01 June 2014

Judge Death - Painting: Intro

You might recall the legion of variables encountered when painting Judge Dredd. Dredd was bad; but Death is arguably worse, if only because of the absence--by design--of any regulated uniform- ity. As a painter, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as we can now be guided by our artistic eye and our sensibilities--but it still has to look right! And therein lies the rub.

Death will be an exercise in tonality and hue. Do I go with a greenish skin, a bluish skin, a deathly flesh tone. . . or a custom mix of all three? The gear--how faded/worn should it be depicted? And so on, and so forth. . .

Fortunately, the only canonical speed bump to be negotiated is the helmet. When the chromatic Death first appears, he is wearing an alternate version of the standard Judge's helmet--i.e., black helmet with red trim. At some point, an alternate scheme was introduced: a strongly blue-biased black helmet with silver trim. Not knowing the timeline of this development, and/or the reason for it--in spite of rather diligent research, I am inclined to go with the original iteration. 

Stay tuned!

PS -- As before, any comments, especially from our die-hard 2000AD fans, are most welcome!

UPDATE 24.06.2014. . . I have concluded that not only Judge Fear, but Death (and possibly Mortis?) are all based on the iterations found in the Batman/Dredd crossover, "Die Laughing" (hence the chained badge, etc.). Thus have I decided to paint the helmet in the aforementioned alternate scheme.

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