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!

We’re off to take a look at the new Judge Dredd Megazine cover now – with the return of zarjaz cover star Alex Ronald and Mega-City 2099, taking us back to the earliest days of Dredd in 2000 AD!

Mega-City 2099 takes us back to the very first Dredd strips in the Prog, with a whole new set of adventures imagined by some of the finest script and art droids with that classic 1977 look and feel!

The new Mega-City 2099 inside Megazine 469 is by Ken Niemand and Conor Boyle, but on the cover this month, giving his very finest classic retro Dredd, we have superstar 2000 AD cover artist extraordinaire… Alex Ronald.

After an initial spell at 2000 AD in the mid-90s, Alex left for a second career in computer graphics, only to find the lure of Tharg too all-powerful, returning with a very different digital style and becoming one of the Mighty One’s specialist cover artists. And speaking of covers, here’s Alex to tell you all about this one…

ALEX RONALD: This cover is based on the Mega City 2099 strips so my first port of call was back to ZBrush to re-work the Dredd model I use for composition...

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ALEX RONALD: As you can see from the headshot, the early 70s style helmet is more rounded like a biker helmet and I reworked Dredd’s face to bring it more in line with the early look defined by Carlos Ezquerra and Mike McMahon.

My first draft for the cover was very close to what happens in the featured story, a giant superhuman lifting a Mega City police vehicle above his head and attacking the officers.

I have Dredd checking the pulse of an officer as the giant is reflected in a nearby window. 

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ALEX RONALD: In the end, I felt this might work okay as a story page panel but didn’t necessarily make a good cover image.

The final cover idea came from a panel from the very first Dredd story, but not the first printed. 

Yep… this one in fact, from the master, Carlos Ezquerra…

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ALEX RONALD: There’s a great low angle on Dredd drawn by Carlos firing his lawgiver. I based my cover on this but flipping the side so Dredd would be facing the right of the page rather into the spine.

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ALEX RONALD: My rough has Dredd on his own but by the time I went to painting up the full-colour image I thought it would add more value to add in the cops who had featured in the story.

Anyway I hope you like it, I had a lot of fun doing this one.

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Oh, we like it a lot! A mighty fine retro-inspired cover there from Alex! Thanks so much to Alex for taking the time to send over his art and talk to us about what he did. You can find the new Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 469, on the stands at your local newsagent, comic shop, and on the 2000 AD web shop right now!

If you want to read more about Judge Dredd 2099, we interviewed original series artist, Conor Boyle, here. And as for more from Alex, there’s been plenty of Covers Uncovered from one of 2000 AD’s modern cover specialists… Prog 2191, Prog 2206, Prog 2255, Prog 2294, Prog 2306, Prog 2353, Prog 2365, Prog 2372, and for Megazine 435 and 462.

Now, a little extra… going in close to some of Alex’s art…

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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, as we get to the ghafflebette finale to Ken Niemand and Nick Percival’s six-part run of Judge Dredd: Iron Teeth, it’s time to experience the classically grotesque art of another Percival cover…

Over six parts, Iron Teeth has taken Dredd (and us) down to the depths of the Undercity in a search for missing juves and to uncover the horrors to be found down in the darkness. And there’s no better artist when you’re looking for horrors and darkness than Nick Percival.

Between them, Ken & Nick are on a mission to bring even more of all things truly terrifying to Dredd, having started with The House On Bleaker Street (Progs 2247-2249) and then with Iron Teeth for the last six weeks. And as for what’s next… well, there are plans and there are plots, and then there’s the final page reveal that you’re all going to love on in this week’s Dredd!

Nick recently had this to say about what ‘s coming… ‘But yeah, we know what comes next and if The Mighty One is game, we’re ready to start scaring folks once again. I have some seriously dark stuff ready that will make Iron Teeth look like Aunt May, so I’m good to go.’

But no more teasing, over to Nick for the skinny on his latest cover…

NICK PERCIVAL: It’s the final episode, so nothing hiding in the shadows anymore and we fully reveal Iron Teeth. For this cover, I wanted a little more action than the previous two cover paintings, since this is the climax of the story and Dredd and Iron Teeth finally face off.

So, in best panto tradition, “he’s behind you!”

I thought a nice shot of Iron Teeth leaping out the darkness, attacking Dredd would work. (Full disclaimer – this actual scene doesn’t happen exactly like this in this episode but I did the cover before I got the final script, so there you go)

Anyway, you can see from the loose rough that all the elements are there for Tharg to approve. Big Dredd as the central image and a bit of a Dutch angle to the image to give it a more dynamic feel.

I guess this scene is the moment just before Dredd reacts to the attack – the second before he’d start blasting away with his Lawgiver – I should do a before and after image but in the episode you see how Dredd manages to take down the evil creature -with a little help from his Poundland C-3PO robot sidekick.

