Judge Dredd: The Dark (well...the 'the dark art' at least)

[Bat King]

That looks great.

Not tried the game yet. I understand the first is now on Android so I might have a    wee look.

[Bubba Zebill]

That looks great.

Not tried the game yet. I understand the first is now on Android so I might have a    wee look.

That's right, Bat King, now available on Android and others. Details here...
http://tinmangames.com.au/blog/?cat=51

[Bubba Zebill]

For artists...or anyone interested in the process.

I've inked and painted with everything over the years but about 13 years ago I started scanning and colouring my inks in Photoshop. I then began inking with PS and it killed my line...or I killed my line. I had just got to the point where I was kinda happy with a sable brush-line and could never quite get that quality...just...right...in PS.

Manga Studio kindly gave me MS EX5 a month or two ago, but the application is quite different from MS EX4...it's a whole new box of crabs in fact, based on an entirely different set of, well, 'everything'. I opened it once, took fright and backed out sharpish. I'll get up to speed with it yet, but not mid-stream on 'The Dark'.

So, anyway, in the attachment image you see here I'm inking over a sketch of Dredd (in action!) for the new game book. 'Inked' on MS EX4, an app I highly recommend and that I've found finally allows for a more brush-like digital line. You can pick up the debut version pretty cheap...and it has almost all the bells and whistles you'll need, more than enough to be getting along with.

Who know's, I may be kicking myself once I get up to speed with MS EX5...but whatever tools it holds will have to wait until after we've put out The Dark.

[Bubba Zebill]

The latest issue of Zarjaz (18) has a six page Dredd story written by Lee Robson and illustrated by myself. I was working on it right up until I started 'Judge Dredd: The Dark'....so, it's something like a pre-match stretch...

The issue has just been reviewed very favourably I think by Mike Cassidy on ECBT 2000AD... and as far as I'm concerned I'll be keeping in mind the following line anytime I illustrate anything, anywhere again!

'this is how every comic about anything ever produced by anyone anywhere should start.'

That's a keeper...and in our case thanks to Lee's wasting no time getting the party started...0 to 60 in 4 panels
... you can read the review here.... http://2000ad.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/combo-review-zarjaz-18-dogbreath-27/

[Bubba Zebill]

'Draw Along With Bubba' on Twitter....

In this series I plan to share some of the millions of details, re-draws & sweat & tears & gnashings of teeth...that I'm lavishing on 'Judge Dredd: The Dark' (That's the new gamebook and sequel to 'Countdown Sector 106' from Tinman) - Anyone interested in seeing the work grow can follow 'The Dark' developments on Twitter here... @BubbaZebill

http://tinmangames.com.au/blog/?p=3105

[Bubba Zebill]

Hmm...tried to embed a Vine clip...not sure how to, it didn't seem to work...

[Bubba Zebill]

Sigh...no dice. Well, for those who don't mind clicking out (such an inconvenience!), here's a wee Vine clip of an even wee'er detail from one painting for the new Gamebook.

Dredd Shoot-Out - Progression from pencil to paint.
https://vine.co/v/heO569FPaAB

[Steve Green]

Update on 'Judge Dredd: The Dark':

I have six new paintings nearing completion and I started working up some mug shots. I'm still mulling (and doodling) the direction of the cover design. Last night a portrait came together for one villain and in such a way that I'm tempted to work it up as a large pastel study on paper and then scan it in and work over it in Pshop.

But nothing is 'done' or will be until I see it all together, I'll be hovering over everything in the last week or two, tightening things up, so I have as strong a set as possible. Here and there I've added some nods to progs passim.

Last week I watched some Minty test footage and spotted a reference they had made that was identical to one I had made in one of my first 'Dark' paintings. That was kind of delightful somehow, as far as I know the reference is not in any trailers I would have seen...so a bit of coincidence there.

Any road up, I just wanted to share all that and thank everybody for the kind comments...I'm working round the clock to make the art as worthy of your anticipation as possible.

Time to head back in to the shadows...I'll come back out of 'The Dark' when I have more to share...

Which was the Minty bit?

During development of Minty we noticed a few coincidences - the Pinky Gang in Tour of Duty with the psi-powered bad guy, the gila munja with the skull in the helmet in Cursed Earth Koburn.

And there was the throat punch and helmeted headbutt from Dredd. People will always come up with similar things especially when drawing from the same source...

[Bubba Zebill]

Which was the Minty bit?
[/quote]



This is a small, tiny really, detail from one of the first pictures I did for The Dark, a block interior. Your clip must have been set up a year or more before I did this drawing. Anyway I caught this reference in the extended footage when you posted it online. I nearly fell off my chair... I don't think this scene made the final cut for Minty?

I really love the test footage and extended chatter.

[Steve Green]

Ahhh,

yeah the chopper/phantom stuff was in it from the beginning - Steve S did a bunch of graphics, they did turn up in a still I made which was auctioned off as a canvas print at Hi-Ex (2008 or 2009) before Edmund was even cast.

We just went for a load of Easter Eggs in audio and video, even if you don't see it clearly - like the graffiti, the Judge Pal poster, the Uncle Ump Poster, the reference to the first encounter with Judge Death on the radio chatter.

When we did the Thought Bubble cut, none of the CCTV made the cut, I didn't want to rush it so took my time fixing the other stuff.

