Thursday 31 October 2013

Carl Critchlow - Mean Arena!


Here is the brilliant Carl Critchlow's first of hopefully many Flesh covers! This cracking scene shows Presidential elections Pat Mills style - hopeful candidates must prove their credentials by battling ferocious dinosaurs before a jeering crowd! Hmmmm, it could work...

The dinosaur featured on the cover is a Balaur, which had two retractable, sickle-shaped claws on each foot...

You put your left leg in...

 This particular one is known as Dancin' Jim! Below we see Carl's initial ideas for the battle...

 Alright! Alright! No need to bite my head off!

Yuck, look what I stood in! 

Pile on! 

With Carl's sketch chosen he has a play with colour, below we see his colour rough...

A frisky redhead for ECBT2000AD's Rich McAuliffe 

Here's Carl's super detailed inks, which I believe are now owned by the 2000AD message board's Colin_YNWA, lucky git!

Perhaps Cassidy was a little ambitious in his first attempts at falconry. 

And finally those trademark Critchlow blocks of colour. The textures in this are amazing! From the realistic rust of the cowboy's armour to those fluffy clouds to the shaggy feathers of the Balaur, everything is beautifully rendered.

Dancin' Jim doing the Stomp!

Here's what the design team at the prog did with the image, zarjaz!

Dancin' Jim the Balaur-ina

Big walloping thank you to Carl for sending the bits and bobs, please be sure to check out his site here and buy his excellent Thrud the Barbarian graphic novel, it's aces!

1 comment:

  1. Cool. Yeah Pete's right I snapped this up. When I saw it I contacted Carl right away and was very lucky to get it. As ever Carl was a delight to deal with.

    What I find particularly interesting here is the fact that once again Tharg (and I'm assuming its Tharg) has gone for a picture at right angles to the reader.

    That's happened before the recent Gorehead piece and Paul Marshal's similar cover a while back. All lovely pieces but in all cases there were drafts that had poses that were potentially more dramatic. So for example much as I love the final choice here, and since I bought it you don't have to just take my word for that! The image of the dino charging towards the reader with its victim in the foreground could have been even better?

    I wonder why Tharg (again as I say I'm making an assumption here) seems to go for these angles with the beastie perpendicular to the reader?

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