October 7, 2013

Bats & Racers

NOPAL Art: 1966 Batmobile

NOPAL Art: Speed Racer Mach 5 sketch


There are two vehicles that stand out as being extremely influential to my childhood. One was Speed Racer's Mach 5 roadster. The mixture of speed and gadgets was too cool to believe. The other was the iconic 1966 Batmobile from the TV show with Adam West and Burt Ward. It was such an amazing design, conceived by the kustom genius himself, George Barris. It's futuristic design along with superheros was a combination that could not be beat.

I was thinking about these two vehicles recently and thought, "What better way to celebrate my fandom than to create some kick-ass artwork." 

I was able to carve out some time on a flight recently (with little turbulence, thankfully) to sketch the Mach 5. There was something about the roughness that appealed to a few folks on Instagram enough to ask for a print - so to the store it went. I may ink and clean up the illustration some day, but for now it stays rough.

The Batmobile on the other hand was always supposed to be a finished piece. I got sidetracked and ended up with two rough sketches though.

NOPAL Art: Batmobile sketch studyNOPAL Art: 1966 Batmobile sketch study

I like the 3/4 one enough to post it to the store, but still felt I wanted a finished piece. Using loads of reference material I finished the ultimate crime fighting vehicle and was very happy with the results. If you couldn't tell, I'm a big fan of Staermose's style as you can see from the finished piece. 





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