Monday, 25 November 2013

INJ Culbard - Points of View.



Here's another dazzling cover by the inimmitable Ian Culbard. It's a tense scene Brass Sun which highlights the fantastic creativity on show in the series. I'm loving the perspective thing Ian's go going on, I'm a sucker for themed covers! Over to Ian to tell us more...

"The initial brief was simply a picture of the Red Wench for the cover. So I produced a couple of shots of it. One as it rises up out of the clouds..."  

Initial art for Dolly Parton's abandoned Prog Rock concept album

"And the other as it's flying towards us..."

Twin engines of destruction

"However, Tharg also wanted to feature the characters and once again, other than almost replicating a panel from the strip itself or doing something that felt like a panel from the comic. I decided to repeat the POV formula of the previous cover where we saw things from Ramkin's POV only this time we'd see it from Sept's POV.

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with z..." Worst game of I spy ever.

"Could this become a theme for Brass Sun covers? I don't know. Never say never!

I for one hope so, I adored Clint Langley's ABC Warriors series of covers and Simon Davis' Ampney series' have been brilliant. Go for it Mr Culbard, POV's all the way!


Ah yes, a big fireball next to highly flammable balloons! What could possibly go wrong?

Here's Ian's previous cover for those with thrill-addled memories...

It was a one eyed, no horned, scything, purple people beater!

And here's how the design team put it together, splendid!

Put your hands in the ay-er, and wave 'em like you just don't cay-er!

Twin Zeppelin sized thanks to Ian for sending the images for this visual treat! Check out his blog here!

Sunday, 10 November 2013

Clint Langley - Dinosty!


Big head? Check! Buckets of gore? Check! Scary dinosaur? Check! It must be Gorehead then!

Clint Langley goes back to his Dinosty roots to bring us this fearsome, blood drenched Flesh cover. Older readers will remember Dinosty, a biting satire which not-so-subtly depicted a royal family as a bunch of out of touch dinosaurs and gave Clint his break in 2000AD.    

Harrysaur?

Among the images Clint kindly sent for the cover, was this stunner... 

Hot saurs.

He said "I've sent a work in progress that was dropped as it was too similar to Paul Marshall's cover of Prog 1784." Such a shame as it's a fantastic piece of work. Below is a reminder of Paul's red hot cover.

Oooooh, this Rex is on fire!

With a change of direction needed, Clint produced these terrifying inks...


Do-ya-inky-saurus?

And here's the fully rendered version that made the cover...

"I said HELLO!" 

But wait, Clint also sent this version! He said "I've included an updated version I did but unfortunately too late to make the printing." Man, it sounds like this cover was plagued with bad luck but thankfully it still turned out to be amazing!

You've got red on you.

Below is the cover as it will appear in your local thrill merchant, I'm sure there'll be some juves desperate to get their hands on that!

Gore blimey!

Satanus-sized thanks to Clint for sending the images for this cursed cover! It seems Clint's misfortune has been to our benefit as we've been absolutely spoilt for rampaging dinosaur images this week! 

Thursday, 7 November 2013

Karl Richardson - Let us Prey.


It's behiiiiiind you! So how's this for a brilliant cover from Karl Richardson? I love it! Certainly a contender for cover of the year (coming soon folks1) for me! The cover features the terrifying Scrall from the excellent Dredd tale Prey. Below we see Karl's first idea for the cover - Dredd refected in the eyes of the beast... 

I spy with my little eye... 

Next the chosen idea...

The scrall loved it's Dredd string puppet.

And here's the finished image, just brilliant!

Dredd's new masseuse was a tad heavy handed... 

Finally, here's how the prog looks on the shelf, lovely and striking!

This weeks' cover by Skrall Richardson

Huge, huge thanks to Karl for sending the images, they're brilliant, as is his work on the strip!

Monday, 4 November 2013

Mo Ali - Rogue Trooper


Congratulations to 2000AD Messageboarder Mo Ali who won September's art competition with the striking Rogue Trooper image above! The theme of the compo was Gerry Finley-Day, with several Rogue, Fiends, VC and Ant inspired entries! As ever, this blog features the creative talents of the winner so here is Mo to tell you more about the creation of his entry:  

"Rogue Trooper is a visually striking character, and of Gerry Finley-Day's work it is one of my favourites."

"So then, there's many different ways I approach doing any piece of artwork, usually more planning and prep time is involved in terms of conceptualising the idea, but with this I found out about the art competition a little close to the deadline, so I fell back on some tricks and techniques I've learnt over the years, using image referencing and photo-manipulation, along with traditional illustration."

"The initial reference I used for my base idea was this computer game version of the character:"

"Stak!"

"I took the character's general posture from this - though having to adapt it so it looked more dynamic and real-world, as well as using bits in the final piece."

"From here on out it was a case of finding the right sort of pieces (a nose here, a leg there...) from various photographic images I sourced, until I was happy with the Frankenstein's Monster-like result. With this rough jigsaw assembled I then began the process of mixing and merging - adding shadow and texture and 'filling in the gaps' essentially, illustrating over the seams until the composition looked cohesive and whole."

"Once happy I then added billowing smoke in the background for a visual point of reference (otherwise Rogue would just be standing in black emptiness) as well as highlights and lighting - from this stage on I tend to experiment and let a sort of instinct take over, adding colours, light and filters or taking away and reducing the piece, refining the art until there's a certain atmosphere and mood to everything. "

"The rain and lens-flare effects were the last bits to be overlayed, and were a nice accident as I hadn't thought about adding these when I began - an example of why experimenting can be a good thing."

"My intent was that the final artwork looked 'hyper-real', a part-filmic and part-comicbook cover."

"I hope Rogue Trooper fans like it."

We sure do Mo! Thanks for the insight fella and congratulations! Be sure to enter this months' art comp here, this month the theme is 'Spin Offs' and will be judge by the one and only Brian Bolland!