Monday 28 February 2011

Judge, Jury and Executioner

Crop from "HMRC Dredd", line art in Manga Studio, colour in Photoshop

I was commissioned by Iain Winfield from Accountancy Age magazine to create the cover for this week's issue. The cover story is about HMRC (I will hugely paraphrase) throwing it's weight around.

Iain asked me to draw a fictitious "HMRC agent" dressed up like Judge Dredd in a parody of this classic poster (I think by Brian Bolland, but feel free to correct me) shown below with my photographic reference.

Reference for "HMRC Dredd"

Since the brief was very clear in terms of composition, I submitted my roughs with just a few variations in pose. I tried to suggest the Judge's uniform with the leather jacket, using a ID card as the badge and sunglasses instead of the helmet. Also I felt the gun was perhaps overtly aggressive so I delivered an option with the character being "tough" with the paperwork, which is my personal experience of HMRC.

Roughs for "HMRC Dredd". Manga Studio & Photoshop

The guys at the magazine decided that the "full on" version was the way forward so I pushed on to the final image.

"HMRC Dredd", line art in Manga Studio, colour in Photoshop


Have a great week!