So! If you pick up this week’s 2000AD (#2072, released March 14th) then you will be treated to a wonderfully dark and twisted ‘Future Shock’ strip written by Laura Bailey and for which I provided the artwork. As the first page of that strip was particularly tough to plot out, I thought I’d give an insight into how it was created and share a few tips along the way. Read on!





First up, I had to give serious thought to the layout of the bathroom location as 90% of the story takes place there. That means that the geography has to work in relation to character movement as well as being able to use a varied selection of “camera angles” to keep it visually interesting. That layout is below (I’d say it works, even if I had to play with it’s scale and remove the odd wall!) alongside my initial rough for page one.









Now, this is the only page of the four where the roughs bear no resemblance to what ended up in the prog and that, frankly, is because I had NO idea what to do with all of that dialogue! But fortunately, blocking out the text as I did (above right) allows you to move them around the page and figure out the best way to make use of what space you have and so I was able to arrive upon the layout that eventually worked.



This leads us onto my next stage of creating reference using 3D models in Poser.









Egads! Naked digital people! But they have no nipples or wangs so we should be OK.



If you’re wondering why I don’t model any clothes onto my character reference, the answer is simple: I’m rubbish at modeling clothes. As well as saving time by not modeling something I’ll mostly ignore later, drawing the clothes from scratch also helps prevent the final art from feeling like it’s drawn from 3D models and relaxes my reliance on the reference a little.

Also of note, the only request I received for changes from writer Laura was to make the hotdog-eating panel a little more ridiculous than it was in the rough…… you could say I took that request to heart.

Once I’ve composed the page and am happy with how it all sits together, I’ll import that into Procreate on my iPad and just doodle over the top (above right). This is mostly to define the weight of black areas across the page but I’ll also begin to add clothing, meaning it’s now considerably less embarrassing to be walked in on whilst I’m working.









Next up are the digital “pencils”. These are also on my iPad, which is handy as that’s two stages now where I could conceivably work entirely from bed. The aim here is to get it as close as possible to how I want it to look in print, with the knowledge that I’ll be going back in to tighten it all up with a second take at the inking.

You’ll notice the main changes that occur in the final inks (above right) are that I shrank the second panel down to tidy up the whole layout a little and that I removed the light on the ceiling in the third. As a standalone image, I much prefer the version of that panel that includes the light but I also know that it will either be obscured by the lettering or provide an unnecessary distraction alongside it so it has to go. Having discipline with regards to not filling up all the space in every panel can be very tough to learn, but makes for a better end product.





Which leads us to the final page as it appears in prog 2072.









Howzabout that then, eh? The youngster in me who first picked up 2000AD in the nineties can still barely believe I can now officially call myself an art droid, but I’ve waffled on about that in enough places already. You’ll be able to see plenty of me gushing over the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic on the 2000AD blog, an upcoming Thrillcast and in March’s issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine.

Thanks for reading and be sure to let Tharg know if you’d like to see more of my work!