Originally the CCTV was going to be a continuous shot, tracking into the centre, but you never really got a sense of seeing it, so I ended up just picking the best ones for when it goes full-screen, so I had a couple left over.

Jared who voiced Dredd and arranged most of the other voiceovers asked if we could put up a reel of the audio in full (we had more than we could fit in), so any extra/extended CCTV scenes were used for that.

There were a couple more like a demonstration, but I never finished it because it need a lot of CG, and also we only had a limited number of extras, so you could only really have a certain number of shots before the same faces kept popping up.

Cheers

Steve

[Bubba Zebill]

Well hats off Steve and to everyone involved with Judge Minty (and I completely missed the Death reference....I'll go back and listen to that now) it's incredibly difficult to do what you did - and so very well. I sent the link to a pal in the states who had first pointed out films like 'Troopers' etc (years ago), he was blown away by the quality of Minty. You proved a hell of a lot in JM...most obviously that the designs as they are in the comic would work in live action.

The extended audio and visuals just show how far you went. It must be bittersweet to edit out all those sequences. I'd be crying into my synth-caf!

[Steve Green]

Heh, thanks - it's just at the bit where Minty is cleaning his Lawgiver, although it's mixed quite low.

I worked out that Death takes place about two weeks after Minty, which I think is the week after the New Year is canceled episode, and I made the CCTV date reflect that.

I'm not particularly precious about the VFX side - happy to cut it/blur it out if it suits, whatever works best for the film.

Could still do with a snip here and there, but what's done is done.

Daniel did an amazing job taking the costume off the page with minimal changes - gave me a real buzz when I saw someone wearing it for the first time.

[Bubba Zebill]

it's just at the bit where Minty is cleaning his Lawgiver, although it's mixed quite low.

I went back and listened and realised I had heard the reference first time... but I think I'd missed that the extended audio was in 2 parts. I don't recall seeing part 1 before. Ah...my addled mind.

Minty and Death, Progs 147 and 149, looking back it feels like very different era's somehow. So not only do we see where minty goes but we have a hint at the timeline in the city.

I may be way off here, but Planet Replica's...is Daniel behind that? ...was there any suit designs vaailable (off the peg so to speak) when you started? I only began following your progress quite late in the day and I'm not sure what came first there.

It still surprises me that the helmet is so accurate in JM. After all in many strips it's clear that Dredd's cranium would be quite small and has to be reduced by the artists to make it all work - but it works so well in the film. I've done it too with JD:TD, reduced the skull area a little bit.

Another oddball thing to me is the bike, that could have tanked and yet it was perfect. It would have been so easy to avoid using the bike somehow. Yet you tackled it full on and proved it would work well on film.

We've seen the city drawn a thousand times and again that could have been tired looking or unwieldy but when we see the highways like so many snail trails - I felt it was with fresh eyes somehow. Seeing the expected in an unexpected way, or it seemed to me.

Edmund Dehn is very good, tough, tired, vulnerable.

[Steve Green]

Yep, basically Daniel was making a helmet sculpt for Steve S - originally the plan was to go more the way Dredd 2012 did, comic helmet with more riot-cop armour.

I can't remember when the decision was made to go comic, but I think it works well - it frees you up elsewhere to be a bit more outlandish, and it also gives you an easier ride from the fans. Same goes for the bike - We reasoned that if everything is a bit retro-looking and just go with it, it kind of works.

It would be different if it was a comic costume riding a more normal bike - you either go one way or the other. In the original script, it just started on a bike crash, so you never really saw it - but I thought we may as well go for it - if it looked crap it could always be cut back.

I wish we'd had a top half of the bike on a gimbal though, that would have been fantastic.


So there were only 2 costumes when me made Minty, which became the dry-run for the Planet Replicas ones - we did shoot the Long Walk ceremony with just 2 and it was a bit of a nightmare.

Shooting people separately against green screen, getting them in and out of costume, rinse and repeat.

In the end we shot it again, as people had the PR costumes by then, so they kindly came down and it made it go a lot smoother - a shame for the original judges, but it looked better in the end.

[Bubba Zebill]

That's interesting, so it seems supplying JM generated the Dredd costume scene. I hear there will be a squad of 'Judges' on patrol at the con's soon. It's amazing to think the enthusiasm at the heart of Minty is still making its presence felt. Who know's where Planet Replica's will go and having so many judges at cons will certainly generate tons of interest in 2000AD.

Although I really admire the choices they made with Dredd3D (I thought the eagle pauldron was a design triumph), choosing the comic design for Minty was absolutely the right thing to do. The pauldrons are just right, they too could have been too much, but they look right and functional.

If you had the top of the Lawmaster on a gimbal, I imagine that's a prop nobody would want to dismantle!...that would be a keeper.

Only 2 costumes...a nightmare of continuity!

There was a comic con out here in Prague a while back. I wanted to see Minty so much I considered contacting them and an arthouse type cinema to see if they would be open to showing both Minty and / or Dredd 3D (which was not released here). I think real life got in the way and I didn't follow up....or more likely, they both became available...online and via iTunes.

After all these years and 2 major films, Minty is still the only project to prove the concept could work just as it seemed to in the pages of 2000AD. Thanks for going in to it all Steve.