Monday 31 October 2011

Simon Davis' biggest fan!

That man Simon Davis is back with another perfectly designed and executed cover for the galaxy's greatest! The cover features Ampney Crucus (hopefully) rescuing his loyal Butler Eddie Cromwell from the tentacles of an utter rotter in a rather horrific alternate dimension.

Below is Simon's rough, which shows a much tighter shot than the finished design. Hmmm, I really like this...
And again, that rather spiffing final image. Top show from the Davis chap, what?
Thanks to Simon for sending the rough and Pye for the finished cover!

Saturday 29 October 2011

Neil Roberts - Look-In' Good!


My word, what a brilliant cover by digital master, Neil Roberts! It's criminal that the shelf life of our beloved prog is only a week when droids such as he are regularly creating such stunning images!

Neil has a written an excellent piece on his blog about the cover which is for new thrill Angel Zero. The artist discusses his love of Look In, the hugely popular television-based comic of the seventies, eighties and nineties which I'm sure many readers will fondly remember. The comic featured the work of many 2000AD artists, including legendary Angel Zero artist John Burns as well as the brilliant Arthur Ranson. Many of the covers were often painted by renowned film poster artist Arnaldo Pitzu, who's work had a profound effect on young Master Roberts!

Pitzu's bold colour palette was the inspiration for Neil's cover. You can see how he has taken the lush purples and greens from the covers below and used them as the basis for the background of his own dazzling creation.
Below we can see Neil's initial sketches for the cover...


And, of course, it would not be a Neil Roberts cover without one of his hilarious photo refs. This time, Neil has spared us one of his trademark gurning pictures and has concentrated on giving us a look down the back of his pants instead - niiiiiice!
I don't want to tread on Neil's toes so I won't say much more, please go to his wonderful blog and read more about the cover (and have your brain frazzled by some of his other amazing work) from the man himself!
Thanks to the amazing Mr Roberts for sending the pictures, yet another contender for cover of the year!

Saturday 15 October 2011

Simon Davis - Looking Rough...

Simon Davis is a phenomenal, award winning fine artist who's painted covers and artwork always add an extra touch of class to the prog. However, with this traditional approach comes a perfectly old school attitude. When I first started this blog, Simon was one of the first artists I contacted, asking for roughs and, in particular, work in progress pictures of his beautiful work. I got a very nice reply from the artist, admitting that he was very much of the old guard, in fact, he said "I don't even have a scanner, I deliver the actual artwork and Tharg does the rest, I'm very much a Luddite with artwork!"

Recently, though this seemed to have changed as I was delighted to receive these roughs from the great man. I excitedly contacted him, asking if he'd finally dragged himself into the 20th(!) century and got himself a scanner... Alas, it was not to be "I'm afraid I still live in a Dickensian world so don't have a scanner...the photos are taken with a camera."

Bah, still he's getting there I suppose! Above you can see the rough for the beautiful Angel Zero cover to Prog 1751...

Followed by the thumbnail for the Ampney Crucis cover of Prog 1754, stunning!


Thanks again to Simon for sending these amazing covers!

The Monstrous Machinations of N Percival!

Yuck! What a horrible, creepy cover this is by the brilliant Nick Percival! This cover is for the reality bending mind-drokk that is Indigo Prime by John Smith and Edmund Bagwell.

Nick gives us the lowdown on this glorious cover. "Tharg wanted a pure white cover with some Lovecraft style tentacles slowly breaking out into our reality, so to speak. I actually had the Blu-ray of ‘Monsters’ playing in the background while I was painting this, so don’t know if it had a subtle influence or not on the creature…who knows? Quite a minimalist cover that hopefully works well.” Well, I've got to say it works really, really well!

As well as sending the cover, Nick sent a stunning commission he'd just finished based on a classic Bolland Batman cover, amazing! If you're up for a commission from the man, contact him through his site!

Thanks a million to Nick for sending the cover, I love it!

Thursday 13 October 2011

Up Close and Personal with Cliff Robinson


Another detailed study of the inner workings of the justice department from the master that is Cliff Robinson. As mentioned in this article, Cliff is king of the Lawgiver so it's nice to see him giving us some details! Below we see Cliff's photo reference with the artist obviously the proud owner of a Termight Replicas version of the gun...

Next the coloured version of the cover with a test title...

And the finished cover without the text - lovely!

One of the many things I love about Cliff's work, his attention to detail. He's a true craftsman who obviously puts a lot of thought into how things work. For example, take the cover of Prog 1538 below, we get to see how each buckle, strap and fastener works on Dredd's pads and boots as well as a new take on the classic boot holster design. Brilliant...

Another ingenious close up of Cliff's is this painted cover of Prog 706, giving us a fearsome reflection of Dredd's visage in the legendary Cyclops Phylon TX Laser - classic!
Many thanks to the glorious Mr Robinson for sending this weeks' images - just FIVE more covers and he will equal King Carlos as most published voer artist on the prog!

Monday 10 October 2011

Simon Davis - Loving the Alien...

Simon Davis, the man who, just three short progs ago painted one of the most beautiful 2000AD covers ever, is back with this ugly buggly! Look at that alien, it's brilliantly horrible! Check out its squid bag! Mental! I wonder if Simon is like Jekyll and Hyde?

Of course, the cover is for Ampney Crucis' latest adventure which sees our favourite English gentleman travelling to a hellish, other worldly dimension which is inhabited by all manner of horrible beasties, including the afore mentioned squid-bagged, big lipped savages! I love it!

Thanks a million to the wonderful Pye Parr for sending the image, it's great!