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 the brilliant Rich Elson with the latest 2000 AD – Prog 2192 – where Dredd comes up against the great white beast that is Shako – something Elson’s very familiar with after the recent brilliant Kingdom/Shako strip in the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special this year.
So, over to Rich for just how this particular beauty of a cover was put together…
I had just finished up the Kingdom/Shako crossover for the Sci-Fi Special when Tharg asked if I wanted to do the cover for this issue – maybe because I had just spent a few weeks drawing a polar bear!
Having finally got around to reading the very enjoyable Judge Dredd Year One a week earlier, I was keen to have another go at the character, so jumped at the chance to draw Dredd when the offer came. Tharg sent over a couple of Henry’s brilliant interior pages to give me an idea of what was required and I drew up three roughs based on the brief.
After the second rough was chosen, I drew up a ‘pencil’ version at full size in Photoshop at 600 dpi.
At the inking stage I did Dredd, the bear’s head and paws, the blood and breath and the speedlines all on separate layers: that makes it easier to adjust things, if I need to, before I add colour.
Finally, the colour stage: I wanted a strong colour contrast between the two figures. To bring it all together I spotted a few of the reds, yellows and oranges from the bear and background onto Dredd’s gun and helmet.
This was a really fun job. Who wouldn’t enjoy drawing an enraged, zombified polar bear? Thanks Tharg.
Thanks to Rich for giving us a look at his latest Prog cover – you can see it in the wild from 29 July in print and digital – get it from the 2000 AD shop.
You can hear Rich speak to Molch-R on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast from last year here. And as for the brilliant Kingdom & Shako crossover from the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special – you can read more of Rich Elson’s adventures in drawing big, angry polar bears here.
And you can find more from Rich Elson talking about his amazing covers with the Covers Uncovered feature – most recently with Prog 2163 from January 2020…
And here for Prog 2034 – June 2017 – a vision of the Traitor General…
Now, more of Elson’s fantastic cover work over the years…
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 back Alex Ronald, having a good old boogie on the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2191 with the good ship Full Tilt Boogie blasting off…
Alex has been making the covers of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic for 20+ years now and his digital creations always blast the covers off the shelves… but possibly never more so than this one, with the good ship Full Tilt Boogie exploding off that classic cover.
Alex sent along his art for the issue but also his apologies for not being able to send along commentary at this time. We say it’s no problem at all, as the visuals tell the story all on their own!
First off, the rough – although in this case, rough doesn’t really do the artwork justice…
After that rough is approved by the Mighty Tharg – presumably with the words… ‘YES, Ronald Droid – that’s just perfect as always – now get on with it and stop bothering Mighty Tharg’, it’s time for Alex to get on with putting the final cover into place.
Part of Ronald’s usual process in making his covers involves mocking up a little 3D to help with composition, which is just what he did this time, sending this along for reference to Full Tillt Boogie series artist, Eduardo Ocana‘s version of the good ship Boogie…
Modelling all done, it’s back to the cover, transforming the most un-rough of roughs through the magic of Ronald’s process to something spectacularly worthy of a 2000 AD cover…
Wow, you can feel the power of Full Tilt Boogie as it blasts past you there. Thanks to Alex for sharing those with us, especially in these difficult times. The man is a star.
2000 AD Prog 2191 is available from comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 ADweb shop.
Now, a little bit extra from both the Ronald Droid and Full Tilt Boogie? Oh yes, I think we can supply that. We have an interview with the creators of Full Tilt Boogie, Alex de Campi and Eduardo Ocana.
And of course, a little more Covers Uncovered from Alex Ronald, another chance to see a master at work in making the magic happen again and again on the cover of the Galaxy’s Greatest. Starting off with the 2019 Christmas Prog 2162…
Prog 2049 – September 2017 – saying farewell to Greysuit…
Prog 2047 – September 2017 – another classic Greysuit cover here…
Something a little different now. In the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special this year, Tharg commissioned SK Moore (Defoe) to deliver a double-page spread celebrating all that is best in the 20 years of the Rebellion that took hold at 2000 AD in 2000 AD.
Sci-Fi Special cover by Jock
And having seen it in the pages of the Sci-Fi Special, I was absolutely blown away by it. It’s EXACTLY the sort of thing that teen me would have plastered up on his walls.
