Assorted images from the online edition of the Gulf News with the animated Batman: The Evolution of the Dark Knight's images. Illustrations by Hugo Sanchez
Here is the printed version of the Batman series published by Gulf News in July 2014
When DC Comics declared July 23 as official Batman Day, the Gulf News of Dubai made Batman fans happy with its colossal coverage including illustrations by staff artist Hugo Sanchez that hang today on the walls of Batman fans.
We reported that event here and now, as promised, all those Batman images come to life, fully animated, in a follow up to the story.
The online edition of the story opens with this summary:
Batman’s overall look has evolved over the decades in the different universes of comic books, TV shows, movies and even video games, resulting in hundreds of different versions. We have selected 20 of the most iconic, popular and oddest incarnations of the caped crusader to create this series of fully detailed digital sculptures. Enjoy.
Here is my chat with the talented Gulf News artist, Hugo Sanchez:
Mario:
What reaction have you received so far?
Hugo:
The reaction has been positive so far because it looks basically like a video game, the different colors on the illumination and how it affects the different textures, generate a cool effect to enhance all the details and the users can interact to see it all. The specific anaylitics about the series we won’t know till the end of the month.
Mario:
Which Batman seems to be the favorite?
Hugo:
Everybody has his own favorite, the old school likes Adam West, while some comic readers prefer the Russian Batman. But the movie goers love the Christian Bale versions, but the one has made more noise since the publishing of the printed version is the Ben Affleck Batman for the upcoming movie in 2016. The fans are so excited for that movie and they are craving for more details. The 'Batfleck' version we published in July has been updated to match with all the information officially released so far.
Mario:
You published these images first in the print edition of the Gulf News in July, so why wait so long to bring them into full animation for an online edition?
Hugo:
It took that time because we had to adjust a lot of things. Early in the sculpting process, Jacob Hernandez, the Web Designer, jumped in with the idea of create interactive turntables for the web version when I was showing him some previews, so from there, I added all the details on the back of the Batmans.
After the print version was published, I started to do some tests to see all angles of each sculpture and I noticed the capes of some models were covering too much of the figures’ backs, so I had to adjust the cloth flow to help to appreciate as much as possible the overall model.
Meanwhile, Jacob was working on the layout and design, doing Java Script tests for the interactive features and checking for the best resolution to appreciate the models at detail but without abuse of the loading times. Any change made from any of us, was multiplied always by 20 (the number of sculptures), so imagine that circus.
Mario:
What was the lesson you and your team learned?
Hugo:
At the end it was a huge learning process, this is the first time we combined these two technologies and everyone here is very pleased with the results, although, of course, the best is always yet to come.
Check the Gulf News Batman series online here
Gulf News editor is Abdul Hamid Ahmad; design director is Miguel Gomez
http://gulfnews.com/multimedia/graphics/full-frame/batman-the-revolution-of-the-dark-knight-1.1390107
