Sorry folks two absolute stinkers to wrap the week up with. We'll need a quick break over the weekend to recover from today's two votes. Come back Monday as we wrap this up...
Okay this is tough. Very different artists here. INJ has clear, open art that in the world of Brink somehow uses colour and form to make the world tight and claustrophobic. His minimal use of line makes the acting of his characters second to none. Simon Davis on the other paint is a portrait artist who shows that in every single panel he delivers. He revitalised Slaine for many and has done so, so much for Tharg.
Alas we still have to pick our favourite and to do so just pop the name of the art droid you'd most like to go through to Round 2, but please add anything else you'd like to say as well.
INJ Culbard- more info (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=ianc)
Or
Simon Davis - more info (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=simond)
This one will close and be counted on the morning of Monday 23rd November.
What the hell is all this? Find out more about the Art Droid Tourneys (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47044.0)
Whose in the two different tourneys?
Entrants in the Current Art Droids Tourney (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47044.msg1042917#msg1042917)
Entrants in the Classic Art Droids Tourney (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47044.msg1042893#msg1042893)
Rules for what they are worth (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47044.msg1042867#msg1042867)
Anything else just ask and I'll make something up.
Davis. His recent-ish run on Slaine was the best strip-work of his career. It's the sort of thing he should have been painting all along - get the man away from tech and into greenery.
Goodness gracious how do you choose both has such unique and different styles. Both are awesome. I am choosing Davis purely for his work on Slaine.
A tough choice. Culbard has really come into his own on Brink and I hope no-one else ever draws it. It's my favourite modern 2000AD strip and his art is a big part of that.
But he is up against an artist with one of the most distinctive styles in 2000AD. For me he is the number one Sinister Dexter artist. And so for Finny's blue face and red nose, it can only be Simon Davis.
Now you're just drokkin' with us, Colin. I trust you had fully accredited independent observers present when you made this 'draw'.
Quote from: TordelBack on 20 November, 2020, 08:18:38 AM
Now you're just drokkin' with us, Colin. I trust you had fully accredited independent observers present when you made this 'draw'.
Only the dark voices on my shoulder...
Horrible draw. Simon Davis has been one of the staples (not that Staples) of 2000AD for an insanely long time and just gets better and better; his painted work is so phenomenally good that it doesn't seem fair. Having said that, I'm voting for Ian Culbard. His less-is-more style won me over instantly when I first saw it and his work on Brass Sun and Brink have had me hooked from the get-go. His work has a deceptive simplicity but, like D'Israeli's, belies the layering and sheer graft that goes into it. It's hard to make good art look that simple.
A sublime panel from Brink that I've used as shorthand for 2020 before now:
(https://i.imgur.com/27QuiqD.jpg)
This round is basic a class of styles, both glorious in its own way:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBfwEg-UMAEDcsv.jpg)
(https://2000ad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/91-15.jpg)
Oh for cryin' out loud. REALLY?!
INJ Culbard.
So sorry Simon, I love your work.
SB Davis.
Simon Davis for... everything he's done. It's all brilliant. So is Ian though.
I love Davis' style (own a page or two somewhere), but I'd rather read INJ Culbard.
Simon Davis for me - nobody did Sinister and Dexter like him. Also he brought to Sláine a certain type of atmosphere not seen since the McMahon / Belardinelli days, despite the lacklustre script (sorry, Pat).
I'm going to vote Simon Davis, for SinDex, Stone Island, Ampney, Sláine and for that fox in Thistlebone. We're so lucky to have an artist of his calibre working for the comic at all, never mind so frequently.
But I don't want anyone believing for one second that I think Culbard is anything less than the dog's proverbials, and an absolute gift to fresh storytelling, pure design and 2000AD in general. He draws my favourite current strip after all. This forced betrayal is Colin's fault, not mine.
Simon Davis.
oof and I thought yesterdays draw was hard. Much as I love Culbard's work on Brink I think I'm going to have to give this one to Davis.
Has to be INJ Culbard for this squaxx.
SBT
Davis.
(But boy do I love INJ's contribution to 2000ad)
Ah, but they're both so amazing...
(https://i.imgur.com/2dXOkVJ.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/mZmN4x0.png)
My vote goes to Simon Davis, for the emotion.
Simon Davis
Culbard for Brink
Simon Davis, love the painted artwork!
I'm going with the "Culbard for Brink" approach too. Davis is awesome though so this is a tough call.
INJ Culbard for me
Bubbling under this one and I'm not at all sure who will get the most votes here but if you want a hand in deciding you have today to get your votes in as I'll be counting up in the morning.
INJ
VOTING CLOSED
I was bracing myself to have to make the call here as this one seemed closer than it was. For what its worth much as any one who knows what I think of Simon Davis and his sublime work on Sinister Dexter know I adore Simon Davis' stuff, I'd have gone for INJ. His ability to convey so much with such apparent simplicity is almost unsurpassed. Its not down to me of course and so while I'd have gone INJ I'm also happy to be able to say
Simon Davis
Is through to Round 2.
That really was a tough one - aside from each man's absolutely perfect grasp of using a dominant colour to convey mood or location, they could hardly be more different. Culbard is fantastic, my heart lifts whenever I see him in the prog, as Colin says he creates such complete worlds and distinctive, believable people with the precise placement of an absolute minimum of lines.
In the end I went with Davis despite almost always preferring clean line art to full painting, and despite not really rating some of his earlier work (Missionary Man, Dooomsday, BLAIR 1), simply because I think his body of work in the last 15 years has been consistently spectacular, since Stone Island he hasn't put a foot wrong for me.
And he draws the best willies, fact.
This is one those rounds where both are such worthy winners. I cannot see that anyone except Culbard is on Brink.