I Promised This A While Back...

One of the other things that The Repair Shop does for me is inspire.  I often find that after an episode or two of the show, my own creative juices flow and I want to fix something, build something or paint.  Tonight it was paint.  I finished my latest mural.

And I will show you what I did.  Just a bit of background first.

This is a piece that is my homage to one of the greatest creative minds of my generation.  If you're at all geeky, the name Bruce Timm falls into the same category as names like Ditko, Stan Lee and others that helped define who our heroes are and what they look like.  Timm is the artistic genius behind Batman, the Animated Series, co-creator of Harley Quinn and just about the most definitive artist to put paint to cowl in the last 30 years.

He took a cue from the Fleisher Superman cartoons from the 40s and gave Batman and company a serious art deco makeover that influenced pretty much anyone in comics for the next generation.

His Batgirl and Supergirl have always been favourites of mine.  These are the two pix I used as my jumping off point:

 

Yeah, those are pretty nifty and once I'd settled on them as my inspiration I decided I needed the World's Finest at the top of my stairs.  The odd blocking around the pix is due to the need to work my phone at an odd angle to get the full shot.  I'll spare you the 31 (!) steps and just hit the highlights. 

So to make a start, a bunch of yellow.  At the moment it doesn't look like much, but you may already notice a change or two.  Bruce Timm's Batgirl sports a Batman-esque blue and black colour scheme with yellow highlights.  My Batgirl is inspired by Timm but also by the original Batgirl from television, played in smashing purple and yellow by the lovely Yvonne Craig.  My Batgirl also wears higher boots and longer gloves.  I like high boots.  Sue me.

Some red and skin colour.  Notice the change in Supergirl's colour scheme.  I went the more traditional route for her and I like the change.  I also like thigh boots.  Sue me.

Okay, so now you see the whole picture, at least in the broad strokes.  Purple and yellow for Batgirl, blue top and red skirt for Supergirl.  I also made some slight changes to the overall Supergirl costume from the Timm version.  Long sleeves, drop waist on the skirt, ditch the gloves.  More the Supergirl of the comics than tv or movies.

Some work on the body shading in the blue, red and purple, also the hair on both.

Highlights on the yellow.  This step had me worried.  I wasn't sure how the brown highlights on the yellow would work in acrylic paint.  I was hoping for a sort of leather/vinyl look and was pleasantly surprised that I got something along those lines.  A little white in the eyes and teeth areas.

Lots of details added here.  Red lips, eyeballs, skin shading and a bunch of touches for "pop" in various places.  The biggest change is probably giving Supergirl a nice "S".

 Looks like I is finished.  Black around the eyes, a little dark red on the lips.  Done.

 

 

There's always something.  Totally forgot the Batarang!  Another slight concern here.  Wanted a metal-ish look to the thing, but Timm basically gave me a plain black silhouette, so I improvised and I'm pretty happy with the result. 

 

In putting this post together, I've notice a couple of things I meant to do that I missed.  Nothing major, so we'll call this done.  I may revisit the two or three touches I think it needs.  If I do I'll post up the revision when it happens.

 

That's a wrap.