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Under The Mistletoe... — Description
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone ! Hope everyone is having a wonderful time during the holidays. Now, let me make these two points clear. I had actually planned on posting this pic days prior after having gone through many drafts of it. However, holiday preparations and other mundane activities got in the way and made me postpone this submission many times. On the upside, there's ironically no better time to post this then literally right on Christmas . Secondly, no, this pic wasn't meant to be another honorable tribute to the late and great Kevin Conroy, the concept idea actually came about prior to his passing in November. Despite this though, I'm not opposed to the notion of the drawing being perceived as such, so take it whatever way you wish.

Anyways, this is a request made by DracoTyrannus, link: www.deviantart.com/dracotyrann… , where I was asked to draw a pic depicting the scene in Batman Returns where both Selina and Bruce finally realized who the other was in terms of their their alter-egos. But for this pic, I was asked to draw it in the BTAS style, just to see the scene with those version of the characters. At first, the illustration didn't sound that hard to do on paper. But then I took into account the dramatic cinematography that went on during that moment in the film, and how it captured the pure shock and disillusionment of both characters. So, this was no easy task to fulfill. In order to make this work, I had to find a means of utilizing every facet of that scene in my drawing. Had I only used one attribute from it, the pic would've seemed a bit lacking. Along with that, I had to work with manipulating the lighting and shading in this pic, as well as using a bit of abstraction to help with structuring the illustration. This of course included the addition of the mistletoe that instigated this unfortunate revelation from the film. Having emphasized it to symbolize it's significance to the moment. And what a moment, I tell ya. I'll never forget how tragically captivating that scene was with those two, especially after Selina's momentary psychotic breakdown. The tense build-up to it literally gave me shivers.

Admittedly, while I love BTAS and it's dynamic artstyle, I do favor more the artstyle that was later developed and refined for The New Batman Adventures, which was carried onwards throughout the rest of the DCAU. This, of course, is mostly a preference I have when actually drawing the characters . Bruce Timm's initial arstyle in BTAS, while very unique and complex, was often very difficult for me to replicate, mostly whenever I have to use references. While not that jarring, most screenshots I find from the series could be a bit incohesive or inconsistent with one another, probably due to how dynamic the designs of the characters were. This did make the drawing process somewhat difficult for me, but I was able to find some references that felt right to use for the pic. And thank goodness for the existence of concept art . Plus, it makes sense to use these depictions of Bruce and Selina from the DCAU for this idea. Most of the character designs from the first three seasons of BTAS were technically inspired by the '89 Batman film, as well as concept sheets for Batman Returns. So it just works to use this style for this scene. I hope it looks good to all of you .

Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are characters owned and created by DC Comics, and this version of them was televised by Warner Bros. Studio. This scene in-particular derives from the talented workmanship of Tim Burton, Daniel Waters, Sam Hamm, and Stefan Czapsky.