I wanted a cool palette for this one, so blues and greys, hopefully giving it a nice moody, spooky, almost mystical feel, keeping the tone that’s been established for the whole story and sticking with the underground setting.

So, that wraps it all up (for now) with a slightly longer episode and our reveal (spoiler!) on the last page as a certain evil, supernatural fella makes his return. I had a lot of fun working with Ken on this and taken as whole, you can see this is just the set up for much more terrifying things to come for Dredd…

Thanks to Nick for sharing yet another cover to send a proper chill all the way down your spine – you can find it right now wherever Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

We’ve talked to Nick twice here about Iron Teeth, with a great interview about the storyline here and his Covers Uncovered for Prog 2382 here.

Now, for more of Nick talking all things comics and art, there’s plenty more interviews waiting for you – He talked about his six years drawing those Dark Judges  here, plus Nick and David Hine talked Dark Judges: Deliverance here and Death Metal Planet here. And if you’re after something all together more audio and/or visual, Molch-R talks to Hine and Percival about all things Dark Judges in the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here.

Then there’s a real treasure trove of terror in Nick’s collection of Covers Uncovered pieces – beautiful never looked this terrifying before…Prog 2247, Megazine 425, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 433, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, Megazine 448, Megazine 453, Megazine 456, and Megazine 458.

And finally, Nick was good enough to send along some of his process work for a select few portions of Iron Teeth part 6… He even sent along images of the final page very special reveal that will no doubt play a BIG part in all things fearful for future Niemand & Percival Dredds. But there’s no way I’m risking the wrath of our Betelgeusian overlord and beloved purveyor of all things Thrill Power by showing you that! You’ll just have to enjoy the big reveal in this week’s Prog!

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 another ghafflebette cover by the one and only John McCrea (with colours by Jack Davies) for Prog 2386, so overflowing with Thrill Power that it’s turned into a special extra-length 48-page Prog with seven zarjaz strips inside.

One of the new strips – you’ll have guessed from the cover – is a brand-new multi-part thriller featuring everyone’s favourite blue-skinned G.I. – the return of Rogue Trooper in Souther Belle by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Dan Cornwell. We’re back on Nu-Earth and back with Rogue, Gunnar, Helm, and Bagman, investigating a mysterious and familiar voice that’s going to send Rogue off on a rescue mission deep into Nord territory.

For those of you worried about the mental health of the McCrea art droid after that slight circuit meltdown with the last cover, you’ll be pleased to know in advance that this one went a LOT more smoothly…

JOHN MCCREA: This cover was originally a commission that I did about four years ago. I was very pleased with it and after the news of the Rogue Trooper film, and guessing that there would be new material appearing in 2000 AD, I decided to send the picture in to Matt and see if he wanted to use it. Happily he did.

I often look around for a visual cue or idea that I think might give me the hook on which to base my cover. I Googled pictures of Vietnam as that’s the real conflict I think of when I think of Rogue’s war. This was the photo that made me sense the image that I wanted.

As you can see it’s just not simply tracing the drawing but just the idea of it that I needed to jump off, and this was the pencil drawing that resulted from that picture.

I’m not entirely sure why I made Rogue left-handed, but I’d imagine all Genetic Infantry are ambidextrous. It’s certainly a trait I would build in if I was creating the perfect soldier. There, I’ve solved my problem. 

I lightboxed my pencil sketch, and tightened it up, getting Gunnar right. He’s a tricky gun to draw, and I am sure I got the perspective wrong on the ammo clip. Not that I noticed at the time, sadly.

As with most things I’m doing when I’m inking myself, I kept the pencils reasonably loose and energetic, even in the redraw. The background is just shapes, an idea of the masses involved – rubble strewn ground is my bread and butter!

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Next I started inking, using a Mitsubishi unipin fine line pen…

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I finished the inking with a Zig Scroll and Brush for the heavier black areas and for thickening up the outlines. I dropped a gas mask in on the ground to imply the Nort menace…

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I then added a grey wash using watered down Indian ink. I thought this gave the picture more of a swirling, hazy feel that suited the subject. You can also see here that I altered Rogue’s right foot at this stage, it needed widening to give it more weight.

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When Matt confirmed that he was going to use the picture, I realised that I had not drawn it to 2000 AD proportions, so I extended the scan image using Photoshop. You can also see I finally remembered to clean up the correction lines on the right foot!

Once that was done it was off to Jack for colouring. 

I loved what Jack did with the color palette, but as you can see from this picture I am a fussy bastard! However, I think the end result was worth it.

