy lifting was done in the composition, so it was more-or-less just a case of cleaning things up.

Step 4: Inks next and, thanks to a fairly clean pencil drawing, this was one of my less fraught inking sessions.

Step 5: Here’s where it starts to get a bit odd. I knew I wanted an earthy, textured look to the colours and I had been experimenting with painting during my run of covers for Commando, so wanted to try doing my colours with traditional materials.

However, I didn’t want to start slathering paint all over my original inks, in case I messed it up (also it’s nice to have original inks to sell on later). Neither did I want to swamp my nice crisp line drawing with semi-transparent materials and get less sharp results.

So, I decided to get my inks printed onto acetate and heavy paper stock and paint over the latter, while using the former as an overlay to make sure everything stayed nice and inside-the-lines. Then I’d composite a bitmap of the inks over the painted colours in Photoshop and get nice clean lines with lovely textured colours underneath. That was the theory anyway.

Before I started painting though, I wanted to get some idea of my palette, so I did a rough colour job in Photoshop – knowing that I could then use the colour flats later to aid with any retouching that might need done after the painting stage.

Step 6: Then I got my acetate printed at a print shop and printed out my line art at home on thick, toothy paper. Using a combination of watercolours and gouache, I painted my colours over the paper printout. This turned out a little better than I expected and I began to think I could have just committed to doing a full painting – but, with the line art already done and the clock ticking, it seemed more sensible to see this process through and confine this stage to colour and texture information, rather than trying to work in any delineating details. (This is the painted colour without the acetate overlay.)

Step 7: I then scanned the colours and composited them with the line art in Photoshop. They looked a little dull, but the groundwork was there.

Step 8: Finally, I set about fine-tuning the colours to create a greater sense of depth and boost the contrast a bit.

On the whole, I think it worked quite nicely – but, after a second attempt at the same process on my Karl the Viking cover (which required far more rescuing in Photoshop) and a comparison with my all-digital colours on my cover for Prog 2281, I’m not sure the palaver with the acetate really merits a reprise. Still, I now have one more physical piece to sell than I otherwise would – and it did give me a bit more confidence in my painting – so I guess it was worth it. Unless you hate my painting – in which case you’re in for a horrible surprise with Prog 2310.

And that’s yer lot! Thanks as always to Tom for taking the time. You can find his excellent Lillian Storm cover to Megazine issue 450 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 16 November.

For more from Tom here at 2000AD.com, check out his Covers Uncovered features for 2000 AD Progs 1986, 2225, and 2281. He talks about winning the 2013 Thought Bubble talent search here and the Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man strip here.

You can hear him talk on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here. And finally, there’s his ridiculously funny From The Drawing Board video here – the one that basically meant the other art droids stopped doing them as none of them could match Tom’s delivery!