🂭 Batgirl "Queen of Spades" - Digital Painting & Process

Worry about a girl, eh? Hah! If they think they can cut me off from where the action is, they're mistaken! I restyled this motor bike for just such an emergency!

Barbara "Babs" Gordon stumbled into a life of vigilante crime fighting after her relation to Gotham City's police commissioner Gordon brought her within the vicinity of the Batman and Dick Grayson. When Commissioner Gordon is framed by the notorious Two-Face, Barbara dons a bat costume and finds that the uniform fits her better than she thought. As an expert hacker, martial artist and scientist, Babs was well equipped to take on some of the more fearsome criminal elements of Gotham solo and in team efforts with the dark knight. A "no-nonsense" and pragmatic heroine that favours efficiency over drama.

• This is a digital illustration of about 32 bitmap layers. Using my mouse and standard Photoshop brushes and layer blend modes. The cards and textures I got from google and edited them to suit our needs. I also tried to preserve as many of the steps as possible for the process animation. I then made the animation in Premiere Pro CC, simplified it, sped it up, added inserts, rendered it as an mp4 video file and then converted it to an animated gif online (nifty!)

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Category	#FanArt
Medium	Photoshop
Suit	Spades
Character	Batgirl
Style	Digital Illustration
Original Artists	Gardner Fox & Carmine Infantino
First Apperance	1967

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Lore

As Batgirl, Barbara Gordon has been described as one of the most popular characters to appear during the Silver Age of Comic Books and is also regarded as a pop culture icon due to her appearances in the Batman television series of the late 1960s and continued media exposure. The Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl has been adapted into various media relating to the Batman franchise, including merchandise, television, and animation. During the early 1970s, the character was also used as an advocate for women's rights.

Her double life as Batgirl sometimes puts Barbara at an emotional crossroads. As the daughter of the Police Commissioner, Barbara was raised with respect for law and order, but her actions as Batgirl technically label her a vigilante. If Batgirl were ever caught and unmasked, the scandal would certainly destroy Commissioner Gordon's career. Still, Gotham is a city that breeds an extreme kind of criminal and extreme crimefighters are needed to handle situations regular cops can't. Barbara believes the good she does as Batgirl is worth the potential risk to herself and her father. She often takes on some of Batman's dangerous villains including Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy.

• batman.wikia

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Process

Here's the animated process for Batgirl that I made out of the individual layers. Since I didn't have my original sketches anymore I reverse engineered the beginning stages of the drawing. I'm also trying to make a unique transition at the end of each card. Hope you dig it.

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This project has taken on a life of its own. This is the first card in the suit of spades. I'd also like to point you guys towards the drawing contest that I'm currently hosting where you can actually try the same exercise and create some cards of your own!

Check it out here:

✏ Sketch Off Contest - Edition 2: The Club of Antiheroes

back to the drawing board,

ZeroOoC

Draw some more cards:

• 🂱 Optimus Prime "Ace of Hearts"
• 🂾 Vol'Jin "King of Hearts"
• 🂽 Harley Quinn "Queen of Hearts"
• 🂻 Duck Avenger/Phantomias "Jack of Hearts"