MAKING A ZOMBIE-RIFIC DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD!

Here's a quick "Making of" post on one of my favourite pieces of recent art: the opening double page spread from this summer's book of "DEFOE: THE DAMNED" published in 2000AD prog 1836!

As always, it begins with a lovely script by LEGENDARY writer Pat Mills.....

EPISODE ONE

PAGES ONE AND TWO - SPREAD

Night.  Opening title spread shows thousands of Zombies besieging the White (inner) Tower of London.  

Feature individual Zombies whose progress we will follow throughout the serial.

As space permits:

   A)an obese Zombie, B)a Zombie in a wedding dress,  C) a wealthy child Zombie who was once beautifully dressed, D) a Zombie whose clothes are intact at the front but have rotted away behind, E) a Zombie with no eyes, F) a hanged Zombie covered in tar – his neck elongated and flopping (as in Book One), G) a Zombie with one arm and his head tilted to one side.H) A Zombie with no ears.

Flies buzzing around them, crows feasting on them. 

Their  leader, the Spiriter, looks up at the Tower.

Some Zombies are clambering up the walls.  The unseen defenders – Defoe and co. -  are firing down on the Zombies and we see some of them dropping but there are so many, we know the defenders’ situation is perilous..

TITLE AND CREDITS.

DEFOE    THE DAMNED

As you can see, it left a lot of interpretation up to myself, but I realised that in order to be able to show all the zombies, I'd have to add panels to identify them all properly.

But first, a day trip to The Tower of London was essential so I could get shots like this:

 And I couldn't help but take some like this....

They were a massive help creating this, first, in pencil, noting that I made sure to add enough panels to feature all the zombies he wanted me to highlight, as well as establish The Brethren on top of the Tower (make with the clicky!)....

Followed by quite a lengthy, but bloody fun process of inking, and we're done!

AWESOME ARTIST'S ANATOMY MODEL!!!

Believe it or not, I don't have an incredible body (I know,you're STUNNED!). Like most comic artists I spend most of my day at the drawing table, not getting much exercise.

When it comes to drawing comic characters I still use myself as reference for whatever body type it is (male/female/donkey/fat/skinny/muscular) and just adjust accordingly.

BUT NO MORE I SAY!!!! I wanted to improve as an artist, and so asked around for recommendations for an artist's model that would also look good on my shelf. My buddy and incredible Marvel Comics artist, Mike Perkins, put me in the direction of artistsanatomy.com and I'm so glad he did!

The muscle definition is exactly what I was after, it's a beautiful sculpture, and at 12 inches tall, looks great on my shelf! I couldn't recommend it more, and will be using it in a few weeks when I start the next book of 2000AD's AQUILA!

L

AND THE WINNER IS.......

So last October I helped out a buddy and the O2 THINK BIG charity campaign by raffling off a chance to appear in one of the stories I draw for 2000AD.

The winner was a nice chap named STEPHEN LONGDON who finally made his debut as a zombie in DEFOE, Prog 1841 of 2000AD last week!

Congratulations again Stephen, and the original art is heading your way very soon!

MAKING OF THE 2000AD PROG 1842 COVER!!!

 Hey guys, so this prog of 2000AD came out in stores and digitally online a couple of days ago.

The brief from The Mighty Tharg was something along the lines of "Defoe's steam car besieged by zombies!" though he acknowledged that we should try and make it different from this linked Aquila cover I did featuring Boudicca in her chariot, knocking down Romans.  Also, I was running short on time so tried to think of an idea that wouldn't involve me having to draw dozens of detailed zombies!

Here's the very rough idea I sent of the steam chariot bursting through a metaphorical zombie's teeth, which Tharg approved....

 Pencils....

 And finally inks.....

I say "finally", as this one time I unfortunately didn't have time to colour it myself, and so we got Dylan Teague on the colouring job.

Hope you like it! One more episode of Defoe to get done!

