Monday, April 06, 2009

Batman in Barcelona: Dragon's Knight #1

[jimlee]

I wanted to pose Batman more upright, almost in parallel to the spires of the magnificent Sagrada Familia and took an artistic liberty of posing him on an arch "erected" entirely so he would be on the same height as the cathedral. I made the cape more cloak like, made of heavy material, billowing in the wind and spotted the blacks in horizontal swatches of triangular shapes to contrast with the more up and down vertical lines of the spires and the torso and legs. Batman can not be bigger nor more imposing than the cathedral but reflective of its power and majesty.

Here I add the detail which adds complexity, nuance, and texture but not at the expense of the composition and the balance of the piece which was already established in stage two. I kept it loose for the background to create a shorter depth of field and to pop the more detailed, gritty foreground off the simpler, more chiaroscuro background.

Black and White cover I did for Batman in Barcelona: Dragon's Knight written by Mark Waid. That's the surrealistic gothic spires of the incredible Sagrada Familia in background. Saw em back in '94 or '95...can't wait to see them again at the end of May.

The colored piece by the insanely talented Alex Sinclair. Batman in Barcelona: Dragon's Knight written by Mark Waid. There are articles about the piece online but they are all in Spanish at this point and about 3 pages back in google searches.

7 comments:

John Learned said...

Lookin' good

Ferran Delgado said...

Hi Jim,

While I admire your skills, and I've enjoyed your work for years, I think that you could do a better job for this cover, specially when it's intended to get published in an international edition and it could hurt sensibilities.

This is my entry in my blog about your cover:
http://tinyurl.com/cxjzgw

I'm looking forward to see your beautiful sketches in Barcelona and to watch you display your skills!

Best,
Ferran

Richard Oh said...

I love the background details! Stunning as always!

Scoop de Doop said...

dope as always.

mic? said...

Lo'e the shapes that the shadows of the cape make, especially on the b&w piece!

Never thought I'd be staring @ and admiring a drawing of Bats "erected" entirely. We're all used to seeing him crouching and slouching and such.

lol

Peace.

Anonymous said...

I appreciate that there's some sort of a frame-by-frame account of how you made the comic.
---
-Spock!Mesa Boogie Yourself, ESP Man!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for sharing!