When it comes to costumes, some people don some fake teeth and blood and call it a day, while others, well… they go and create a full-on reproduction of Batman’s uniform in the Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City games.
Found over at The Effects Lab forum for special-effects artists, the real-life Batsuit project was posted by user batpirisss, who explains the origins of the suit and their requirements for success as follows:
All of us agreed that this was the best movie suit never done as well as the entire game being the film we all wanted to see. And there were so many aspects to it, including the illusive blue and gray of the new city suit, that we wanted to tackle. Some of the goals on the suit were that we wanted the pieces to be accurate like they walked right off the screen. The whole suit would need to be proportioned to the point that all the pieces worked together to complete the image of the character design. This was tricky due to the fact that no human being in the world is the shape of that guy. Especially the cowl. Also the cross texture of the entire suit must be included and it has to run synced up on all panels as the game suit does, so that all lines intersect at an X throughout the entire suit.
According to the forum user who posted the pics, the suit took three artists around three months to complete, and the element they’re most proud of is the Batsuit’s cowl — a tricky portion of Batman’s costume that’s been difficult to reproduce in the live-action movie world.
The difficulty — and how they overcame the problem — is explained here:
We wanted to be able to move the wearers head without the statue look and without making a helmet. I think the design of the mask really played into this naturally because I have seen all of the film cowls and I have never seen anything look or move like this cowl. With the way the mouth opening is, it really moves as you can see from the scream pic. The mask was sculpted with thickness in mind and wearability not just shape so that strategic areas are specific thicknesses. So when poured with a core in, the neck for example is thinner and the jaw lines are thicker etc… This helps how it holds to the face and where it will bend. And because the collar was not to be glued down like the film cowls, it was allowed to move, and the head can turn very easily.
In the end, the result of their effort really speaks for itself (preferably with Arkham City actor Kevin Conroy’s voice).