Thankfully a hell of a lot simpler than the monumental exercise in getting it just right as the last cover! Thanks so much to John for sending all that through and it’s yet another in a series of really great character portraits of the finest of 2000 AD.

Prog 2386 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, there’s plenty here to bring before your eyeballs – Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, Prog 2361, not forgetting the near-breakdown inducing cover for Prog 2380’s Aquila cover, and his fabulous Armitage for Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 467.

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 not one but two art droids – Pye Parr and PJ Holden – collaborating on the brand-new Intestinauts cover to 2000 AD Prog 2385…

Pye Parr and Arthur Wyatt’s Intestinauts have returned for more bowel-bothering brilliance in their latest series – Busted Flush – that reaches part 4 in this week’s Prog 2285.

Usually called in for oral application for those tummy troubles, the Intestinauts are miraculous micro-droids who do battle in the nightmarish conditions of your GI tract. But in Busted Flush, they’ve found themselves in unfamiliar territory, as the Instestolab is compromised and they’ve no choice but to do battle with the terrifying Omega-Genocide-Four.

As for the cover and why it’s both Pye and PJ Holden involved… we’ll let Pye & PJ tell you the tale…

PYE PARR: Initially I was going to draw this myself, but deadlines being what they are (and my time-keeping being what it is…), I realised about a week from the print date I was never going to get it drawn in time, so I asked PJ if he could save me from the wrath of The Mighty One and do all the hard work for me.

Luckily he could, and did it with style!

I sent him the rough Matt had approved, plus some ref from the strip pages and we went from there.

PYE PARR: Nobody else has drawn Intestinauts before, so I was quite excited to see what he came up with. I think the only thing I asked for was the brain on a separate layer to the dudes so I could knock back the linework.

Being a TruePro(tm) he smashed it, improving on the rough by bringing one of the robots forward to give it a bit more depth. 10/10, no notes. 

PJ HOLDEN: So Pye phones me, and says “Oi! Mate, can yer do me a cover, quick like, for the mighty one doth protest mightily at my tardiness!” and I says, “But you don’t have a TARDIS” and he says, “No, tardy – TARDY” and I says, “Wow, mate, I don’t think you can use that word no more, as it’s pretty offensive”.

So then he emails me, asking if I can do him a cover, and the fool that he is attaches his rough, and I take one look at it and think – but I can bang this out in 10 minutes? And he’s gonna pay me for that? What an eejit.

PYE PARR: HA!! I think the important thing is: it may have taken you 10 minutes, but it would have taken me about 4 hours, and I didn’t have ’em!

PJ HOLDEN: So then I drop his rough into clip studio, drop an image from Wikipedia of a brain over it, and then just sort of trace it and turn it around in an hour and a half (because I had to stop halfway through to have a sandwich and do some messages, and have a nap) and send him the inks.

PJ HOLDEN: Largely I just inked over his roughs, but I did think the two little ’nauty bots floating side by side could do with a bit of jussin’ up, so I drew one like he was a bit closer and one a bit further. We talked a little about trying to get some depth in to the picture.

PJ HOLDEN: My email to Pye about this read “Bit busy-looking in the centre but all elements are layered, so you can play with that a bit and blur some of it…” – i.e., fix it in the colours, mate! I knew no matter what a mess I made Pye was gonna colour it lovely and it would look great, and I was right.

PYE PARR: He did it with days to spare too, but time was so tight at my end I had to colour it on the day of the print deadline.

PYE PARR: I remember phoning Matt at about 5.30, and the way he answered the phone very much suggested he was expecting bad news… 

“H-hello…” 
“IT’S DONE!!” 
“OH, thank God!” 

Hah. 

Very much taking it to the limit – but sometimes greatness takes time! Thank you so much to both Pye and PJ for taking the time. Hopefully the punishment from Tharg won’t be too damaging to mind, body, and soul!

You can see what nearly gave Tharg’s Earthly representative conniptions on the shelves, real and virtual, everywhere the Mighty One’s finest is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more about those incredible Intestinauts, always there to alleviate your alimentary ailments, look no further than this interview with Arthur and Pye from 2021 and you can see & hear them chat all things Intestinauts on the Thrill Cast here and here.

For even more of Pye Parr’s artwork on Covers Uncovered – take a look at these – Megazine 443, Prog 2230, and Prog 2275. And to see how PJ Holden puts his covers together, we have these for your consideration – Covers Uncovered work, complete with the previous exploits of Chimpsky – Prog 2178, Prog 2221, Prog 2234, Prog 2301, and Prog 2308.

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!

