The Process...

A Study in SuperHero Anatomy...

You guys...I had ulterior motives with this project. I wanted to learn how to make armatures...life-size ones. Armatures aren't simple business. There's all sorts of tutorials on it, but experience is the best school I've attended. So after some homework online, I dove in.

Things got weird fast. Batman is a terrifying, dark super hero by design. Suddenly he's a life size visage in my home, standing perfectly still, waiting to scare people. I eventually became used to Bruce and we began to have a one-sided conversation about a great many things, namely his ridiculously unrealistic muscle structure. (Nor should it be realistic, he's a Superhero.)

My client was an awesome Batman aficionado who also happened to be six feet and one inch tall. It made sense to make the B-man just slightly taller. So the M-man (me) made him his (me) own height (tallness); I'm six feet four inches (imperial measurement).

Speaking of Imperial, I wonder if I'm as tall as Darth Vader?...I'm not.

The problem is, the Dark Knight is a little/lot more ripped than me, so I'm not such a great body double. We worked it out, but the in between included a lot of awkward groping. The suit was meant to be a one-size-sort-of-fits-all costume. The leg muscles were backed by stretchy nylon forgiving enough for a Robust Bruce Wayne to achieve their superhero dreams. My client was more on the ripped side, so a form-fitting, stronger-than-life Batman was in order.

The leg armature had no joints. I wanted them to hold a secure and strong pose, stepping slightly forward, about to lunge off the floor. The foam build-up needed to be shapely enough to look realistic with nylon stretched over it. This included the bat-buttocks. I gave the Caped Crusader a handsome seat, then cut the nylon and hand-sewed it tight over the legs. The result was legs that looked muscular, not at all like the ill-fitting costume it had been. The Arms of the costume were treated differently. They were solid with no nylon lining. I made them fully articulating, with joints at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers. Batman can look disapproving with his arms folded, or tickling the ivories on an iPad.

The client wanted the mask to have an invisible face holding it stiff, despite the rubber's lifeless form. I made a wire rig, wrapped it, and then finessed it inside the mask. It's also fully adjustable to add a scowl or a grin.

In the end, I was sad to see my friend go. He's a super-listener too and I talked his sonar off.