Batsy’s Villains

[hgojsse]

I’m back and with Scarecrow !!

Oh how I love getting a chance to draw him! I felt that the last detailed post about him was off in terms of colors but this time around I am happy!

Just like Deadshot and Deathstroke, the purpose is to show the progress in skills and give a more rounded idea of my design choices for the characters.

For instance, you guys can see how Jonathan looks under his mask! The scars are integral to his story and with Batman…let’s just say that our Doctor Crane didn’t like having a taste of his own medicine and went to town on his face with his own hands…😬

I also wanted to design a prototype mask that he would have used during his time at Arkham, building his research and finessing his toxin. The design is clearly referencing the work done by Joe Quinones on Batman Echoes.

There is also a third mask 🤣 this one is for his goons! I feel like Scarecrow is the one who always has the ambitious plans (probably on par with Joker tbh) and he has to take in the workforce !!

Other than that, have fun reading the trivia on the drawings to get a feel for how he will fit in my canon.

Until next time ! 🎃🎃

[hgojsse]

Next study is Deathstroke!

Always good fun to draw I must admit ! Just like the previous post for Deadshot, you can see some new angles (back view), the weapons with colors (I added a design for his Bo staff) !

I forgot but I also did the unmasked versions !! So you can see that Slade is inspired by Justice League’s design with Joe Manganiello.

You’ll find some tidbits about him! Obviously I know that deathstroke is first and foremost a teen titans villain. So with that, I want to plan a big story with Nightwing around him by also referencing his story with Batman (Arkham Origins). The main idea being that Bruce heard of Slade quite early on (still during his pilgrimage)

That’s all! The next one coming up is Scarecrow!

[hgojsse]

Making a small comeback with a renewed study of Deadshot!

I slightly updated his design to fit with the skills I learned as of late but nothing major. My purpose with these renewed character studies is show how I improved, the additional design elements that needed to be implemented.

So there you go, I designed the back view of the helmet that Floyd wears which was based on concept art from Arkham Origins. I really liked the look of the strap tying the mask in place.

I also took the time to draw his forearms to train myself to draw the wrist guns (also a profile view).

Lastly I took some more time with his weapons by including color. The base being the Suicide Squad movie which, despite its flaws, had some great details such as the weapons.

For the lore enthusiasts, you’ll see some infos I left for Floyd’s profile, as well as a note left by Bruce on how Floyd fits in the larger story. Since I am deep in reading, taking notes to flesh out my own universe, suffice it to say I have taken a recent story and swapped the villain for Desdshot as I felt it could deliver a great storyline…feel free to guess

[hgojsse]

Okay okay, I know this ain’t Twitter and nobody cares or even asked for these two cents 🤣

I guess SPOILER WARNING

As an Arkham franchise enthusiast, and considering how it influences so much of my design and what I want to achieve with my story.

So obviously, seeing the way Bats dies in SSKTJL….kind of broke my heart. I hear that given the later seasons we may have hope that it isn’t definitive, multiverse and all…but still you know?

That got me to thinking, how do I see my own self-indulgent cannon and storyline end? Does Bats have to die?

Well…let’s just say I always had a clear end storyline in mind. That story involves Bats and Joker’s final showdown. I am a sucker for tragedies and that finale is definitely one. But not in the way people expect ? And most certainly, not ending on a negative note. This is a hero story, we have enough bad endings in reality 🤣🤷‍♂️

So most of you would be like, is there a point ?

So here is a second SPOILER of a story that may never be completely told!

Joker dies. He has to die because he wanted his death to break Bats, that it would kill what he stood for. At the end, he knows Bruce is Bats and uses that knowledge but in truth says he doesn’t care. As he lays dying though, he has a heart to heart with Bruce which also is bleeding out. He tells Bruce that the world will be less funny with both of them dead.

Bruce survives, but hangs up the cowl. He genuinely grieves Joker and says Batman is dead. We learn later that Joker said one final thing to Bruce. Something that haunted him and that in a PTSD way, refused to accept for a long time. Joker tells him that « But I guess, that you’ll manage long after I’m gone. I needed you more than you ever did. Just make sure you don’t forget me just yet, old friend. »

Bats looses his will to put the cowl back on. But he isn’t alone. He has Alfred, he has Dick, he has Barbara, he has Tim and he has Jason. He learns that he can take the time to grieve and find himself again, go find a new purpose (yes I am thinking with the LEAGUE like in SSKTJL) and take a more distant position in Gotham.

Now sure, Batman always will operate in Gotham, that’s a no-brainer. I want to say that a story arc of Batman grieving an ideal that he has latched (wrongly) too in order to emerge into something even grander is some good character development….

