2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Toby Willsmer’s Dredd for Prog 2481
2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Toby Willsmer’s Dredd for Prog 2481 – ‘I never knew painting a sewer could be so much fun!’
6th May 2026
Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncoveredtakes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!
Borag Thungg, Earthlets. Welcome to Covers Uncovered where, this week, we get to gaze in wonder at Dredd navigating the sewerage systems of the Big Meg, courtesy of art droid extraordinaire Toby Willsmer…
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This one’s a testament to keeping hold of all those random ideas that fill an artist’s head, as Toby will tell you in a moment. It’s yet another iconic Dredd pose from the Willsmer droid, something he’s become something of an expert at in the five years since he first appeared on Tharg’s radar. As is usual with a Willsmer cover, there’s kinetic movement a-plenty, glorious painted stuff, and just Dredd looking like the best Dredd. And all this from a little idea that just wouldn’t leave his head…
TOBY WILLSMER: So, I had an old tunnel idea that I’d passed on due to it just not working at the time. Fast forward a couple of years, and this pose came out of one of those scribble over the top of it with multiple arms and guns, and see what comes out of it doodles…
I knew this pose would work for the tunnel idea I originally had, and could see plenty of action in it. At this stage, I thought the setting could be quite dark, with Dredd framed in some sort of light source.
I’ve no idea why I keep sketching these doodles so bloody small though!
I wanted a really over-the-top chaotic moment, caught with dramatic lighting. So I used the original confined tunnel idea to contain/frame it all and planned using the Lawgiver blast as a light source. I mean, who doesn’t love Dredd stomping about in sewer juice whilst blazing away at those pesky perps!
I sent the idea over to Matt, and he was into it too.
My idea was to contain the main light on one side and keep the background quite dark, with a second light source highlighting another Judge in the scene.
As I’d do all this at the colouring stage, I only needed to focus on Dredd’s shadowing here. Keeping it heavy in the foreground and blocking basic shadows for the second figure.
With the colour scheme already figured out, I stripped it back and cleaned up the base colours as my starting point. I find getting the foreground and background depths important at this stage. As it helps later on when giving the main part a little extra oompf.
Now the fun stuff. I wanted it over the top, with bullets flying past Dredd, ricocheting off the walls, splashing in the sewer juice at his feet.
Just stuff happening everywhere to try and capture the chaos in the moment.
Was I tempted to add in a few floaters here and there?…of course I was!
From an idea I’d binned years ago to something I was finally happy with. I never knew painting a sewer could be so much fun! (Don’t worry there’s no floaters!)
See, that’s why you should never trash an idea completely. You never know when, one night of doodling, it will turn into the latest zarzaj idea for a great Dredd cover. Of course, it does help if you’re Toby Willsmer and your covers are the sort of things that just jump off the shelves demanding you buy them.
Thanks so much to Toby for sending that one along to us. Another absolute cracker that’s available right now wherever the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD webshop.
Since first busting into some of Tharg’s favourite cover droids, Toby’s built up a fair gallery of work for you to ooh and ahh over, right from his very first appearance in the Prog as the winner of a 2021 Art Stars entry (and you can see that here.) Since then, we’ve had the pleasure of showing you Covers Uncovered pieces for these wonderful Willsmer Prog covers – Prog 2240, Prog 2262, Prog 2269, Prog 2318, Prog 2332, Prog 2352, Prog 2389, Prog 2345, Prog 2449, and Prog 2465.
If you want to know more and see more of his work, head to his site here.
Now, Toby sent over his art as huge files, which is just like we like it, as it gives us the chance to blow-up all that striking artwork and give you bits of detail…
From that very first sketch/doodle…
To the insane amount of detail on that rough sent to Tharg…
And once that was approved, time to get into the cover properly… pencils/inks…
And then the adding of the paints and colours, and all the things that make this one pop like it does…