If you haven’t picked up your copy of the Sci-Fi Special (and why the hell not? – Get it from the 2000 AD shop NOW!), then this is what I’m talking about… this glorious double-page spread by SK Moore…
So, having seen it, I thought it would be great if Stewart could share with us the process of putting together the double-page spread pretty much in the same way we do the regular Covers Uncovered feature here.
So… ‘Hey Stewart’, says I, ‘love the pin-up double pager in the Sci-Fi Special. Do you fancy doing a little behind the scenes into how you put it together? Nothing too time-consuming, but would be great to see how something that good came together.’
‘Sure thing’, says Stewart. And then goes off and writes a bleeding essay about the making of the pin-up that covers the very spirit of creation itself and goes deep, deep into so many things. Bless him, it’s fabulous reading.
Matt Smith asked me to create a poster pin-up that celebrated a mix of 2000 AD characters for the 2020 Sci-Fi Special. Examples included Dredd, Rogue, Strontium Dog, Slaine, ABC Warriors, Nemesis, Old One Eye – but in addition some of the more recent characters like Defoe, Stickleback, Aquila, Zombo, etc.
It was quite a short deadline for me, I work weekdays on my graphic novel (Project MKUltra: Sex, Drugs & the CIA) and taking on a pin-up would be difficult since I can only work weekends on other projects and the deadline only allowed 2 weekends, it was tight!
I produced two roughs. The first was a grouping of the characters fighting back-to-back against various enemies, the second a series of vignettes separated by some kind of energy, I’d firm up what that energy was later, but at the time I thought ‘laser fire’. Matt asked me to focus on the vignettes idea now and work up the second composition at a later date.
(So BREAKING NEWS… I’ll be creating a 2nd painting based on the other sketch once I finish my book!)
One of the two roughs Stewart submitted – the other we’ll see soon!
I was a bit relieved, to be honest, by Matt’s choice because the vignettes design would be quicker for me to complete than a full-on perspective-heavy, character-filled, battle scene.
The following description goes into my thought process and doesn’t deal too much with how it was drawn. There are simply hundreds of tutorials on comic art, figure drawing, perspective, oil painting and digital methods, any kind of painting, you name it, it’s all on Youtube. That’s all a matter of practice and learning ‘how to draw’ and paint. What follows here is a little bit about the thought that went into this image.
First I blew up the sketch to fit across two pages. I decided Dredd had to be completed first since he was the focal point. If he shaped up right then everything else should fall into place around him.
Each of the vignettes is a glimpse into each character’s world. If I ran out of time I could widen the dimensions of the vignettes if necessary, in Dredd’s case that would mean more city blocks behind him. But, to my surprise, I made good time with the drawing.
It’s easy at this stage to redraw a bigger version of the sketch and lose all its dynamism, don’t ask me why, it just happens. So I was VERY careful to copy the proportions precisely but much larger and in more detail.
I’ve always been intrigued by optical illusions and use them in my work sometimes. For example, if you hold Prog 2151 (my wraparound Defoe cover) at an oblique angle the condensation trails of the spacecraft compress into skulls.
(Okay… we’ll wait for you to go and try that – I know I did. Cool, huh?)
Those skulls are based on one of the most famous illusions in the history of painting. A picture painted by Hans Holbien the Younger known as The Ambassadors. If you are in London it’s well worth a visit to see this astonishing masterpiece at The National Gallery.
Hans Holbien the Younger – The Ambassadors
Al Jaffee’s illusions in Mad Magazine were always a treat and I initially came up with something along similar lines to his work, but it was way beyond the brief, so that idea (which I can’t share right now) has been shelved for the time being. Incidentally, Jaffee is 99 years old and retired from comics last week! (June 2020, as I am writing this.)
One of those Al Jaffee illusions – could this be the thing we’re going to see next in the Prog?
I started thinking about something that I feel I’ve noticed when drawing my own comics. Although letterers put bubbles on the art, the human mind seems to account for that and ‘see’ the obscured areas.
Somehow, even though the bubbles are dropped over the art, I feel I don’t notice the missing areas, somehow my mind still seems to see and understand the composition even though areas are missing. Do you know what I mean?