Sorry for the rant and for anyone who braved through that 🙄🤣🤣

Hope I made sense, let me know in all honesty !

[hgojsse]

Here is some new content for all of you!

Here we have, Deacon Blackfire, Lady Shiva and Azrael!

If you have been following my posts, you guys have already seen Lady Shiva and Azrael! This was just a fun opportunity to draw them again and practice !

Blackfire on the other hand is brand new! In terms of looks you can see the Arkham games inspiration with the worn out suit, exposed skin and cult tattoos! I can give some info about him because he is a key character in the narrative !

Obviously, going from “the Cult” comic, he was the Miagani tribe shaman. The whole slaughter story of the Miagani with the settlers is what tipped Blackfire off. The tribe didn’t want war but Blackfire believed it was the only way for them to live in peace. When he was considered an ‘extremist’ by his own tribe, he went on to kill the leader of the tribe and was later entombed alive, cursed to live an eternity of anguish (hence the tattoos which curse him). By the time he escapes (people stumble on his tomb), our man is pissed. And then we kickoff with the comics events and all…

I won’t give everything away but I feel he has the potential to be a fascinating villain !

Who do you guys prefer ?

Blackfire

Shiva

Azrael

Voting ended onFeb 1, 2024

[hgojsse]

New designs ! I managed to finish and polish my Brainiac and Bizarro designs !

They were a ton of fun to do!

Honestly Brainiac has been the most challenging…I had a vision of a toned down injustice version of him. I looked at different concept arts with nothing that really stood out to me…so I mixed about three different designs, looked up reference for futuristic armor, and there you go! I actually had some people around me give direct feedback based on what I wanted to achieve and what they thought I needed to change.

Bizarro is honestly pretty straightforward but enjoyable nonetheless!

[hgojsse]

Quick post !

Since î’m all over the place, more Justice League for all of you 🤣🤣

[hgojsse]

Let’s start 2024 strong! And three days late…

So here is the next part of the cartoon style of some Batman related characters.

You’ll see Barbara without her Batgirl attire for the first time ! Also…Mad Hatter with his hat !!!

My personal faves here : Clayface, Bane, Scarecrow, Killer Croc and Black Mask !

[hgojsse]

And continuing with the previous post, this time in color !!

This is honestly great fun! Having these designs really helps put the focus even with the colors, on what I want to stand out. This helps me show the diversity and the pops of colors the rogues can bring in Gotham.

There are a lot which I have done that I absolutely adore: Bullock, Penguin, Two Face, Joker and Lucius!

Speaking of, you can see some new faces with Lucius Fox and Harvey Bullock!

I can’t wait to show you the others !

[hgojsse]

A fun Little challenge I decided to throw myself! A real cartoonish and exaggerated style.

This helps narrow down the important designs in my rendition and by experimenting with a caricature style, you can see the diversity in facial features.

I kept it black and white which also makes the characters pop and read easier. I feel like I went for a Pixar aesthetic and reference an instagram account called art.of.sidky (artist’s name is Ahmed)

You can see another version of the Robin suit! This one in particular was worn by Jason Todd !

You guys know the others 😁

[hgojsse]

Getting around to more posting!

I guess this one is more for you all to see my early sketches and color testing before anything definitive !

Plus, i believe this all just new stuff ! Exciting 🤩

The only finalized (I might just switch things up for the legs) is Martian Manhunter! He was incredibly fun to design ! I had fun gathering references to make him just like I wanted! Obviously being first and foremost a Batman comic enthusiast, I won’t venture in anything lore related. What I can say is that I looked at the Snyder Justice league version for some inspiration but I wanted to stray away from the human face and make him well…alien ! Brighter colors are also something I wanted and boy does he pop so well! (I looked up JL animated series and stejpan Seijic’s concepts)

I fell he will fit in just fine with the JL line up!

Up next we have two in progress designs for Bizzarro and Braniac ! Boy they were a struggle (especially Brainiac). Bizzarro is almost finished, maybe some color refining….i really want his blue eyes to pop.

Brainiac still needs some work, less black and more greenish metallic hues for his armor. I’ll be giving more info when he will be finished!

And you’ll also be able to see some sketches for Doomsday, Diana, Clark and Bruce !

[hgojsse]

Some Justice League and Batman universe extended stuff !

Drawing the other heroes of DC is always a good thing to break from design conventions and end up making all of the characters that I’ve drawn before too similar.

That being said, I still want a coherence in all the designs, to give credibility to a diverse universe.