L

MAKING OF THE 2000AD PROG 1836 DEFOE COVER!!!!

GOD, I know it's been bloody ages since Defoe's been in 2000AD! Well there's no need to cry into your pillow every night now, as Pat Mills and I are back baby!!!!

You can find a very generous preview of each of the cool stories featured in this 2000AD at CBR here!

Above you can see the cover that I did, that is now on the shelves of all good comic stores, newsagents, and digitally at the 2000AD store, and the Apple app store! Here's how I created it....

I'll admit now that I was thinking of an idea that wasn't too much work as I was, quite frankly, knackered after drawing the first episode (you'll see why soon). My first idea was the silhouette of a zombie hand, with the shadowy figures of Defoe and his Brethren inside.

Unfortunately, before I submitted it to Tharg, I came across a similar design elsewhere online, so scrapped it!

This was my next idea, and approved by my boss Tharg. Notice how from the beginning, I just coloured it red: knackered, remember...? But hey, it also looked cool and designy.... that's my excuse....

Pencils....

 Inks....

 I don't know if you remember from my previous Aquila covers HERE and HERE, that I've become quite partial to doing washes over my inks before I colour to give it a nice  texture. Here it is on a separate layer done over a lightbox.

The washed page added to the inks...

One shade of red added with some extra digital bits falling off, and it was done!

 I tried adding a background, but decided it didn't work...

 Once sent to 2000AD, the talented design bots came up with this cool advert in the back of last weeks prog, then finally put together the cover at the top of this post!

BOOM! ;)

(Next post will feature the making of the opening double page spread!)

ONE MORE THING.....

Ummm, anyone remember this from a few years ago.....?

Well.........

BOOM!  ;)

OI! READ MY WIFE'S BLOG!!!

Right, I'd like you to check out my wife's blog "A FAD-TASTIC YEAR: 52 THINGS IN 52 WEEKS"!

I'm very proud of Nik for starting this blog where once a week she attempts to do something she's never done before, the latest being a Civil War reenactment! She has a really lovely, entertaining writing style that makes her worthy of the name GALLAGHER, and I'm made up she finally has an outlet for her thoughts!

Check it out and make her feel welcome Blogoverse!!!

L

JUDGE DREDD SKETCH!

Here's a Dredd sketch I've donated to the charity raffle for the Herne Bay Sci-Fi By The Sea event on 16th June. The same lovely guys who brought you last year's Zombie Crawl! Please check it out if you're in the area. Sounds like fun!

DEFOE THE DAMNED INTERVIEW WITH PAT MILLS!

 Hey guys, long time no see!

There's a lot to show and tell in the near future, but I've had to keep my head down getting Defoe done in time for it's release in next wednesday's 2000AD, also available digitally from the 2000AD site!

Still a few more episodes to do, but in the meantime check out this interview with the writer Pat Mills here on CBR, where he also finally says the words I've always wanted to hear....sniff...... ;)

More soon, including a making of the colour image above that will be next week's cover!

L

DEFOE: THE DAMNED TEASER!!!

2000AD (who have turned 36 years old this week!) have printed a teaser for the return of Defoe, written by Pat Mills and drawn by myself, coming in June!!! It's the fifth book in the series entitled "The Damned", and just so you know, the image above is just a portion of the opening double page spread....

CARDIFF INTERNATIONAL COMIC EXPO!!!

Hey guys,

On March 2nd-3rd I shall be joining a bunch of fellow ( not as attractive as me) 2000ad droids at the Cardiff International Comic Expo!

I'll be doing sketches at my table, as well as a couple of panel talks , and FINALLY get to see the Judge Minty fan film!

Should be a lot of comicy fun, and catching up with old buddies, so hope to see you there! Though forgive me if I seem a little tired as I'll be travelling up at 5.45am!

More info and how to buy tickets in advance can be found HERE! 

L

I HAVE A 2000AD DREDD T-SHIRT OUT!!!!