Another zarjaz Nick Percival cover this week for the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2384, Earthlets, with Dredd stalking through the undercity in search of Iron Teeth…

We’re up to part three of the six-part Judge Dredd: Iron Teeth by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, and Dredd’s deep in the undercity looking for those juves who’ve got themselves mixed up with the nightmarish urban legend made oh so real, Iron Teeth. And if you’re talking nightmarish, there’s few artists out there who do it as well as Nick does!

Nick apologises for this one being a bit of a quickie, but that’s because he was busy stealing a moment from Tharg to answer a few interview questions for us about this latest Dredd series, his art, and what it’s like to be bringing the horror to Dredd! So we’ll forgive him that. Tharg though? Well, our Betelgeusian boss might not be so forgiving and then Nick’s really going to experience a nightmare all his own!

Okay then, without further ado… Nick Percival…

NICK PERCIVAL: We’re hitting the middle of the story, so time to finally get a clear reveal of Dredd’s new nemesis, Iron Teeth.

I wanted a big, punchy close-up of the creature’s face, leaving nothing to the imagination and here he is. Of course, we need Dredd on there too, so the the image was always going to be a montage piece with Dredd on the hunt in the foreground and Iron Teeth’s ugly mug taking up the lion’s share of the piece.

As with all my cover roughs, everything is very loose, just to get the idea down quick and give Tharg an idea of what he’ll be getting.

I wanted a very different colour palette from Part 1’s cover, so went for blues as the dominant colour. Since Iron Teeth is a supernatural being, the plan was to give it a slightly hazy, mystical feel, with the swirling blue mist and so on.

Hopefully it stands out on the shelves and makes you want to dive into the spooky stuff inside…

And that’s it folks! Short but sweet… well, not sweet so much as a hideous vision of what Dredd’s having to deal with right now, but you get the idea!

Thanks so much to Nick for taking the time and sending the art over for this one. You can find it out right now everywhere Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

As for more of Nick’s Covers Uncovered work, there’s plenty to be looking at – start off with the most recent, his intro to Iron Teeth on the wrapround cover of Prog 2382 and then take a look at these – Prog 2247, Megazine 425, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 433, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, Megazine 448, Megazine 453, Megazine 456, and Megazine 458.

We’ve also interviewed Nick a few times – he talks about finishing six years worth of work on the Dark Judges work here and we’ve talked to Nick and Dark Judges’ writer David Hine about two Dark Judges storylines – Deliverance here and Death Metal Planet here. And finally, Molch-R talks to Hine and Percival about all things Dark Judges in the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here.   

Finally, as has become a thing now, time to zoom in to that fabulously horrific artwork to really send a shiver down your spine…

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, not one but two Brink covers from Brink series artist INJ Culbard – for the new Prog 2383 and his last cover for Prog 2379. Both perfectly, absolutely, brilliantly Brink…

Throughout Brink’s previous five books, Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard have delivered something perfect – a sci-fi thriller and a crime noir procedural in a universe where the last of humanity has been forced to evacuate to overpopulated space station habitats, the Habs. Against an ever-more nightmarish world of sect-crime and madness, we’ve been with Habitat Security Officer Bridget Kurtis from the start, watching with her as things get strange and as Mercury went dark.

Now we’re into Brink Book Six: Consumed, with Kurtis part of a team finally tasked with delving deeper into what happened with Mercury and where the sects come into it all. But before all that, we have Kurtis on a 10-day stopover on Belleholme Hab. Bonner’s off enjoying the golf.

Kurtis? Well, she’s always one to find trouble no matter where she is, and it’s usually sect-related…

We’ve had a few weeks of Brink: Consumed by now and two excellent Culbard covers. But Tharg has been even stricter later with the art droids and reckons they should be grateful for the regularly scheduled breaks they get – after all, what could an art droid do with more than 30 minutes every couple of weeks?

All that means that this week you get a two-for-one – two incredible Prog covers, one zarjaz artist. So, without further ado, over to Ian, starting with Prog 2379…

INJ CULBARD: I’m going to talk about the first two covers I’ve done for the Prog in relation to Brink: Consumed (Book Six). 

The brief for the first was simple. Habitat in space, the mouth we see in Book Five and on the first page of this series to be seen as if consuming (as per the title for this run) the Habitat itself.

So I responded quickly to the brief with the following image (and a brief explanation in case it wasn’t clear what I’d drawn). I have a general layout I’ve been following since… I can’t think when. Certainly, Book Five, where there’s a circular centre to the composition.

Oh no Ian, it’s way, way further back than that – right the way back to Prog 1989 we reckon.

INJ CULBARD: Part of the reason I do this is because I know that any one of these covers is likely to serve as the cover to the next collected volume and if you look at the Brink logo on those books, it has this curving crescent that cuts through it, so I’m covering all my bases. I’m ensuring it can work for either cover, for the Prog or the collection. 

I got the thumbs up to go ahead.