So what have we got for today?

Supes has been presented in a previous post. He did undergo some changes with the addition of more red (the gauntlets), the extension of the red parts in his pants to make it more sleek and some additional detail ok the boots with a gold accent.

Wonder Woman wasn’t shown colored in the previous posts so that’s new! She was really fun to do given the variety of materials in her armor and the mix of different hues of reds and blues in comparison to Clark.

The real addition is Green Lantern, here Hal Jordan. So I’m not gonna pretend i know a lot of his story. I need to do more digging if I get the time ! In terms of design I didn’t want him to look that armored. I preferred a sleak design with some accents and details but not overly so. One thing I wanted to emulate is that his suit didn’t come from Earth. Given that I also did Sinestro i was happy to show that I could give coherence in the lanterns while given clear distinctions. His color scheme was pretty straightforward but I’m happy with where I landed.

And that’s a wrap !

[hgojsse]

Back at it again after another long break! I’ve actually been back into reading a lot of the comics I have, and definitely looking to extend the collection so that made me go back full on in drawing Batman related stuff!

I looked at all of my sketchbooks and boy there is a lot of stuff to do: finishing the inking of some of the pieces, do the coloring…

So I started with our dear Lady Shiva below. Funny enough the last post was with Azrael and an uncolored Lady Shiva.

So her look is pretty classic with hues of dark grey going all the way to black and some pops of red. I think the main addition is just some golden accents.

In so far as inspiration for the design, I really liked her look in Arkham Origins as well as some art from Gotham Red. I wanted her to take more inspiration from the Chinese culture than anything.

In terms of how she fits in the story, Bruce meets her during his ‘pilgrimage’ in North Korea and later down the line in Nanda Parbat while training under Ra’s. She doesn’t become an imminent threat during Batman’s career but she does come into play, kind of like a ghost from the past.

[hgojsse]

New Batman stuff!

Getting to some new characters seems to be my fun time!

So the first one is pretty obvious, Azrael comes to say hello! There is obviously a BIG BIG influence and vibe from Arkham Knight concept art (i.e the pose).

—> What I changed : I did the classic red shape on his mask, traded the more military aspect of the concept art for a more medieval look (more leather baby), added armor on his tights and that’s it!

Now story-wise I need to see how he fits into all this? I don’t honestly know much about him outside from Knightfall, but that storyline goes through a lot of changes in my conception of the events so we’ll see 🤫

And for the next one, less obvious I think is Lady Shiva!

A pretty straightforward design in comparison to the others but it does the job I think! I tried to lean more into Chinese rather than Japanese for her look. Not much else to say…

She will be a big player early on in Batman’s story, I think there are some interesting ramifications to study with the league but even more so with Talia I think… 🤔

[hgojsse]

I did mention Black Manta in my previous post so here he his !

I actually watched Jame’s WAN’s Aquaman again to get some inspiration ! Definitely a character I find interesting, not only in terms of look but character motivations !

So for my design, it pretty much is a blend between the film with a more tech-ish approach (with Atlantean tech) and once again Stjepan Seijic’s sketches! The dark color scheme may fell bland but the red accents and the subtle blue hue of the suit does it for me !

I’ll have to sketch his mask less look with the iconic scars 😏

[hgojsse]

New character designs ! And even some colors hehehe!

I think designing some new characters outside of the Batverse is a good thing for me ? Obviously I will go back to draw a lot more characters from Gotham’s vigilante stories ! (I think I still have a couple of baddies to draw !)

Now then, I won’t try to pass as an Aquaman connaisseur or even a fan, I don’t know an awful lot apart from the movies 😅

But you see, that didn’t prevent me from trying my hand at designing Arthur Curry, Auquaman himself (quite a classic and comic accurate look I think) and Oceanmaster (Orm).

Now boy, the scales on Arthur a PAIN TO DRAW. DAMN. For the rest, I combined several art references with the aim of ‘hightened’ comic book look I.e. more complex lines to give variation in terms of the suit! He is fun to draw (except those scales) and I feel his colors satisfy me for now !

Now for Oceanmaster ! If you guys should know anything, I really love Stjepan Seijic’s work, and I stumbled across a concept art/ sketch he did of Oceanmaster which is 90% of his design here. The color scheme is OK for now, I might go with a deeper purple/grey for some metallic parts of his armor but other than that I think he looks really cool! (Probably one of my favorites)

Next stop, I really really want to do Black Manta! And after that, I need to color the other bat suits you saw, and perhaps continue just a bit more with the Justice League and main baddies !

Tell me what you guys think !

[hgojsse]