Artists generally leave space for bubbles but bubbles will very often still land on elements of the artwork, in my case because I’ve not given the letterer enough room. Yet most of the time bubbles don’t actually disrupt the image at all, the mind’s eye sees what’s under the bubble, somehow, anyway. Somehow your mind completes the broken picture line. This is just one of the odd things I feel I’ve noticed while drawing comics and as an artist I’ve wondered about it many times.
So I looked into it and was delighted to find it is a known phenomenon called ‘reification’ and it emerged from studies into what is called ‘Gestalt Psychology’ in the 19th century.
‘Reification is the constructive or generative aspect of perception, by which the experienced percept contains more explicit spatial information than the sensory stimulus on which it is based.’ – Wikipedia.
In other words you see things in the picture that are not there because the mind completes the broken picture based on what is there!
I started drawing just a sliver of Judge Death, and a few others, to slip between the main characters, so he might not be obvious and hopefully a treat to discover in the cracks.
The most challenging attempt at reification was Old One Eye. Her foot is evident at bottom left, the cowboy hat is a clue. Only Flesh has cowboys and dinosaurs! But if you look across the picture there are scales coming through here and there, one empty eye-socket, some teeth and claws.
Character designs should always be recognisable in silhouette. 2000 AD characters are immediately recognizable in this way. But Death is so well designed I think you could put him through a shredder, pick any strand from the waste-paper basket, and still recognise him from just that sliver.
I can only draw Dredd and Defoe off the top of my head. For all the others in the pin-up, I had to study the characters and in the case of Strontium Dog, I even abandoned any attempt to draw him my way. I kind of aped the way that Carlos Ezquerra drew him, is there any other way?
Similarly, I know there are new ABC Warrior stylings, but I am not familiar with them. Instead, I looked at some classic ABC’s by Mike McMahon. I remember, for a while as a young reader, feeling the McMahon run on the ABC’s was the finest thing in the Prog for me, so I looked there for starting points.
I lost a lot of time just looking for material and periods on which to base my drawings.
Once the pencils were near done, I did a second refining layer, then I inked Dredd and then inked Nemesis.
Normally I would only colour after all the inking is done but panic began to set in as I watched the clock hands spin faster and faster. I realised none of this might work – I needed to know it was working.
So I began to complete each vignette, in full, as I moved across the picture. This was advantageous, it spurred me and I was thrilled by the idea that I had no idea how colourful it would end up being.
I could imagine the composition, and each section’s colours, but the overall effect was going to be a surprise even to me.
I worked on the characters that excited me at that moment, and seized them. If you struggle with motivation this is a great creative method to follow. Pick the panel (or areas) that trigger your excitement, you’ll feel it as you look over the pencils, one panel will strike you as exciting, and if you do it well the positivity seems to pass to the next bit of heavy-lifting and before you know it – it’s all done!
This can help you down the creative road faster than plodding through panels you don’t want to draw in numerical order. There’s usually a subconscious reason why I don’t want to draw certain things and that’s usually because something bores me about them. Get stuck into the exciting stuff and it builds your excitement and gives you time to think about how to make those bothersome panels better. This method is also good because when you start you are maybe not firing on all cylinders and by jumping around you warm up in a way that isn’t too obvious to the reader’s eye.
I realised the vignettes could be more like tectonic plates and that ‘energy’ I mentioned earlier could be like lava, between them. So, not thinking too hard about the energy at the beginning helped after all, it gave me time to find the right methodology. Time to think.
Wow. You see what I mean about Stewart throwing himself into it and coming out with an essay on creation?
Stewart’s graphic novel ‘Project MKUltra:Sex, Drugs & the CIA‘ will be published by Clover Press, San Diego later this year. To find out more about the man, go here, and for more on Project MKUltra (& to sign up for the Clover Press newsletter – click here. And here’s a stunning looking page from Stewart’s new book…
Project MKUltra:Sex, Drugs & the CIA – SK Moore
Other things SK Moore related – you can read his (extended) thoughts on making a 2000 AD cover in this Covers Uncovered piece about putting together this beauty for Prog 2179…
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 chat to art droid Paul Williams about his latest cover – Judge Dredd Megazine #422.