The initial pass was too cartoony. I think I deleted it. Gone forever. Good riddance. Instead of the heavenly maelstrom, I ended up working the fur into a dissolve into black starry background for the final thing, so here’s all that fur work… 

And then to color, working with the established palette. So, in all, a really simple process.

The next one, not so much. That was way harder for some reason. 

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Next brief: The sigils and some drops of blood from the slaughterhouse. 

So I knew we would see the faces of Bridge and Wade reflected in these drops of blood, and so I quickly sent over the following image.

I got approval and then proceeded. And what I ended up with I simply didn’t like.

I happen to still have it on my desktop so I’ll show you that now so you can see what a difference self-doubt and second-guessing makes.

It just didn’t work for me. Too messy? Too close?

So I went back to the drawing board, and took a step back both in terms of assessment but also visually, scaling the characters down so they were further away and showing more of the building behind them, warping in the volume of this blob of blood, not colouring the line… just keeping with the drawing.

Throwing in some pedestrians, giving the eye more work to do.

So you’ve got this guy (second on the left) wearing a Roscoe’s hat… if you remember Book Five, we briefly see that Roscoe’s is a no-tell hotel and everything is very pink and magenta in that hotel, so that guy’s wearing pink tinted shades, so I guess everywhere is like being in Roscoe’s for him. I don’t know about you but when I see extras/bit parts in stories I start giving them little biographies.

And then colours, again using established palettes, but I liked the way reflective surfaces are portal-like. So she’s observing and everything is back to front, kind of where she’s at in the investigation, you sort of think you know what you’re looking at but something isn’t quite right.  

Wow – two covers to double your Thrill Power! So many thanks to Ian for sending them our way. They’re both absolutely stunning, perfect covers to show off one of the greatest modern tales of the Prog!

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2383 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 17 August. And if you happened to miss Prog 2279 – how about checking out a subscription to guarantee you’ll never miss any more of the Galaxy’s Greatest?

Of course, you REALLY, REALLY need to have all five volumes of Brink in your life and on your shelves – a stunning series that rewards repeated reading so well – buy them here – Brink Book One, Brink Book Two, Brink Book Three, Brink Book Four, Brink Book Five.

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Finally, be sure to check out all of Ian’s Covers Uncovered pieces for Brink – 2000 AD Prog 1978 & Prog 1989, 2000 AD Prog 2039, 2000 AD Prog 2272, 2000 AD Prog 2278, 2000 AD Prog 2284, 2000 AD Prog 2295.

And now, more covers from Ian from Brink over the years – perfect to see what Ian’s talking about with the circular design features…

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!

Borag Thungg Earthlets! Time to head over to the Judge Dredd Megazine for this latest Covers Uncovered – with Megazine 468 adorned by the latest incredible John Higgins art for the new series of Dreadnoughts – Nothing To Fear…

The third series of Michael Carroll and John Higgins’ Drednoughts starts right now in this month’s Megazine with Nothing To Fear. We’re right back to the very start of the Justice Department once more, right back to the difficult transition faced by America as democracy falls and the rule of the Judges takes hold.

Except this time, we’ve moved from seeing how Judge Glover dispensed Justice in Colorado and on to Judge Beckett, riding into a small town in Wyoming that’s just not ready for the new regime at all.

It’s 2035 AD – Obey the law and you’ll have nothing to fear… yeah, right…

As John will tell you in a moment, he’s not been able to send along a full set of process images for this one, just the final image worked up – it’s a case of Tharg’s art droids just keeping their heads down and drawing, drawing, drawing. Well, wouldn’t you with Mek-Quake lumbering over you threateningly?

But still – plenty of process to look at for what’s become another really quite stunning series of Dreadnoughts covers.

First things first though, it all started with Tharg’s Earthly representative getting in touch with an idea for what was required…  

JOHN HIGGINS: The cover started with Matt’s “I was thinking of a moody shot of a Judge silhouetted by rain and lightning”

We tried a couple of ideas, with full body and more abstract silhouetted which was moody but probably too abstract. I had done a depiction of Judge Beckett without his helmet, (colour by Sally Jane Hurst) and I liked the unflinching deep set eyes looking coldly out, it just sparked his character for me.

That’s this shot of Judge Beckett from a future episode…

JOHN HIGGINS: So for this cover I had him back in his Judges helm but kept the eyes. Matt felt it has the strength in the cover image he wanted, very “judgmental’ – you know that, in this guy’s eyes, you ARE found wanting!

I did a digital colour rough, I wanted to work out colour and wet detail.

The final physical painting I unfortunately forgot to photo at each stage, Sally Jane keeps telling me off for not doing that, but I was just head down going for it.

