Mark Making #2: Simon Bisley

This is the second Blog on Mark Making, featuring 2000ad artists from my youth. These two pages come from Simon Bisley. Both pages come from the same story but demonstrate different techniques if you look closely. When Simon Bisley started at 2000ad he was an instant hit thanks to the way he created robots with muscles and tons of detail. Each figure is posed well and full of dynamic tension, echoing a classical drawing style that resembles August Rodin more than modern sci-fi art.

 

Piles of knotted robot muscle depicted with bold black lines and parallel hatched shading lines.

In contrast to the controlled lines of most of this work the gore is a semi-naturalistic splash or splatter.

The tension of the muscle fiber, sinew, tendons and ligaments is shown with strong straight black and white lines, minimal shading. Joe Pineapples is a very calculating, emotionless assassin; hence he is drawn with deliberately hard lines, lacking emotion.

  

 
This time the clean lines are  broken up with some stippled shading, resembling stubble when it is used on the chin.

Mongrol is a more passionate character, full of rage and fury. He is often depicted using more organic lines, like the ones used on his fists here.

A few parallel lines represent a mass of wires.

A very dramatic view of General Blackblood, barely any visual description in the face but it still has tons of character. The line work is slightly more sketchy.

The details of the sniper rifle are a mass of black and white angles, with a bit of stippling used sparingly.

The second page, taken from a later episode.

This time note the use of ink splattered on, maybe with an old tooth brush, also the cross hatching delivered with a much more relaxed style.

 

Background detail is created with a few brief squiggles...

...or minimal lines work.

This weathered detail on the face of Hammerstein uses cross-hatching to show wear and rough texture. Note stippling in the eye to differentiate it from the rest of the face.

Finally, a great use for crass-hatching; the rising fields of the artificial landscape, rising up in the distance behind the simply rendered trees.