Paul was the winner of the 2000 AD art search competition at Thought Bubble 2017 and has since been published in Prog 2072’s Future Shock: Sunday Scientist. and in the DeMarco, P.I. 3-parter An Eye… in Megazine issue 410-413. He had his very first cover just last year, with 2000 AD Prog 2146.
With this latest Megazine cover, he’s created a classic Dredd image that you’ll be able to see for yourselves from the 2000 ADweb shop and comic shops when the Megazine hits the shelves on 15 July.
So, over to the Williams Droid for the skinny…
After landing my first cover for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic last year, I started pitching a few new ideas to Tharg but wasn’t managing to tempt a second commission out of him.
I was having no luck with a couple of pieces that attempted to “showcase” the character of Dredd (below) so I decided to take a different approach.
Clearly I had to up my game! Simply posing Dredd wasn’t getting me anywhere so I wanted to try something that was a bit more “graphic” (in terms of design) and less just depicting a moment frozen in time.
This resulted in a concept that I think is quite different to my usual style, or at least in terms of drawing from some of the influences that don’t show up so much in my comic work. Below is the rough I sent off.
After getting approval from Tharg’s delegate on Earth, Matt Smith, I began to work in some more detail to give it movement.
Usually, most illustrations begin with a sketch but in this case all I had on paper was literally a bunch of lines of action spreading out from the top right corner with a vague idea that I wanted the Lawmasters to follow them. I then took that concept into 3D modelling software and mostly figured out the composition by moving my bike models around in a perspective grid.
Incidentally, I usually favour the more ‘classic’ Lawmaster in my Dredd art but wanted less complicated shapes for the foreground of the image so I nicked the design Jake Lynch has perfected for a one-off, as it’s quite streamlined.
Because I work digitally my art doesn’t always separate into “pencils and inks”. Sometimes, like here, it will involve something a bit more like “sculpting” where I’m moving things I’ve drawn around and resizing to find the right compositions, then taking bits out and re-drawing them to add a bit more fidelity.
What will usually happen is I’ll do that until I have something that could pass for inks, then I’ll do “final” inks which are tighter and have a clearer line.
I remember wanting it to almost feel like a “splat” of ink on the page that had organised itself into a more complex illustration, with high contrast between the solid blacks and the empty spaces.
That required me to leave out a bit more detail than I’m usually comfortable with but – for something so out of my usual comfort zone – I was satisfied that it looked more or less exactly like what was in my mind!
Thanks to Paul for letting us inside the making of his latest Megazine cover – out from Wednesday 15 July in print and digital!
You can read an interview with Paul and his co-winner, script-droid Laura Bailey here and both Paul and Laura talk about their DeMarco strip on the Thrill-Cast here. And you can find Paul on Twitter and Behance.
And finally… a look back at Paul’s very first 2000 AD cover – Prog 2146.
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 more skin and teeth than Dredd’s going to be comfortable with – all courtesy of one of the best cover droids – Neil Roberts.
As for just why Dredd‘s having a dental disaster, you’ll be wanting to check out End of Days by Rob Williams and Colin MacNeil, when MC-1’s finest faces down the first of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Brit Cit.
Neil’s one of Tharg’s minions who sticks to covers, beautiful, stunning covers you can always see from a mile off. As for how this one came about, it all started with a brief from the Mighty One himself… now, over to Neil for the commentary…
Tharg’s brief was literally that, short and to the point: ‘a shot of Dredd focusing on his chest… pulling open his uniform to reveal a mouth’.
Thumbnail #1 – You really wouldn’t fancy being Dredd’s dentist, would you?
I ran off a few different thumbnails based on the notes and reference materials. The final image chosen was the more abstract concept and hopefully more impactful for it.
Thumbnail #2 – still no belly button though
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege to paint Judge Dredd many times and, as a piece of art design in itself, he is so iconic and so ingrained in pop culture, you don’t have to show much to know who it is. With that in mind, I wanted to reduce his presence in the image to its barest essentials whilst still driving home a narrative.
Thumbnail # 3 – Dredd’s heartburn really gets out of control
Basically, a classic case of ‘less is more’.
