Batman on a Gargoyle

Well, this is the third time I've approached the subject, only this time it's not a sketch card but a whopping 11x17 piece, and I used a whole slew of media on it -- COPIC markers, acrylics, colored pencil, india ink, white ink, masking fluid, graphite, and probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting.

The client collects Batman on a gargoyle as his theme, and having looked at his CAF gallery, MAN. I had to do everything I could to just try to not embarrass myself being in the same gallery. SERIOUSLY. So anyway, he told me to just run with it, so without going beyond what he paid me for (multiple characters, greyscale copics, simple background, if interested) I came up with this.

And what is this, exactly? Well, the main things I wanted to accomplish was to present a number of different textures, and play around with depth of field.

Both of which I think I accomplished pretty well, with all of the cloth and stone and fur and everything in between. I also tried to pull together about 4 leayers of field depth, and I think I pulled out three well, so success there. It's all in how you use detail and blacks (or cool greys as the case may be).

Compositionally your eye would nomally be drawn to the bat-oni-gargoyle head or the larger bat, but I'm trying to use a couple of tricks to move you more towards Batman, and then down to the foreground, so I'm trying to focus your attention first on the mid-field. The most obvious trick here is that Bats, in a dark piece is surrounded by white- the Bat Signal and the lightning. Also, I'm forcing an upper right to lower-left composition (which is also unusual). This prioritizes things in your mind in that order, so you move your eyes over Batman before you see the little rodents. Maybe I overthink these things.

Anyway, voila! A Heroes Con 2013 commission.