MAKING OF ANOTHER JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE PAGE!!!

Wow, two posts in one day you lucky, lucky ladies....

Here's a quick walk through the stages of the first page of my most recent Judge Dredd strip in the latest Megazine (the making of the cover can be found here), from Robbie Morrison's script, to my roughs, pencils and inks, Abigail Ryder's colours, and finally letters by Annie Parkhouse. Enjoy!

SFX WEEKENDER PHOTOS!!!

Apologies for the lateness of this guys. I've actually been ill with "convention flu" since the day I got back from the SFX Weekender....bit frustrating with all the work I've not been able to do!

Anyhoo....here's some pics! Here's incredible ABC WARRIORS artist Clint Langley and I doing our thing at the 2000AD booth...

Mega stud and 2000AD writer, Al Ewing and I were drafted in to do a workshop where we had to create a comic book page in 45 minutes.....Al asked the audience for suggestions on what the story could be, eventually ending up with a Dredd tale about an MP with a sexbot that rips off his head.....

In all seriousness, I have to say that Al was INCREDIBLE engaging the audience on the microphone...where as the audience had a great view of the back of my head and my ass...

Check out the Ghostbuster creature on both sides of the stage!

Yeah...you aint gonna see the final page...not my best moment...but what the hell do you expect in 45 minutes?! It takes at least 45 HOURS to do a bloody page! The audience seemed to enjoy it though...

The next day, Clint had the FANTASTIC idea for us to do more finished drawings on huge boards for us to later give away as prizes. For every purchace at the 2000AD booth, you would get a raffle ticket. I really hope 2000AD adopt this idea to use at every convention now as it was really popular. Below is Clint's HUGE Judge Dredd on 4 boards together, and my Defoe/zombie piece...

At the last minute, Clint decided to knock out a third prize of this gorgeous demon drawing!

The talented sod doesn't even pencil first--just goes straight to inks!

A big thanks to our lovely PR, Charley Grafton Chuck, who arranged for Clint and I to jump on the stage with Gareth David-Lloyd who played Ianto in one of my favourite shows, Torchwood (!) and give away our drawings!

I'd like to say that Ianto and I swapped emails afterwards...but we didn't...

That's your lot! A big shout out to SFX and 2000AD for the invite and graciously putting us up, and it was great to hang out with mates new and old--the married couple that is Geek Syndicate, the wacky gang of Abaddon Books, Murky Depths, Genki Gear, and of course all the lovely folk who stopped by to say hi and get a sketch! (Apart from the one who got me sick....gggrrrr...)

L

SFX WEEKENDER!!!

Probably should have mentioned this alot sooner, but I'm a guest at the SFX Weekender held in Pontins Holiday Park at Camber Sands, Sussex, this Friday and Saturday!

I'm actually joining a batch of fellow 2000AD droids, and in particular I'll be doing a workshop with writer Al Ewing, attempting to create an improvised comic book page in front of a live audience, in um, 45 minutes. Should be interesting....

Never thought I'd see the day that I'd be back at Pontins, but I'm really looking forward to it. Now i just have to think of intelligent things to say to all the authors and tv stars that will be there....

L

MAKING OF A JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE COVER!!!

Helloooo.......Above is the cover I did for the latest JUDGE DREDD MAGAZINE 294, out in stores in the next few days, you lucky ladies!

Inside this issue is the second and final part of "Dog Soldiers" written by Robbie Morrison, drawn by myself, coloured by Abigail Ryder and lettered by Annie Parkhouse.

The Mighty Tharg asked me to come up with a cover based on the cliff hanger ending of the previous episode, with a werewolf pouncing on Dredd...have a guess which version he picked....


So going with my first idea, with Tharg asking me to flip the image, I went to pencils....though would you believe I actually drew this bugger out at least FIVE times! I was never happy with the Dredd/werewolf ratio, as well as deciding whether or not to show his free hand--in the end, deciding not to as I'd have to make Dredd smaller to fit it in, and I also knew that text would cover that section anyway. But here's ONE of the pencilled pages....
Inks...this actually took a couple goes to get right as well...it was part nerves as well, knowing it was my very first Judge Dredd cover, and not wanting to balls it up.
This here is the rocky background I decided to add on a separate layer so that the graphic design droids at 2000AD wouldn't have to "cut around" the werewolf that I knew would be going over some of the logo.
Colours next...no problems here for once!
I faded out the dense blacks on the background so that the foreground characters could stand out more.
All that was left was to dim down the lights, put some Barry White on, and leave these two alone in a room for 20 minutes...eventually they made this....
Ok, that's your lot for now.....NOW GO AWAY!!!