Cover Replica: Batman - Harley Quinn #1

Harley Quinn #1

Here's the original "Batman - Harley Quinn #1" cover by Alex Ross.

* * *

And here is here's the cover replica for my pal (and Superman's), Jim, from Jimmy Jams Comics and Games in Winona, MN and La Crosse, WI.

It's been a while since I did one of these replicas... or, is it more accurate to call it a forgery?  Well, I guess I can kinda-sorta justify it as one of those "Master Reproductions", except with Alex Ross cover painting in this case rather than a Da Vinci or Michelangelo.  I also cheated a little bit and enlarged the figures of the painting and left off the logo (I still **HATE** lettering).

* * *

STEP ONE:  I cut a 20" x 30" piece of hardboard, and then glued a 22" x 30" sheet of Stonehenge (#140) paper using acrylic medium, and trimmed the excess paper after it dried.  I then used a mixture of gesso and acrylic medium to paint over top of the Stonehenge paper to prep it for painting.  When that was prepped, I drew a 1" x 1" grid and set to penciling the cover image.  For the pencils, I used a blue lead .07 mechanical pencil to keep the lead from smearing too much.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with the acrylic paints.  I decided to go more with slightly more colorful version of Harley Quinn, rather than just black/gray and red.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here is the finished piece--after another 2-to-50 more passes.  I will admit it is a little bit weird and tricky trying to mimic a watercolor/gouache painting with acrylics.  As usual, my camera didn't do the best job; since the painting is so large it is a bit difficult to get the lighting to be uniform from top-to-bottom without sacrificing detailed shading.  In this case, I did the best to split the difference.  Oh, well...

* * *

This was done with acrylic paint on 20" x 30" gessoed Stonehenge paper glued to hardboard.

.