I gathered some reference materials together to refine the pose and anatomy (Do clones have belly buttons? How hairy is Dredd’s chest?). In many ways I wanted the cover itself to feel as if it was physically being opened – designed to look like something beautiful and disgusting at the same time. A little bit of Cronenberg body horror on the bookshelf.
The goal of any cover is to produce an arresting image that makes you want to buy it and/ or read more. With this piece, and all my work, that’s what I’m always striving for.
Neil’s final cover image – complete with belly button. But face it, you’re not looking at the belly button.
.
Thanks to Neil for giving us that look into the Jaws of Dredd… and clearing up that whole belly button thing.
2000 AD Prog 2189 is available from comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 ADweb shop.
Fancy a little bit more from the Roberts Droid? Of course you do…
A particular favourite of mine from the many, many great covers that Neil’s done over the years… 2000 AD Prog 1665 from 2009… the boys looking damn good here…
Judge Dredd Megazine 326 (2012) – A monstrous Neil Roberts Hondo City cover – and Pete Wells has a great Covers Uncovered for this one here.
2000 AD Prog 1991 (2016) – Dredd going for the whole Barry Sheen vibe – another great Covers Uncovered for this one, courtesy of Pete Wells here.
2000 AD Prog 2014 (2017) – Ritterstahl’s future date not going to plan in this lovely study by Roberts for The Order – Pete’s Covers Uncovered for this one here.
2000 AD Prog 2040 – Neil gets Dredd under wraps in this one from 2017 – and there’s another Petey Covers Uncovered 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 it’s the turn of Boo Cook to adorn the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2188 with a The Order cover featuring ye olde Armoured Gideon in a classic naval battle pretty much right out of a Turner painting (and thanks to Boo, you’ll be getting plenty of Turner puns all through this one).
It looks like this…
You’ll have been thrilling to Boo’s most recent artistic delights with the psychedelic Dreddverse tale Blunt III in the Judge Dredd Megazine recently. But his credits for TMO stretch back some 20 years plus now, beginning with Prog 1208 in August 2000, on a Steve Moore penned Future Shock; Home from the War.
So, to get the skinny on the cover, it’s time to Turner this Covers Uncovered over to Boo Cook…
Portrait of the artist with his At-At on his Ed-Ed. Photo courtesy of 2012 interview with Brighton Source.
.As this summer marks my twentieth year in the service of Tharg’s mighty organ, I was very pleased to be back on cover duties.
I think Tharg’s initial request for the cover was for the 18th-century version of Armoured Gideon to be firing on an old ship in a Turner-esque naval battle. It took me a few seconds to process that as it’s pretty far removed from what I usually get up to, but I do like getting thrown a curveball now and then.
The painter J.M.W. Turner had previously made quite an impression on me during an A-level art trip to London, so I knew roughly where the cover was heading. Other highlights of that trip included an aubergine fight (not pictured on the cover).
I had a good search for Turner naval battle paintings online and there were plenty to get my juices flowing. Apart from getting a decent angle on the robot, the main problem – I quickly realised – would be finding a balance between ‘full Turner’ and the artistic sensibilities of a modern comic cover. This basically meant making the seascape and ship a little more obvious and slightly less impressionistic so the cover still had a bit of visual clout while hopefully being recognisable as a Turner homage.
The initial colour rough Turnered in to Tharg for approval
So I knocked up that colour rough and sent it off to Tharg and aside from us both agreeing that Gideon needed to obscure a bit less logo it was good to go.
I usually have two approaches to my comic art these days – the traditional ink and photoshop colouring route or the more gritty and expressive heavily tonal pencil and photoshop route, so given the nature of this beast I went for the latter.
Boo Cook Turner-ing in those pencils
In this approach I mostly tend to fill the entire page with heavy graphite but as I knew the sky would be fully photoshop painted I figured it would be a waste of time to go tonal on the sky at the pencil stage and just made sure that rough compositional info was there.
After scanning the pencils in I got stuck straight into the sky – I do love painting a wild sky in photoshop. A good example of the changes I made compared to my usual style is the sun in the background – it’s heavily textured, way more than I would usually paint a sun. In fact, I wouldn’t put any texture on a sun usually but being a Turner tribute I splozzed the paint around a bit (although not to the level of full Turner).
(Yeah – splozzed – Boo tells us it’s a technical term!)