 Yes, it's true, now YOU CAN all dress as cool as me!

As you can see, 2000AD with Plastichead have produced a t-shirt featuring my "crotchtastic" Judge Dredd cover art from prog 1770 of which you can see the original making of HERE.

I'm really made up to actually have some official "merch" out there, the only slight downside being is that they were apparently made "exclusively" for HMV high street stores to coincide with the awesome DREDD dvd release, who if you didn't know, unfortunately went through administration and are currently closing down a lot of stores.

So, if you can't find it in a HMV, the makers PLASTICHEAD are selling it on their online store HERE!  Just search for "Dredd" in the t-shirt section.

Finally, here's some PROFESSIONAL models that took time out from their busy lives looking pretty, wearing the t-shirt....

DEFOE: THE DAMNED TEASER....

Well, it's been a long time coming due to Pat Mills and myself being busy on other projects, but I'm finally hard at work on the FIFTH book of 2000AD's DEFOE: THE DAMNED! Above is a sneaky look at one of the pencilled panels....

L

BRAND SPANKING NEW STUDIO TOUR!!!!

But without the spanking.

Yeah, it's been a while since I've done this, but we got our new house a while back, and I FINALLY have the studio space I've wanted for a long time!

You can find the previous studio tours HERE and HERE to see how I've upgraded over the years, and for a closer look at some of the cooler stuff.

Ok, take your shoes off at the front door because here we go.....

 PWHOOOOAAAARRR.... this is the largest room I've ever had to play with, fitting all my crap in. Please bare in mind that it is NEVER, EVER  this tidy and organised. It won't look like this again for six months so I thought I'd better document this sharpish! Oh, and that table, even though I love it like a brother, is the bloody reason why I'm in debt now! (Never use credit cards kids....)

 I've now upgraded my A3 scanner to a Brother scanner/A3 printer. The Superman poster on the right will be getting replaced with a Thundercats poster as soon as I can afford to get it framed.

 Framed posters of two of my favourite films, "THE 'BURBS" and "HELLBOY"....

 You see that? That's a COUCH. IN MY STUDIO. A COUCH. I've always wanted a couch in my studio... do I sit on it much? Do I buggery. My dog does though...

Still loving my life sized Hellboy, Judge Dredd and Iron Man props.... won't be able to ever purchase any more though, being a newly married man with "responsiblities" now....

 Finally, this view is the one I'm most used to, where I spend most of my life trying not to go on the internet, eat my cakes, write my memoirs, oh, and DRAW AWESOME COMICS!

Right, that's your lot! Put that cake back where you found it, and GET OUT! I'm keeping your crappy shoes for that....

AQUILA IN THE NEW BUMPER EDITION OF 2000AD PROG 2013!!!

HEY YOU!!!! After something that will fill that empty hole in your life?

Well try the new 100 page BUMPER edition of 2000AD, featuring NINE new stories by a bunch of my talented mates, including a ten page AQUILA story written by Gordon Rennie, drawn by me, coloured by Gary Caldwell, and lettered by Simon Bowland. It's a "kind of" festive tale, in that it features a couple of relevant special guests...

You can find it in all good comic stores and newsagents over the next few weeks, or even purchase the digital edition HERE!

As an extra treat, here's a making of one of the interior AQUILA  pages....

Very loose pencils...                                      

Inks.....

Colours by Gary Caldwell...

FINALLY, as an added bonus, here's something that will absolutely give you no choice but to BUY IT...!!!

(Not many products are worthy enough to be advertised between my legs, but this is!)

By the way, you can still purchase past AQUILA original art pages HERE!

A SPECIAL COMMISSION!

Gotta say, I'm pretty damn happy with how this one turned out....

A good friend of mine wanted a special gift for her new husband, and so commissioned me to draw up this picture of the pair of them as characters from a certain film... you're just gonna have to trust me that this looks like them!

 See, sometimes it's good to have a comic book artist as an old friend!