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"I am Vengeance... I am the Night..."
Alright, everybody. Today's the day most of you have probably been waiting for since I started the Batman: Gotham City Chronicles series. Today, we're painting the Dark Knight himself.
This is a great sculpt which has a fantastic sense of motion to it and a great attention to detail. Let's not dilly dally. Let's just jump in.
This is a great sculpt which has a fantastic sense of motion to it and a great attention to detail. Let's not dilly dally. Let's just jump in.
1. Gameplan, Prep, and Prime
Okay, so I know that the in game art has the patriarch of the Bat-Family in a black cowl, with black trunks, boots, and gloves, but we're going to do a little something to inject some color into the model, while keeping with an equally iconic look. Sorry, we're not going 1960's blue satin (though my wife would probably like that)...
No, we're going with the look comic book legend Jim Lee came up with during Jeph Loeb's now classic Hush run.
I just love that look. So to help me create that look, I've assembled the following paints:
Vallejo
Basic Skin Tone
Army Painter
Dark Sky, Wolf Grey
Handmade Modern (Target Brand)
Elephant (light grey), Slate (standard grey), Goldenrod
Ceramcoat
Black and white
As you can see, I've already primed Batman with some spray on matt white primer by The Army Painter. You can use black if you like, but I prefer white to really make his highlights and details pop. Now lets get to painting!
2. Basecoats
Here's your quick reminder that for all of your basecoats (and highlights, really) you should be thinning your paint with about equal parts water.
We're going to start things off with our standard grey. Paint the body, legs, and arms. Due to the white undercoat, you may want to do two coats of this color, just remember to wait for the first coat to dry before you paint on the second.
Next, you're going to mix up a mixture of equal parts wolf grey and dark sky (and equal parts water of course). Use this mix to paint up the cape, cowl, trunks, boots and gloves. Again, due to the nature of your white undercoat, you may want to apply two coats of this color to get an even layer of paint.
After that take some of your basic skin tone and paint the exposed portion of Batman's face. Nothing too fancy, just make sure you use a small brush to not get any stray bits of this color on any sections we've already painted.
Then you'll mix up equal parts black and white, and paint the bat symbol on the chest. Nothing too complicated here, but it can be difficult due to just the fact that it's such a specific pattern to paint. Just go slowly and try to follow the detail as best you can.
The last thing we're going to basecoat will be the utility belt using your goldenrod. Do your best to paint the belt, and try your best to avoid the trunks and abdomen, though yellow is a fairly easy color to cover.
3. Shading
We're keeping it pretty simple in regards to shades and washes with Batman:
Just two today. Flesh Wash and Dark Tone, both by The Army Painter.
We're going to start by applying a little bit of flesh wash to the skin. Don't apply too much, just a thin layer will add depth.
After that we're going to start the long haul of applying the dark tone to everything else. Start with the main body, including the utility belt, and start from the top and move down. Don't use too much, just enough to darken the surface and add depth.
Once the body's completely washed in the shade, apply it to the cape and cowl, making sure to avoiding the skin. You'll even want to apply this to the underside of the cape as well, to help make that appear darkened.
When all of that's dry, we can move onto highlights!
4. Highlights and Finishing Touches
The first thing we're going to highlight will be our face. Luckily, there's not much to do with the face, just apply a little bit of your basic skin tone to Batman's chin, and that'll help make it pop.
After that, we'll move onto highlighting the body using your standard grey. Just paint the lightest portions of the muscles. Avoiding the darkened recesses and focusing on where the muscles are bulging out can help enhance the comic book/drawn look. Don't forget to highlight the tiny folds where the legs meet the hip.
Here's an example of how you might highlight the back of the model as well.
And here's an idea of how you might highlight the arms. An easy way to figure out what you'd highlight for the arms is to use the top-down method, holding the figure at a bird's eye view and highlighting the portions of the model that you can see.
The next part you'll move onto is taking your elephant or light grey, and applying second level highlights on some of the topmost muscles, such as the shoulders, biceps, and even the thigh muscles on Batman's left thigh, but in roughly half the area you originally highlighted. In the picture above, I've colored the portions you'd want to apply your second level highlights with in green.
In theory, you'd end up with something that might look a little like this:
Next, you'll want to mix up your dark sky and wolf grey mix again to highlight the cape, cowl, boots, gloves, and trunks.
Start with the cowl. Highlight it just the same as you'd highlight a face, but applying your highlight to the forehead, cheekbones, and down the middle of the nose. Because he's Batman, you'll also want to highlight the front of his bat-ears, and the top of his head, between said bat-ears.
Here you can see how you can apply some top down to the glove and spikes. Again, focus on painting what you can see, and try to apply some highlights to the knuckles and down the middle of each individual finger.
Most of your highlighting will be on the cape. You can see that I painted the top peak of each upward fold int the cape, bringing it forward about halfway down that particular section of cape, curving along the shape of the cape, to one the points at the bottom of the cape. Again, this stark difference between highlighted and shaded portions of the cape helps suggest comic book.
For the boots, you'll apply some highlight to the top of the boots, and toes, and a small line down the middle of the shin. Also apply some to the ankles, and where the ankle bends. You'll also take this time to highlight the trunks, front and back, by focusing on the center portions of those sections to help simulate a roundness to the look.
You can also use your goldenrod to highlight the pouches on the utility belt, focusing on the top flap, and the center of each pouch.
We're going to add a little bit of our light grey to our dark sky and wolf grey, so it'll be about a 1 to 1 to 1 ratio of the three colors, and we're going to be applying that mixture in a second level highlight to the cape, but really only at the highest ridge of each of the folds in the cape, along with some select portions on the back of the cowl and gloves. I've again highlighted where I'd apply the second level highlights in green.
You also want to use this mix to add second level highlights to the face, specifically the eyebrows, the center of the forehead, and center of the cheekbones.
You can also take this time to use your white and your TEENIEST TINIEST brush to paint the glass lenses for the eyes.
5. Be the World's Greatest Detective!
That's about it, guys! I've gone ahead and based him using the same techniques as when I painted Nightwing, so if you're interested in those steps, make sure you check that out. This tutorial, along with all of my Batman: Gotham City Chronicles painting tutorials are available on my blog for reference.
If you've ever found this, or any of my other tutorials useful, please consider becoming a Patron. It's only $1 a month, and every dollar helps me to bring quality ad-free content to you on a regular basis.
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