Yep – look at those Cook Turner-esque Sun textures!
Painting the sea was great fun, again not something I do often but I really enjoyed borrowing some deep tealy greens and translucent wave-tops from the Turner reference.
Once I’d nailed a look for Gideon having scanned various quite different versions of him into my brain I painted him up adding plenty of water splashes and explodey stuff in an attempt to arrive at some semblance of 18th century Pacific Rim style fayre.
Pacific Rimeon?
As a side note the lazerz were originally going to be orangey fire blasts but they conflicted with the sun too much. FACT.
Turnering from red laser to blue laser – same result – Armoured Gideon wins at Battleships again.
As is often the case with my artwork, my favourite bit of the painting is completely insignificant and almost unnoticeable – in this case, the unlucky buccaneer draped over a plank of driftwood in the foreground…
The alternate ending to Titanic, where Leo kicked Rose off the door!
Anyway, that’s about the size of it apart from thinking up lots of cover tag lines while I worked such as “TIDE TURNER!” and “TURNER THE CENTURY!” all of which I am very happy to say Tharg did not use…
Thanks to Boo for chatting and showing us his workings out of the cover he eventually Turner-ed in (plus giving this one its title). 2000 AD Prog 2188 is available from comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 ADweb shop.
Now, Turner-ing to a quick bonus cover feature from the Cook Droid…
2000 AD Prog 1500 (2006) with Tharg resplendent…
2000 AD Prog 1532 (2007) with Dredd under the flag of Booth…
Another Joseph Turner inspired cover, this time The Red Seas for 2000 AD Prog 1699:
2000 AD Prog 1817 (2013) – a glorious Ezqueera homage…
2000 AD Prog 1830 (2013)- gloriously old-school going-ons for Gunheadz…
Every week, 2000 ADbrings 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 turn of Mark Harrison and 2000 AD Prog 2187, cover-featuring the fabulous looking new series he’s drawing, The Out, written by Dan Abnett. Obviously, these two gents have got form, having collaborated for a long time on the rather spectacularly good Grey Area.
The Out begins in Prog 2187, out now from comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 ADweb shop.
Abnett describes The Out
thus…
The Out is a cosmic odyssey,
really. The story of human beings (well, one in particular) wandering out in
the far-flung reaches of space, encountering a galactic milieu of alien
species. SF is chock full of stories about mankind reaching the stars and
becoming an important, or THE important, species, but what if we’re just a
minor footnote no one’s ever heard of? Little more than tourists on the
greatest Grand Tour/gap year ever? The character, Cyd, has gone so far into
“The Out” that she’s forgotten where Earth is and hasn’t seen another human for
years. It’s a story about what happens when the ‘wonder’ of the endless holiday
starts to pale. What does it mean (to her) to be human? Has humanity made any
impact at all? It’s a bit quirky, character-driven, and very alien.
And thematically, he and Mark refer to it as… ‘A love letter to the SF book-jacket art we grew up with’.
To give you an idea just what they mean… here’s the first page of The Out for you all to marvel over…
So, with that imagery burning it’s way into your minds, over to
the great Mark Harrison to talk us through the making of the cover…
After pitching Tharg a promotional image for The Out, a first cover to introduce the strip was asked for.
Dan and I felt the promo image was a bit too on the money and revelatory for a cover so something more like the slow burn story unfolding and low key would be more appropriate.
The main character Cyd is a sort of Intergalactic Geographic/space tourism photojournalist, documenting new worlds opened up to the human race. Something akin to the emerging tourism industry of the 1950’s when exotic destinations became accessible to the general public. Whilst part of The Out’s image brief was to be inspired by the science fiction book covers of the 1970’s I thought this image should also work as an advert, subliminally influenced by the travel posters of the 1930s onwards. This sort of thing…
An image of our bon viveur heroine Cyd calling out to join her at her table outside an alien café enjoying a local (and escaping) delicacy. The scene should be bright, breezy, pastel-coloured, with simplified background elements, a beach scene, a building/night club and form of transport (in this case a Chris Foss inspired starship).
Quite a bit of time and effort was put into moving these elements around to get a pleasing composition. Cyd’s pose also pays homage to Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
As for putting it all together… here’s Mark with the details…
I pretty much steamed ahead with this. I threw together some elements, silhouettes and moved them around until I got something pleasing for the background.
