Bat Family

Working on my book had gotten really intense, so every once in a while I would work on this drawing to loosen up and get ready for page work...

I am always trying to challenge myself so I took this as another chance to do that. I don't have a strong Batman themed illustration in my portfolio so I felt it was long overdue. Ever since New York Comic Con I have been working on getting something good from my head onto the page.

Drawing my book has had me doing a lot of crowd and group scenes. I realized that I really love animation, and I really love family styled stories. The Fantastic Four is a book I always go back to. I love Supernatural because of the family theme so what better way could I represent Batman than to use his family as my subject. The more I drew, the more I wanted to include those I've enjoyed in the books for one reason or another. I've drawn 11 characters here:

Starting Clockwise from 6 o.clock)
Damien Wayne (Batman's son, 5th Robin)
Red Robin (Tim Drake, 3rd Robin)
Cassandra Cain (2nd Batgirl)
Barbara Gordon (original Batgirl, now new Batgirl)
Stephanie Brown (4th Robin and a 3rd Batgirl)
David Zavimbe (Batwing, Batman of Africa)
Helena Bertinelli (the Huntress)
Katherine Kane (Batwoman)
Jason Todd (Red Hood, 2nd Robin)
Richard Grayson (Original Robin)
Bruce Wayne (Batman himself)

This was a great exercise. I dealt with spacial relationships, positive and negative shapes/space, posing, characterization, and perspective. I've also been drawing more characters from a profile view rather than straight on or 3/4 for practice. I am still not entirely comfortable with it but I am trying to push myself out of my comfort zones....

When I have more time I will be deleting the color background and putting a Gotham cityscape in the background.  I will also be doing a mirror image with the Joker and the rest of Bat's rogue gallery with Arkham as the backdrop! There is always more fun to be had, thanks for enjoying this ride with me!