Bad Girls of Gotham (part 1)

As I mentioned in my last post, I do artwork to advertise all sort of stuff in the GameStop I work in . Also, I am a HUGE Batman fan, and am eagerly awaiting the follow-up to the stunning Batman: Arkham Asylum- Batman: Arkham City. To advertise our pre-order bonus, I drew this on our whiteboard.

The reaction from customers was surprisingly enthusiastic- I'm told some took pictures. After doing another piece of art for Gears of War that we raffled off at the midnight which also got a really great response, I decided that this was a good way to work out my chops, to stretch my artistic legs, so to speak. So I decided to do another piece for B:AC.

Originally I was going to do a painting based on the above drawing (I still might), but something a coworker said about a "pin up Poison Ivy" stuck with me. I really like retro style pin up art, and I decided that would be even more fun. So, head past the break to take a peek at "The Bad Girls of Gotham."

(C'mon, how do you turn THAT down?)

Here is the concept layout I started with. The first image I conceived was Harley sitting on her giant hammer, holding it like a witch on a broom, but as I did a few tests on that pose, I decided I wanted the one leg up, so down she went. It looks like the back left one is doing shadow puppetry, but that is Ivy, and she's holding one of her babies. After doing some other sketches, I blocked them on the final piece of paper, and started adding details.

Here's Ivy, holding her baby. The vines coming down around her hands were intended to have an almost BDSM vibe. A bit naughty, I know, but classic pinup art used a lot of hidden innuendo if you know where to look. Besides, if you think this is bad, maybe you should Google Wonder Woman's origins. The hairstyle is greatly influenced by Veronica Lake.

Catwoman's pose originally had both hands on her one knee, but the front still vastly unzipped (which is how she usually wears her jumpsuit in the comics). I decided that the ring on the zipper was a great place to showcase her "claws." Her outfit will be very "dom" inspired with many latex and vinyl looking materials.

Here's Harley, riding her hammer like a stripper pole. Symbolism here's pretty self explanatory. I decided to do her with the hood off, because it gives me an excuse to give her Bettie Page inspired bangs, to better sell the pinup style.

Establishing skin tone and hair color was important to me at first, because when drawing people, if the face is off even a little bit, there's very little point in continuing on until you get it right. i noticed in review that I kinda fudged the facial expression and nose angle, so I went back later and fixed it.

After getting this far with Harley, I decided that there wasn't enough contrast on her white face paint and her skin tone, that I wanted her teeth separated, and that her hair color was too close to Ivy's. I knew that Harley's needed to be a golden blonde, but Ivy's was too light, so I would adjust that later.

I did Harley first, because she's in the foreground (photographed later cause my phone battery died). I really like how the red came out. I used Black, Violet, and Crimson Lake to do all of her costume, except the frills, which added 10% French Grey. You'll also notice that I added the blush that they added to her makeup for Batman: Arkham Asylum. I think it really brought the face to life.

I was stuck with what to do with Ivy's costume, and I decided to go with the Animated Series outfit as inspiration. There she wore a sort of unitard with pale green leggings, so in the pin u spirit, I replaced the leggings with stockings and garters. I also brought her hair color to a deeper orange red. It's much closer to the color I envisioned. The unitard piece I decided to do a vine-like scroll pattern all over it, with a leaf shaped lace-style trim. If you look closely, I also fixed the face- the chin was too large and the nose turned down.

Here's a closeup of her plant and the vines. Infer what you will.

Here's Ivy in her full posture. The clips on her garters are small red roses.

Here's what I have done on Catwoman so far. I started her last because of some last minute design changes to her outfit. I had been on the fence on how to do her ears and boots. I might have to come in after and pick out the white highlights with some white gouache. Interesting note, when I put this picture in my Picasa folder, the face recognition kicked in and asked me to tag it with her name.

That's it for now. I'm tallying about 10.5 hours so far. I'm moving at a really meticulous pace, but I think it will be worth it. I'll post more as I complete it.