Judge Dredd is one of the UK's longest-running and most successful comic characters, appearing every week in 2000 AD (and every four weeks in Judge Dredd Megazine).

The character's distinctive uniform and hardware just cries out to be modelled in 3D... As do some of the other characters from the strip.

Judge Dredd's vehicle of choice when patroling the streets of Mega-City One.

Ah, now this one has a story behind it! Years ago I created a model of the famous Judge's badge. I didn't spend a huge amount of time on it: I just copied the basic shapes and created a fairly flat model. Then I was contacted by Wakefield Carter of Termight Replicas. Wake was looking at the possibility of creating replica Dredd badges, and asked me if I would be interested in re-doing the model to make it more realistic. Well, I was. And I did. And it took absolutely ages to get it right, but it was worth it in the end. The one on the left is the final model; on the right is the finished badge, complete with gold plating!

Below, a weathered version of the badge; less reflective and covered in scratches.

And if you would like your own customised Dredd badge (well, a picture of one), check out Badger!

As used by Judge Dredd to shoot bad guys... This is my second model of the Lawgiver: for the first version I based the measurements on the teeny tiny Lawgiver that came with the Dredd action figure from Re:Action. This one is based on the excellent replica available from Termight Replicas.

This two-part vehicle was used by Judge Dredd to cross the Cursed Earth. Well, most of the way: the Land Raider was gradually destroyed along the way (Dredd had to finish the rest of the journey on foot). The best part is this: not only was the Land Raider an exceptionally cool machine, it was based on an actual toy (from the Matchbox Adventure 2000 series, now long-since deleted, but still worth tracking down if you can find anyone willing to part with one)! This was in the days before product placement, when such things were rare.

Update: 20101126

A somewhat tweaked model, with new texture and Judge Dredd added for scale... Click for enlargification!

Judge Dredd's former servo-droid... Based on artist Brian Bolland's version of the character. To create his head/screen I had to learn all about Hyper-NURBS (a neat but complex way of smoothing & subdividing a cuboid). But that wasn't the tricky part: no, the tricky part was Walter's shoulders. It took so long to get them right that I almost gave up several times.

As seen in the Judge Dredd classic tale "The Judge Child". Man, was this a hard nut to crack! It only took about two hours to create most of the model - again based on a Brian Bolland drawing. It's a very simple, elegant design. Until you get to the Eagle above the cockpit... Which took about seven hours to get right!

See Justice 1 in action!
This is a Windows Media file. Right-click on the link and select "Save Target As..." (or "Save Link As...").

Chopper (AKA Marlon Shakespeare) is a long-time Judge Dredd character, a former graffiti artist who later turned his hand to sky-surfing. The most complex of the images here, and - interestingly - the easiest to create. Chopper is an exported Poser model (and I didn't even have to do anything special: there was already a surfer-type pose in the software's library), the skyscrapers are an extended relief-map (the texture is modified from a photo I took of a building in Dublin), and the roads and the round building are leftovers from a 3D computer game I never got around to finishing.

See Chopper doing what he does best!
This is a Windows Media file. Right-click on the link and select "Save Target As..." (or "Save Link As...").

An incredibly tough one to nail down... Every Judge Dredd artist draws the helmet differently, and it's a design that's not easy to make work in 3D (in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie the helmet was radically redesigned, presumably because the producers thought it would be a good idea if the judges could actually see through the visor). The lightning flashes on the visor are drawn by almost every Dredd artist and are, presumably, supposed to be some sort of reflection. Logically they shouldn't appear in a 3D rendered version, but the helmet looks really weird if you leave them out.

Now, who wouldn't want a little Lego Judge Dredd?

Another commission from Termight Replicas. Though there have been many Judge Dredd artists over the years, it was decided that the buckle would be based on Cliff Robinson's interpretation of the design. After a lot of input from Wakefield Carter and Cliff himself, this is the final version - and it's available now on Termight Replicas' website!

Below: The finished product... Cast in Zinc Alloy and then gold-plated with an enamelled shield. 9cm tall, 12cm wide, 1cm thick and features a 4cm belt loop and spike on the back.

The Mega-City One Justice Department's great big flying crook-catcher. I was never really a fan of this design until I started to build the 3D model, but now I love it!

A work-in-progress model of Dredd's unkillable arch-enemy...

Observant viewers will notice that Death's face is more or less the same model as Artie Gruber's. Only with a scarier texture, of course.

I've now created models of every part of the Judge's uniform, so it makes sense to stick 'im on his bike and see how he looks...

Judge Dredd on patrol with a rookie judge.

Competition entry for 2000 AD Online: "Mega-City One from the point of view of the average citizen."

A red/green stereoscopic image of the mighty lawman (you'll need red/green or red/cyan 3D glasses to see this in all its glory!).

Um... You didn't see this.

Another in a long line of non-winning competition entries!

Rothmuller is a member of the Special Judicial Squad, the Justice Department's own internal affairs investigators... So far, Rothmuller has only appeared in one nine-page strip - Judge Dredd Megazine #304, written by me and illustrated by Nick Dyer - but he seems to have gone down well with the readers so I'm hoping he'll make a return appearance!

I spent way too much time on this model... Look: I even put stitching on the belt-pouches!