Sunday, September 12, 2010

Diptych of Harley Quinn and the Joker.

My personal assignment while in Italy was to combine elements of a iconic Rennaissance painting with modern day contemporary culture. Being a huge fan of Batman: The Animated Series, I decided to run with that as it's inspired me to do loads of artwork, but ironically I never made until now I realized ANY ACTUAL Batman fanart of any kind. I shun fanart or real life people cos generally I prefer to do my own original ideas- but I LOVE these characters, and they were a blast to research and draw- and for homework, all I had to do was sit on my butt and watch cartoons on youtube!! How groovy is that! The idea was to take the famous old master painting in composition or theme, and somehow alter its characters or mood somehow while still being recognizable. The famous portrait diptych by della Francesca of the Duke and his Wife (you may recall him as the fat guy with a huge shnozz in the red hat) portrays his sitters facing one another in the same exact way. I wanted Joker to still be recognizable, but he had to have an aristocratic mellow expression, and not look too maniacal. It was a real interesting challenge to pin his face down. I had to pose for reference and take lots of shots of myself doing my trademark Jack Nicholson grins and various Harley expressions. My roommates sadly weren't Illustration graduates themselves and had no clue what I was up to, and when I explained, they just laughed at me like I was nuts. *grumble* the buggers... ~~

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