Friday, October 22, 2010

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Batman Maquette

Here's the Man of the Hour, himself, as a 9" maquette produced by DC Direct. Bruce Timm's design for the character in Batman The Animated Series was such a great combination of Batman's classic look and the new-at-the-time all black and gray look that Batman had taken on in comics. This was certainly a response to the all-black costumes in the first two Tim Burton movies that had been released, at that point. Timm designed a sleek and stylish Batman that would translate well to animation. Whether he knew it at the time or not, I think he created an iconic look for the character that will most likely still look great 50 years from now.

DC Direct produced this maquette in 2004 in an edition size of 2300 pieces.








Thursday, October 21, 2010

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Harley Quinn Maquette

In honor of "Harley Qwursday" here on UTGP (just kidding, Bubbashelby), I present DC Direct's Harley Quinn maquette from 2004. This is another statue from the same series as the Joker from my previous post.

She stands about 9" tall and was produced in a limited edition size of 2000. I don't have much more to say about these statues than I did in my previous Joker maquette post.... so, I'll just let the pictures "do the talking."







Wednesday, October 6, 2010

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Joker Maquette

This is DC Direct's 9" Joker Maquette as he appeared in the late, great Batman The Animated Series that debuted in 1992. DC Direct produced a handful of characters from the series as maquette statues. These were produced in a breakable, porcelain type of material and need to be handled carefully.

A maquette is a sculpture for animators to use when drawing a character over and over. The animator refers to the sculpture often to make sure they are drawing a character correctly from the many different angles animation requires. Some still-frame artists (like comic book artists) may use something like this from time to time, too. Most often, the maquette is sculpted in a static, non-dramatic pose so the artist can more easily see body proportions and what-not on the character.



While not true animation maquettes (as in actually used by animators), these DC Direct statues do a good job of replicating the type of statues that animators of BTAS might have used day to day.

At any rate, here's Joker from Batman The Animated Series in all his glory. The statue was produced as a limited edition of 1400 pieces and was released in 2004. While only 4 or 5 characters were produced, rumor had it that many more of these BTAS maquettes were planned. Apparently, the demand wasn't there and the line disappeared prematurely. However, as often happens, since these weren't all that popular and low edition sizes were produced, they command a "collector's price," these days.


Joker Starlog Make up

While I was looking in my box of stuff for my Batman tortilla chips I found an old Starlog magazine which had a Batman related story in it.

I figured since it is October I would scan it and post it for those who like to do special effects make up.

This is from January 1993





Brian B