Well, Sally Jane, as always, is absolutely right John! So hopefully we’ll have more images to show you from the Higgins droid. As it is though, you have this fabulous set of process shots of the digital work, each stage adding layers and colours and details – leaving us with Judge Beckett giving us the epitome of ‘a moody shot of a Judge silhouetted by rain and lightning’ – just as requested!

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And all of that leads John to go physical for the final painting. No process of that, as John mentioned, but there is this absolute beauty of an image that we’ll end with…

Thanks so much to John for sending along this latest stunner of a cover through to us – you can find it everywhere Thrill Power is sold right now, comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 AD webshop. You just won’t

For more on Dreadnoughts, be sure to take a look at another striking image with John’s Covers Uncovered for Megazine 429. And the first series of Dreadnoughts, Breaking Ground, with another gorgeous cover for Megazine 455 and Dreadnoughts: The March Of Progress. Plus, we’ve interviewed Michael Carrol and John Higgins about Dreadnoughts in print at the Megazine in issue 425. But that was a long, long interview that just wouldn’t fit in the Meg – luckily, we were able to put up all the extras right here. And finally, some entertainment for your eyes and ears – John was video-interviewed for 2000 AD’s From The Drawing Board here and Mike and John were interviewed for the Thrillcast Lockdown Tapes here.

And of course, you should absolutely be gazing lovingly to your bookshelf right now and seeing the first collection – Dreadnoughts: Breaking Ground. If you happen to be missing that, get with the clicky-clicky and buy it now 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!

Borag Thungg, Earthlets! – 2000 AD Prog 2382 sees the debut of another great Dredd from the Niemand and Percival droids, Iron Teeth, and we’re talking to Nick Percival about a stunning wrapround cover to start the story off…

The new six-parter Iron Teeth sees Dredd investigating a mythical monster, one that’s got all the juves riled up and talking about hunting down the mysterious thing they’ve christened Iron Teeth. But when a group of juves head down into the tunnels under Mega-City One, they’re about to discover that the mythical Iron Teeth is way more terrifying than anything they could have imagined.

Written by Ken Niemand, this one has the return of the beautifully horrific or horrifically beautiful artwork of Nick Percival. They were last together on Dredd with the three-parter The House on Bleaker Street (Progs 2247-2249), where they had Dredd investigating a house with a reputation and a nightmarish holdover from Necropolis.

As Nick will tell you, he and the Niemand droid are planning on diving deeper and deeper into the horrors of Dredd’s world in Iron Teeth, all starting on the cover here for a series that Nick first trailed with this teaser painting…

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NICK PERCIVAL: Back for a spooky Dredd six-parter, so you better bring your big boy pants…

I did a teaser painting for the series first that was printed as a pin-up. This was done very early on when Ken Niemand and I were chucking ideas back and forth. The teaser was just to convey the mood and tone for the series and give us a vague glimpse of Iron Teeth – it was me basically thinking out loud on the digital art board. I wanted to experiment a little more with my style, getting a bit more scratchy and raw in places, rather than keeping everything super slick – I had a lot of fun creating that piece.

So, onto the first cover and it was nice to go for a wraparound image to hopefully get things off to a strong start.

I wanted a little widescreen movie poster feel to the layout but the content can only act as another teaser as we don’t want to give away too much or reveal our big bad properly just yet. As you can see from the extremely loose rough, Iron Teeth is all in shadow, Nosferatu style –  we get a look at the kids of the story and of course as always, grumpy bastard, Dredd looming over everything…

At this very rough stage, I hadn’t fully developed the look of the children, so it’s nothing much more than basic placeholder elements as I worked on their designs.

We talked about the film, ‘Stand By Me’ as a starting point and that fits in well with the kids’ attitudes and how we wanted to develop them both visually and personality-wise. I did briefly consider a version of that movie poster for the cover image but ultimately went with what we have here.

For the the final painted art, it’s all very much high contrast reds, yellows and orange tones – very warm. It’s kind of arty farty symbolic since, in the story, Dredd and the kids descend deeper and deeper into what is the hell-scape environment of Iron Teeth’s sinister lair.

In early episodes, the colour palette starts very cool and slowly becomes hotter as we progress. Give me that art ‘A’ level now, please.

Without spoilers, this new story does link back to our previous Dredd horror outing, The House On Bleaker Street and it doesn’t end cleanly. We have plans to expand this horror side of Dredd’s world and are sowing some dark and crusty seeds that will hopefully pay off down the line.

There will be blood…

Now that’s the sort of cover that jumps off the shelves at you, all thanks to Nick’s incredible artwork. Our thanks to Nick for sharing all that zarjaz imagery here with us!

You can find 2000 AD 2382 everywhere the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop from 15 May.