I’ve been recently experimenting with custom shapes in PhotoShop, a technique used by some concept artists. A shape could be any defined image; in this instance a tyre image used to create a circular sci-fi jetty.
The seated foreground figure was redrawn a few times at the digital pencilling stage; the positioning of the legs was a problem.
I decided to swap the
character around and have the legs facing away from rather than under the
table, the figure placement used to balance what would have been a centre-weighted
composition.
The inks
included existing art of a spaceship that was also used to balance the
image.
Flat colouring was added and edge lighting and a layer of lights derived from
other files to add detail. which also informed the image such as
reflections.
Finally a pass of tone and tweaking the image, brightening the scene behind the character to add focus.
A late addition was to add an oval frame to the scene to mirror the starship and have the art break the frame for extra emphasis. It also adds to the poster feel and graphical conventions.
And that’s it!
Of course, when Harrison says ‘And that’s it!’, what I and all other non-artists say is, bloody hell, that’s a fabulous amount of work going into this cover. Thank you so much to Mark for getting that to us and sharing it with you all.
The Out begins in Prog 2187, out now from comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 ADweb shop. It’s looking like it’s going to be a great series.
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 year, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special marks 20 years since the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic joined games developer Rebellion, with a massive 100-page celebration of the last two decades! Inside, you’ll find brand new stories with classic Rebellion-era archive strips – with some special guests cropping up to really make this a true 2000 AD birthday celebration!
And all this under a stunning cover from a 2000 AD legend – Jock! So it’s time to settle down with one of the Rebellion era’s greatest artists and get him to tell us all about the making of a cover worthy of the celebrations!
You can find the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special from all good newsagents and comic book stores on Wednesday 24th June! Or simply pre-order from the 2000 AD web shop using the link below!
I always try and fit in doing something for 2000AD if I can, and when Matt asked if I’d like to do the cover for this years Summer Special, I was happy to take it on.
It also turned out that it would be a ‘bookend’ homage to a Dredd piece I had drawn 20 years ago, marking the anniversary of Rebellion taking over the Galaxies Greatest Comic.
The original 2000 AD Dreddcon – an image so damn good it’s worth doing again!
Matt asked for a shot of Dredd looming over Oxford this time, rather than the London of the first Dreddcon image.
A fairly simple brief, with not too much wiggle room, so I comped together some shots of Oxford for the foreground and drew a quick sketch of Dredd.
Jock’s original sketch – A Dredd so scary even the buses crash!
I liked the pose, as did Matt, so once approved I blew up the sketch to full size and traced it off to keep the nuances of the way Dredd looked in the final piece.
Worked some more details into the figure and inked it over a couple of days while working on other projects. The final piece is quite large, on 16’ x 20’ art board.I reduced the size of his head slightly in Photoshop before sending the final file, so Dredd would feel as monolithic as possible – Dredd always looks best looking larger than life.
And that makes Dredd larger than life… A Backstreet Boys lyric? Really?
Chris Blythe was the colourist on the original Dreddcon piece and we were lucky to get him for this image too. Matt asked for a daytime scene to contrast the night of the original image, so we get the very apt bright blue skies of Oxford for the Summer Special.
The sun is out, the sky is blue There’s not a cloud to spoil the view Except Judge Dredd, telling you stay home. (Buddy Holly’s first draft, unseen before now)
And that’s it – the making of an iconic cover, featuring an iconic character, by an iconic artist. Thanks to Jock once more for taking part. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we see more of his art adorning the covers or pages of 2000 AD or Judge Dredd Megazine.
You can find the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special from all good newsagents and comic book stores on Wednesday 24th June! Or simply pre-order from the 2000 AD web shop using the link below.
First off, the cover from the 2012 Free Comic Book Day comic from 2000 AD, as featured by my esteemed colleague, Mr Pete Wells, legend around these parts, on Covers Uncovered from 2011.
