Batman Sketch Challenge – Day Twenty Six – Harvey Bullock

by on April 26, 2018 at 10:51 am
Posted In: Art

For Day twenty six of my Batman Sketch Challenge I drew Harvey BullockI’m beginning to scrape the bottom of the Magic Tupperware here where I’m just getting the remaining civilians on the list, starting with Harvey Bullock.

When I first came across Harvey in Alan Moore‘s Swamp Thing run where his general lazy and sloppy appearance made him easy to underestimate. I later saw him in other stories as the face of the Gotham Police Department, to make it clear there were other people we knew besides James Gordon. Later he even became a secret agent in DC’s Checkmate title.

It was only with the animated series and doing my own research that I learned he was also originally introduced as a standard corrupt cop.

They’ve been pretty much writing him that way ever since, and conveniently forgot about the checkmate storyline.

For my purposes, I’m pretty much casting him as Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil.

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Wednesday Double Feature – Viking Adventure

by on April 25, 2018 at 1:25 pm
Posted In: Test

This week I decided to have some fun and watch some films I had heard about for some time about Viking adventures. ( I briefly considered calling it Viking Fantasy but while one of the films definitely was, the other one was just vague enough I figured I’d play it safe.)

Wednesday Double Feature - Viking Adventure - Valhalla RisingThe first on my list, Valhalla rising, by Nicolas Winding Refn, was one that several of my friends spoke highly of starting Mads Mikkelsen.(Mainly because it was so different from Mikkelsen roles I’d seen.)

Mikkelsen plays an unnamed mute thrall called One-Eye by the boy who looks after him.. He is forced by his masters to fight other thralls to the death. (In fact he such a good fighter one has to wonder how the Vikings caught him in the first place.) He eventually escapes killing all of his captors. Into contact with a band of Christian Vikings. They are on a crusade to reach the holy land and invite One-Eye and the boy, who has accompanied him, to come with them. Rather than reach the holy land, they sail into a mysterious fog bank and find themselves in a mysterious wooded land. (Which eventually is revealed to be North America.) There they have to find their way, while all the time they are being watched.

This is a very beautiful film the explosive violence contrasting marvelously with the long silence and the restrained palette of the look of it.

Wednesday Double Feature - Viking Adventure - 13th WarriorThe next film on my list, the 13th warrior, directed by John McTiernan, named after the book of the same name by Michael Crichton (when it’s not called by its original name, Eaters of the Dead) tells the story of real-life Arab poet Ahmad ibn Fadlan, played by Antonio Banderas, who is sent on a diplomatic mission to contact northern barbarians. He and his companions meet up with a band of Vikings on the Volga river. While he is there, an emissary comes to call the king of the band, Buliwyf to help their lord fight monsters who killing them Ahmad, is is drafted as the 13th warrior of the band, and forced to go and join the Vikings to fight the mysterious and dreaded ‘Wendol’ who are later revealed to be the last remaining Neandertals in the world surviving til the 10th century. Can anybody any of our heroes survive let alone defeat the enemy?.

This was mostly a loyal adaptation of the original book with an excellent performance from Banderas. The rest of the performances were relatively flat. The action was good. The Wendol themselves could have been done a better done. But for it was a fun watch.

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Batman Sketch Challenge – Day Twenty Five – The Batmobile

by on April 25, 2018 at 10:19 am
Posted In: Art

For Day Twenty Five of My Batman Sketch Challenge Marva Cooper works on the Batmobile.This is one I’ve been waiting to do for a while. Not the Batmobile it’self, but the crew working on it, as part of my “Batman has a support crew” theme.

It took me a while to choose who would be working on the Batmobile and the other vehicles. I briefly considered bringing in Natasha Irons, but because of her being part of the Superman franchise, as well as her personal growth in the 52 series, that felt like a demotion to me. Fortunately, I remembered Earl Cooper and his daughter Maarva from the animated episode “The Mechanic”. The Mechanic isn’t a great episode and despite some nice bits with the Penguin, it’s pretty much just an exposition dump.I like because it introduces these two great characters.  It also answers the question of where Batman gets his work done (and one of the unstated rules of this challenge is the animated series is canon unless I say it isn’t.)

As far as our present is concerned, Earl’s slowed down quite a bit and has relegated himself to the administrative duties of the Batcave’s engineering department leaving Maarva with the position of lead mechanic.

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Batman Sketch Challenge – Day Twenty Four – The Mad Hatter

by on April 24, 2018 at 10:57 am
Posted In: Art

For Day Twenty Four of my Batman Sketch Challenge I drew the Mad Hatter The Mad Hatter was one of the members of Batman’s Rogues Gallery I was mostly indifferent to. In my opinion, he was one of the campier B-raters from the silver age that people remembered only because he was at the end of the list. (I was surprised that he was created as far back as 1948)

I liked what they did with him in the animated series, which made him more than just a crazy man with a hat fetish, but for my purposes, the whole thing with the mind control goes a little too far into the fanciful sci-fi that I’m trying to avoid in this approach.

For the purposes of my version, I’m making him my version of the Marvel’s Tinkerer working directly under the Joker. He still has his fancies though, and enjoys a nice cup of tea while working.

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Batman Sketch Challenge – Day Twenty Two – Poison Ivy

by on April 23, 2018 at 11:44 am
Posted In: Art

For Day Twenty-Two of my Batman Sketch Challenge, I drew Poison Ivy! The Magic Tupperware gave me a relatively easy and fun one today with Poison Ivy.

At first glance, you’d think Ms. Isely would be problematic in the relatively realistic no power setting I’ve been putting together. Fortunately, in her case, all it takes is going back to basics. Back in her first appearance, Poison Ivy was a femme fatale with a gimmick. Admittedly being an expert in botany and toxicology is a good gimmick, but it’s still not quite the same as manipulating monster plants.

My only problem with this one is I think I put more effort into Ivy’s greenhouse then I did working on her.

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Batman Sketch Challenge – Day Twenty Two – Ra’s al Ghul

by on April 22, 2018 at 7:28 pm
Posted In: Art

For day Twenty Two of My Batman sketch Challenge I drew Ra's al Ghul!I was beginning to think I’d never get to some of the real heavy hitters, but finally, the Magic Tupperware let me draw Ra’s al Ghul!

For me, Ras is the best villain in Batman’s rogue gallery or at least the deadliest. He’s pretty much so much out of Batman’s usual scope that every time Batman has to fight him the stakes are raised to a completely new level.

While it was tempting to just have him rise out of the Lazarus pit I decided to go with what makes him scary for me. The fact he’s a man with his own freaking army!

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