If you’re in the mood for more of Nick’s Covers Uncovered work, be sure to have a look at these – Prog 2247, Megazine 425, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 433, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, Megazine 448, Megazine 453, Megazine 456, and Megazine 458.

And we’ve talked to Nick all about the six years of Dark Judges work he’s terrified us with here, plus we’ve talked with the Dark Judges team of David Hine and Nick about two Dark Judges storylines – Deliverance here and Death Metal Planet here. And finally, Molch-R talks to Hine and Percival about all things Dark Judges in the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here.   

Now, a bit of a bonus thanks to Nick sending along huge images for us – giving us the chance to give you some blow-ups from various bits of the cover and teaser image to really show you just all the terrifically terrifying detail that goes into things. But first, a couple of teasers for the new Iron Teeth series…

Iron Teeth’s lair…

The foolhardy juves who go down in search of Iron Teeth…

And the man who’s going in there after them…

Now, some of those blow-ups we were promising from Nick’s incredible cover…

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!

Borag Thungg once more Earthlets, time to take a look at the latest Thrill-Powered cover by John McCrea, adorning the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2380 with the McCrea droid showing us Aquila in action down in Hades on a hell-born steed!

Inside this week’s Prog, we’ve reached part 4 in the latest instalment of Gordon Rennie and Patrick Goddard’s sword and sorcery tale of blood and nightmares as Aquila’s time in the underworld has boiled over into all-out war in The Rivers Of Hades Book Two.

Aquila’s down in Hades to free the soul of Nero, the only one who can lead him to Ammit The Devourer, the underworld goddess of retribution. She bestowed upon Aquila the curse of immortality in return for providing the souls of evil men for her sustenance. But Aquila’s grown weary and wants to be freed of the curse – which is why we find him down in Hades right in the middle of The Battle of the Rebellion of the Dead!

And I know it’s John McCrea’s Covers Uncovered but we can’t resist sharing with you this zarjaz panel from the start of this episode by Patrick Goddard… it’s just everything you’re going to love about Aquila…

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Okay, enough going wow over the Goddard droid’s fabulous interiors. Let’s hand this over to John McCrea to tell you all about a cover that was a long time in the making – for all the wrong reasons. Strap yourselves in, it’s a good one…

JOHN MCCREA: Ok, this cover demonstrates a certain amount of instability in the McCrea droid’s circuits. The brief was to draw our hero charging forward on horseback towards a group of demons in hell.

So I immediately forgot about the horse (or never noticed) and drew Aquila running towards us, sword drawn with demons in hot pursuit…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg ok-ed it and I prepared to ink. The following morning I woke up, looked at my drawing and hated it, so I scrapped it. I felt the figure was two stiff and upright.

[Okay everyone – let’s keep count at home – that’s one McCrea cover scrapped]

JOHN MCCREA: I then penciled this…

JOHN MCCREA: Once again, old green bonce approved, so I went to inks.

I added the same demons from the previous drawing into the background.

JOHN MCCREA: I sent it to Jack Davies, who coloured it up not realizing the horror that was in store for him. As you can see from my notes there were some changes I wanted…

JOHN MCCREA: I think it was at this point that I realized that I actually hated this drawing as well.

I felt there was no dynamic to it, even though I had really tried to put a lot of dynamism into it.

It looked more like he was going to fall over, due to the way he was carrying his swords. Maybe I was trying too hard. So I scrapped this drawing too.

[And yes, that’s cover number two scrapped – this one made it all the way to Jack Davies’s colours!]

JOHN MCCREA: I then pencilled this. I’ve always loved floating heads on covers and interiors thanks to guys like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. However, I don’t think my heart was really in it and the heads really don’t look very good. I think I was finding it hard to focus due to the headache this cover was giving me.

JOHN MCCREA: Nonetheless, I inked it, adding flames behind the running figure and using the transform tool in Photoshop to warp the heads a bit…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg, who I imagine was beginning to lose his patience with me, approved this cover too, so off to Jack it went.

The colours came back but I felt they were too dark and not punchy enough…

JOHN MCCREA: I did this to it, but at this point I was starting to have a gnawing feeling in my dark, shrivelled little soul that I was not very happy with this cover either.

[Of course he wasn’t – We think you’re all seeing where this is going, right?]

JOHN MCCREA: Sure enough, the next day I scrapped it as well.

[Well you all saw that coming, right? That’s three completed covers gone by now, two of which poor Jack has coloured. Who’s going to do bad things to the McCrea droid first, an aggrieved colourist or a frustrated Tharg?]

JOHN MCCREA: I went back to the original brief and realised that Matt (Tharg’s Terran name) had originally asked for Aquila on horseback. I love drawing horses so it confused me that I had missed this. I drew a demonic-looking horse, requisite flames, and shadowy hero figure.