One of Jock’s classic Dredds – Prog 1304 (14th August 2002)Judge Dredd by Jock and Chris Blythe for Prog 1318 (20th November, 2002)Jock’s wrapround cover to Prog 1450 (3rd August 2005)Classic Megazine cover by Jock – Megazine 4.02 (September 2001)
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’s cover comes from the team of Patrick Goddard and colourist Dylan Teague. With Prog 2185, Patrick’s given us a look into the showdown between Dredd and that mystery cowboy (shhh… spoilers if you haven’t caught up yet!) currently featuring in the End Of Days epic unfolding from Rob Williams and Colin MacNeil. You can find Prog 2185 in the 2000 ADweb shop and comic shops from 10 June.
Over to Patrick to tell us about putting together the cover… first the ideas after a commission from Tharg…
I had just finished Aquila and Matt offered me a cover to tide me over until my next scripts so it was great to draw Dredd again!
Initially, I thought there was going to be Mega-City 1 in the background but it wasn’t needed in the end so went with the simple face-off, and with a profile like Dredd’s, how can you not want to draw that?!!
First things first, cover design in blue roughs…
Are you dancing? Are you asking?
Next up, those wonderfully tight Goddard pencils…
With any large figure work I do, I tend to draw small and then enlarge it on my scanner, it helps me, for the most part, get the scale right.
It was a very quick cover to do, nothing too tricky to draw and probably had it all done in a day.
When the Law meets the Outlaw, we all know who’s going to come out the winner.This town ‘aint big enough for the both of us!
Then I just hand it over to the colour maestro that is Dylan Teague and he works his magic, all done!
And here’s the magic added by Dylan Teague!
Thanks to Patrick for letting us inside the making of his latest 2000 AD cover. Follow him on Twitter and pick up Prog 2185 from the shelves or in the 2000 AD web store!
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 and the Judge Dredd Megazine!
2000 AD Prog 2184 is out on 3 June, featuring a cover from Steven Austin. He first worked for 2000 AD with Prog 1982, providing the art for a Tharg’s Time Twister – The Timeless Assassin, as written by Rory McConville. Since then, he’s done a couple of Tharg 3Rillers, The House Of Gilded Peak, written by Eddie Robson, and Keeper of Secrets, written by Robert Wilson, and a Black Museum Tale from David Baillie.
Here’s the tale of how this iconic Dredd cover for the Prog came about…
So this cover was a pitch to Tharg. Inspiration comes from the most random of places and the inspiration for this came from a link to a band sent to me by a friend, the band is named Burning Flag, I think I’d probably just been watching some news article on YouTube about the US and Donald Trump and somewhere in that mix the idea for this cover image came to fruition.
(Prelim sketch by Austin – doodles don’t get much looser)
I began as always with some very loose doodles, I had an idea that I wanted Dredd in front of a burning US flag but wasn’t sure of composition etc. so went about doodling some options, initially, I envisaged a flag behind Dredd, waving in an apocalyptic wind whilst burning, however, as I went along I started to draw the flag framing Dredd and this stuck.
Once I’d decided upon the design I was going with I went my usual route and drew an A5 rough which I then scanned into PS.
(A5 rough – Judge versus flag – flag always gonna lose)
I then blew this up to A3, printed it off and light boxed the rough onto A3 bristol board. Next, it was a case of tightening everything up and making any small changes I decide upon.
(Final pencils – Just once, just the once, you’d love to see him smile)
Once happy with the final pencils, I begin inking using sizes 2 and 3 series 7 sable brushes with some scribbling at the end with various pens, just to give it a little more edge.
(Final inks – Dredd’s idea of a Superbowl anthem was never going to go down well )
On completing the inks I became concerned that perhaps the colourist wouldn’t realise that the flag should be burning so decided to produce a coloured rough, I printed out the inks, painted over them very quickly in Acrylic and then rescanned it in placing the original inks over the top in Photoshop.
(Colour rough – seriously, if Trump gets annoyed at NFL players kneeling – he’d lose his mind over Dredd’s flag attitude. )
Next, I then decided to go a step further and play around with some digital colours before sending it off to Tharg.
(Colour Rough 2 – The flag never stood a chance. Dredd’s law wins every time)
I think the final colours are a very happy medium as to the image and mood I originally envisaged and Quinton Winters’ own excellent interpretation.
As always, thanks to Steven for sharing the making of the cover! Grab 2000 AD Prog 2184 at a newsagent or comic shop near you or from the 2000 ADweb store from 3 June.
