Teaser poster for IDW - Judge Dredd - City of Courts

[radiator]

Pretty much all artists draw it as blue.

[JOE SOAP]

Pretty much all artists draw it as blue.

Or black with bluish highlights.

[Frank]

Pretty much all artists draw it as blue.

Or black with bluish highlights.

Didn't Richard-Burton-Tharg explain to us that the uniform's always supposed to have been black, and that filling the unshaded areas with blue was only a stylistic convention arising from the inadequacies of letterpress colour reproduction ("in the same way Superman's hair is blue")?

The extent to which the uniform looked either blue or black with blue highlights was only dependent on how much solid black the style of the artist led them to use in depicting the uniform - on black and white interior art, Carlos's uniform looks solid black with a few white highlights, while Cam Kennedy's has lots of areas of white space. Since the color repro improved (prog 520), most artists seem to have favoured the black/grey highlights or black/blue highlights scheme ... the Bisley School notwithstanding.

Can we have a discussion about whether the elbow and knee pads should be yellow like the shoulder pads or green like the boots and gloves next, please? Or why Carlos colours the eagle golden yellow and the shoulder pad orange/brown-yellow? Please ...

[Spikes]

The Yellow coloured elbow pads just leap off the page dont they?
Once seen their pretty hard to ignore, bit like the silver coloured name badge.
Mick McMahon coloured them yellow in the early Annual strips he produced. Guess there was no real template, or hard and fast rule to follow back then?

But Green, please! 

[radiator]

I know the blue originated from the 'Superman's hair' thing, but I think this evolved into it actually being deliberately rendered as blue. I'd say the vast majority of artists still colour it as blue, very few colour it as pure black, such as Steve Dillon, Mark Harrison and Carlos.... but I can't think of many more.

[JOE SOAP]

Bolland likes black too:



Willsher:





How less good would this look in blue:




To me Dredd's uniform looks more striking and original as a more solid black in the Ezquerra style and it never looks right when blue as it seems to lose something but for modelling purposes there'll always be variation in the shading depending on the scene.

I leave the last word to Fillmore Faro:

[Bat King]

Many of you seem to be forgetting that IDW Dredd is not set in the 2000AD Dredd timeline, different Chief Judge & all sorts of variances.

So I'd be amazed if this story has any connection with anything from Michael Carroll's stories.

I don't like the picture though... Judge Desperate Dan...

[Frank]

I know the blue originated from the 'Superman's hair' thing, but I think this evolved into it actually being deliberately rendered as blue. I'd say the vast majority of artists still colour it as blue, very few colour it as pure black, such as Steve Dillon, Mark Harrison and Carlos.... but I can't think of many more.

I think it just depends on the colour palette and visual sensibility of the artist in question. You'll know yourself, radiator, that it's quite difficult to make a solid black uniform (like that in the Bolland image which SOAP posted above) work with bright yellow shoulder pads and pillar box red helmet detail. It's too high contrast and ends up looking a little tacky in the hands of anyone less talented than Bolland or Chris Weston:



Most artists portraying the uniform as black follow Carlos's model of darkening the greens and yellows of the pads, and most of them tend to use a generally subdued palette anyway. You could present a convincing argue either way for whether Kev Walker's uniform is black with grey/blue highlights or - like Father Ted's socks - just very, very, very, very, very dark blue:



It's sort of redundant to talk about the colour preferences of individual artists nowadays, since Chris Blythe is responsible for colouring so many of Dredd's latest adventures. Under his aegis, the Dredd of artists who definitely favoured the solid light blue you describe above when colouring their own work, like MacNeil and Flint, has turned out in something a little more sober, and befitting a man of his age:

[Frank]

Wasnt Jason Brashill the designer, or co-designer - along with Murray, for the MK II?

Aye, but I figured that of the two Murray had more of a background in design. They make that version of the gun look great in their segment of Die Laughing, but the impression's spoiled by the fact that Fabry drew all his bits long before the gun was updated.

The Yellow coloured elbow pads just leap off the page dont they? Once seen their pretty hard to ignore, bit like the silver coloured name badge. Mick McMahon coloured them yellow in the early Annual strips he produced. Guess there was no real template, or hard and fast rule to follow back then? But Green, please! 

Agreed. Now who thinks the pads are made of metal (the Bolland/Smith school) or some kind of pliable material (Team McMahon)? Don't laugh; I'm serious ...

[judda fett]

I'm with team pliable pads. Also yellow elbow pads too, McMahon did em in the 82 annual. I also like the way Willsher Droid gives Dredd a meaty Lawmaster update while in the same issue you'll see him draw a cadet on the 'classic' box version.

[douglaswolk]

Delighted to see all the interest in this! I'm gonna stay out of this discussion for now, I think, except 1) to note that my answers to a lot of the points that have been raised are "uh-huh! you'll see!," and 2) to post the complete cover to #1 (via the amazing Ulises Farinas' Twitter feed) by Ulises and colorist Owen Gieni.

[Frank]

The colours in that image look completely different to the CBR version, which I didn't think would be an issue with digital reproduction. The full image looks a lot more Hard Boiled (as in Darrow) than the cropped version suggested, and I like the Mad Max aesthetic of LAJD's bull-barred transportation almost as much as the solid, chain gun and auto muffler approach of Farinas to the bike.

Continuing our frankly rubbish attempts to divine nature of the universe from the arse hairs on an ant - the cover to issue no. 1 suggests that hip hop, latino culture, and the surveillance society have shaped Wolk's pre-2TFRUT (thanks for the reminder, Bat King) version of Hell-A. That firearm reminds me of this.

[Pete Wells]

Yeah, that looks a LOT better!

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I've got it. That is not Dredd!

Dredd arrives on the Lawmaster and is confronted by the jimp, who has arrived in that Mad Max Justice vehicle and then the story continues. One question, is Dredd gay?

[Steve Green]

The colours in that image look completely different to the CBR version, which I didn't think would be an issue with digital reproduction. The full image looks a lot more Hard Boiled (as in Darrow) than the cropped version suggested, and I like the Mad Max aesthetic of LAJD's bull-barred transportation almost as much as the solid, chain gun and auto muffler approach of Farinas to the bike.

Continuing our frankly rubbish attempts to divine nature of the universe from the arse hairs on an ant - the cover to issue no. 1 suggests that hip hop, latino culture, and the surveillance society have shaped Wolk's pre-2TFRUT (thanks for the reminder, Bat King) version of Hell-A. That firearm reminds me of this.

It's been re-coloured from the CBR version. The dirt on the columns is different.

Looking forward to seeing this.