I've been away on secondment recently to Holy Terra, drawing some people fighting - but more about that another time...
In the meantime, here's my cover for this months Judge Dredd Megazine: Issue 326 - "Big Trouble in Hondo-City":
(Above)
The final cover, I love that tagline...
The brief was as follows:
"..a giant rampaging monster roaring, destruction all around, with... Inaba and Junko small by comparison in the foreground on their hoverbikes, facing him down..."
I gathered a few reference materials*, namely the fantastic 80's kaiju posters by posters by Noriyoshi Ohrai and others...
(Above)
A selection of reference materials,
which all serve to influence my ideas.
As always, I started with a thumbnail, or thumbnails in this case, which were sent to Tharg for approval/ revisions:
(Above)
My two initial ideas,
I don't like top stray too far from the agreed thumbnail,
that wouldn't be very professional, would it...
Tharg liked the second one, which had more interaction in the image, which always makes for a dynamic cover.
I might add that I didn't use any reference photos this time, as I wanted to keep this a strictly fantastical affair - I just wanted to try painting my way out of any problems on this one...
After that, we jump a few stages (namely blowing up the pic in Photoshop and painting over it in finer detail - and then painting A BIT MORE) on to the final piece:
(Above)
The final image in all it's technicolour glory ;)
So, feel free to go and buy a copy, support your home-grown comic publishers, writers and artists, enjoy the stories and then buy the next issue.
That's that, until next time, where I think I'll be talking about Paris Comic Con...
*Alas, no gurning in this one, sorry Pete ;)