A particular passion of mine is getting my favourite artdroids to do commissions for me. Nothing matches the thrill of having someone who’s work you’ve absolutely adored since you were a child create a piece of artwork especially for you. A case in point is shown at the top of this post, it's the final version of my beloved Dredd vs Death commission by the legendary Cliff Robinson, and here's a WIP below...
This commission adheres to the eventual ‘theme’ I chose for my commissions - Dredd battling a famous villain in, or around, Pete Wells Block. I chose this idea as I found putting my likeness into a commission was too jarring and a bit of a distraction, taking the focus away from Dredd.This is demonstrated by the first of my beautiful Ian Gibson commissions. Ian is an absolute hero of mine and was the first artist I went to for a commission. I was thrilled (and not to mention completely geeked-out) when he agreed to paint me being arrested by Dredd and, of course, Anderson, as no one in the business draws women as well as he!
As I loved the piece and the whole process so much, I asked him to paint me another. This time, Dredd fighting Mean Machine at my eponymous block. This beauty is HUGE and has elements in it that I’ve stared at for hours!
Around the same time, my good friend Mark Willis was also getting a Dredd done by Gibson, his wonderful image is below...
Well and truly bitten by the commissioning bug, I contacted more artists who’s work I love. One of them was the amazing Chris Weston who painted me this Dredd vs. Death in absolute record time. I was thrilled to see it make an appearance in his hilarious Future Shock ‘Counts As One Choice’ in prog 1645...
I bought some Megazine Mean Machine artwork from Dredd artist and Sinister Dexter creator David ‘Max’ Millgate which led to some great commissions from him.Firstly, a Dredd vs Death vs Mean...
This beautiful Dredd on his Lawmaster. I adore the coloured version, it'd make a great cover...
And, of course a Sinister Dexter, afterall, he is their mammy! I particularly like this one as Ramone and Finny are off to Washington (in the North-East of England), presumably to whack me as that's were I live...
David is into self publishing at the moment and I suggest you check out his Machine Punk graphic novels from Lulu.com, it's great, very 2000AD!Similarly, after buying some pages from Savage and Dredd artist Patrick Goddard, I commissioned him to do me Dredd at the old Wellsy Block too. Instead of a villain, I asked for Dredd on his Lawmaster as I reckon he draws some of the best around...
My wonderful missus also contacted him and got me this for Christmas, Patrick told me he was going to have Dredd arresting me for looking at smut but the missus dissuaded him, the bloody spoilsport!
Sticking with Patrick Goddard, and (finally) getting this post on the topic of covers, my pal Steve Millar commissioned him to do some modern day recreations of classic covers. Namely Brian Boland’s Captain Skank cover of Prog 199...
As well as Mick McMahon’s Walter the Wobot cover of Prog 89...
I love seeing modern-day Dredd in these old classics, as well as the subtle little changes the artists bring! Plus, give me a Mk2 Lawgiver over those weedy, dainty looking Mark 1's anyday!More recently, Steve got the genius that is Mr Cliff Robinson to recreate McMahon’s Cursed Earth Cover of Prog 83 which features a bruised and battered Dredd battling the Legion of the Damned, absolutely amazing stuff...
This isn't the first time Cliff has been commissioned to do cover re-creations, Mark Willis, who probably has more of Robinson's art than anyone else, asked him to re-create some of his earlier masterpieces that were unfortunately water damaged. Mark wanted the classic ‘Believe it!” cover of Prog 511...
As well as one of my personal all time favourites, the wonderful 'Statues of Liberty' cover of 495...
Cliff has probably graced more 2000AD related covers than any other artist and has, on occassion, been asked by Tharg himself to recreate the covers of classic progs for other publications. For 'The Complete Judge Dredd' magazine, he was asked to recreate McMahon's Cursed Earth iconic cover of Prog 61, which he did with stunning results...
A final commission piece for this post is the stunning Dredd vs. the Dark Judges painting below. This beauty was again commissioned by Mark Willis, this time from Greg Staples, and it's absolutely gorgeous!
Thank you for posting these wonderful commissions. Mr Robinson's reworking of the Cursed Earth is probably my favourite, but there's not a single piece here that isn't really impressive. If I owned these pieces, I think I'd spend hours staring at them too, as you wrote you've done with Mr Gibson's work. Great stuff!
ReplyDeletePete, yet more wonderful work on your blog. I applaud you sir. Those are ace.
ReplyDeleteHey, Pete, I've just found two pages of thumbnail roughs I did for the Dredd vs. Death commission. I'll bung them in the post to you on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit confused as to why the 2000AD Logo on the 'Believe It' cover is in black & white as I'm sure I coloured it.
Love all the other commissions featured above, but I think Staples' painting is just TOO Zarjaz.
I'd wager that the Dredd vs the legion of the Damned is as good as the original Cliff and being that that cover is probably one of my all time top 10 2000ad covers that's saying something.
ReplyDeleteA joy to see this work as always.Thanx for posting these up.
ReplyDelete=)
Wiggz.