At this point, I realised I had finally got it right.

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg once again approved, but said he would be sending Mek Quake around to my hab if I tried changing anything else! So I dutifully progressed to inks. It’s funny but as soon as my pen hit the paper to ink this, I knew I had got it right.

JOHN MCCREA: I added digital tones for a little more grit…

JOHN MCCREA: Off to Jack, who was having a nervous breakdown at this point, for colours.

Jack was obviously inspired as well as I only had a few notes…

JOHN MCCREA: And that was that. All in, it took me about a week to draw this cover. Which is ridiculous.

But I am mostly happy with the finished result.

Apologies to Jack.

Thanks so much to the McCrea droid for another ghafflebette cover and the rollercoaster of emotions he gave us in the telling of it being put together. It just goes to show, you just have to keep on going and keep trying until you get it right! And always say sorry to your colourist!

Prog 2380 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, we’ve plenty here at 2000 AD.com to tickle your fancies – some cracking Dredds on Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, and Prog 2361, plus his most recent for the Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 467, which is out right now as well!

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!

Borag Thungg Earthlets – we’re taking you back in time now to a whole two weeks ago to take a look at the incredible cover and process Aquila artist Patrick Goddard put into the cover for 2000 AD Prog 2378…

Right now in the pages of 2000 AD you can find the latest blood-soaked sword and sorcery tale of one time Gladiator Aquila in The Rivers Of Hades Book Two.

Originally one of Spartacus’ failed rebel army, gladiator Aquila ended up with a Roman eagle carved into his chest and crucified for his part, along with 6,000 others. In his dying moments his prayers to the ancient Gods of his ancestors are answered by Ammit the Devourer, underworld goddes of retribution. Made ageless and powerful, Aquila served his mistress well, hunting down and dispatching the souls of evil men across the Empire for Ammit to feast on. But after far too many years of bloodshed, Aquila has found the price for his salvation far too high and he’s now decided he wants out of the deal.

But the only way to do that is to confront Ammit herself. And the first part of that is to find her, which is why he’s ventured down into the pits of Hades to retrieve the spirit of Nero, who knows where to find her.

And that’s where we are right now in The Rivers of Hades Book Two. Aquila, Hades, Spartacus, Demons (many, many demons), and the souls of the damned joining up into two mighty armies. It’s absolute hell – literally – and the blood is going to flow down in Hades until Aquila gets what he wants!

As for why this Covers Uncovered is a little late, Patrick apologises for the delay in getting this to us – something about our Lord and Master, The Mighty One, His Thargness himself making sure that the Goddard droid was getting the pages for Aquila in on time and had assigned Mek-Quake to make sure he didn’t do anything but draw, draw, draw.

Anyway, without further ado… over to Patrick to tell us all about putting this one together…

PATRICK GODDARD: This was one of the most straightforward briefs for a cover, a simple shot of Aquila charging the Goat type demon on horseback that features in the episode.

I sent through the usual 6 ideas, trying to work out a composition that allows the action to flow and still have enough room for any type on the cover.

Number 5 was the winner…

So I went straight into the pencils, this time at A4 and enlarged it to A3 to trace off onto the art board. I made a few tweaks to the ‘horse’ to get more of a look of their face but failed to capture the same energy of Aquila riding compared to the thumbnail (this happens all too often unfortunately!).

I added a bit of ink wash and background as I had the time, it didn’t need it, it was more of me wanting to make the original art to work a little better…

Then it was off to Dylan who did a fab job as always with the colours!

That’s super-colourist Dylan Teague and yes, he’s always going over and above to make every cover he colours absolutely pop!

Another stunning cover from Patrick that hacked and slashed its way off the shelves recently! If you missed it, why not do yourselves a favour and pick it up from the 2000 AD web shop. But better yet, save yourself the worry of ever missing another dose of the Galaxy’s Greatest by taking out a subscription – Thrill Power delivered right to your door!

And for more of that Goddard greatness, there’s plenty more online here at 2000 AD.com to delight your optical circuits! We’ve interviewed him twice, about the Judge Dredd: Special Relationship story (written by Rob Williams) here, and about Judge Dredd: Unearthed (with Williams and Chris Weston) here. For those of you who like to listen, there’s a 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here with Patrick, Garth Ennis, and Keith Burns talking Battle Action, and Patrick talks to Molch-R in the 2000 AD Lockdown Tapes here. As for more Covers Uncovered, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing Patrick’s art on the covers of Progs 2185, 2205, 2219, 2244, and 2264, plus the recent Megazine 466 and his upcoming Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley cover.

And finally, make sure to follow Patrick on Twitter and Instagram.