Batman: Year One #1 - Page Recreation

Here's the original page from Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's "Batman: Year One":

This was done as a Christmas present to a good friend of mine, Dave M, who is a big Batman fan.  I have another recreation of a Batman cover I am doing for his birthday... Which was two months ago.  Sigh...  I have to get that one done SOON, or it will be his Christmas present for next year.  And, of course, when I get it done, y'all will see it here.

Here is the process (click on each picture to embiggen):

STEP ONE:  Pencils and some beginning washes being laid down...

STEP TWO:  More watercolor washes and underpainting...

STEP THREE:  Almost done...  More color and I added some Titanium White watercolor to go back over for a smoke effect.  Luckily, the white watercolor I have is relatively opaque, so it covered pretty well.

STEP FOUR:  Hooray!  The painting part of the page is done.  I used more Titanium White watercolor to add the rest of the smoke/debris in panel #1.  And, being not-so-subtle, I deviated from the original and added a vaguely Batman-shaped reflection to the brazier lid in panel #2.  I corrected some coloring on panel #4, with the brazier being covered and pushed some of the darks.

STEP FIVE:  I added the lettering.  I printed it out on my laser printer and then glued it down to the paper using rubber cement.  I know I said it felt like "cheating" in a previous post... oh, well.  :-)  To quote Walt Whitman from "Song of Myself":

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

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The page was done with watercolor on 12" x 16" 140# cold-press Waterford watercolor paper.

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Also, I took Panel One and submitted it to the fantastically fun Repaneled Blog:  Be sure to visit Anthony's site!

UPDATE: It is scheduled to be posted tomorrow, on Thursday, June 9th, 2011.  Hooray!  :-)

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