41/100 - Suicide Squad Joker

Jared Leto's portrayal of the Joker in Suicide Squad was very polarizing.  Some people loved it, while many people hated it.  I think Leto was in a very tough spot.  He was following in the shadow of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.  That was an amazing version of the iconic villain.  One of my all-time favorites!  It would have been bad to try and mimic Ledgers Joker.  Leto had to make the role drastically different.  However doing something different with a beloved character can be risky (fanboys always like to come out in arms if something deviates from the canon).

I actually really liked the Leto Joker.  The insane gangster/thug take was unique and I appreciated it.  It was very different from the other Jokers we got before.  My issue with the character was his involvement in the Suicide Squad movie.  The Joker in Suicide Squad does not effect the film at all.  With the exceptions of the Harley Quinn origin flashbacks, Joker does nothing to drive the film forward.  If you took out every scene (except the flashbacks) that the Joker was in, the movie does not change at all.  That is a very poor use of such a great villain. 

This week I finished up the Joker for my Cosplayer crew.  I used zenithal highlighting and a purple glaze with the airbrush for the coat.  It was a little flat after that.  I decided to try something new on it to add some depth.  I picked up one of the Scale 75 Inktense Violet from my local hobby store.  These inks are intense (I was not going for a pun, but I will take it).  I gave the whole coat a wash with some watered down inktense.  I then did some spot shadowing in the darker areas of the model with inktense with less water.  I finally added some thin lines of straight Inktense in a few key areas.  The ink really made the model shinny so I ended with a mate spray.  I was quite happy with the results. 

I also tried to paint some of Leto's tattoos.  I used some really watered down Abbadon Black and did several thin coats to build it up.  All-in-all I am happy how they turned out. 

I got one of the Grin Twins on the go right now, trying out the black Inktense on it.  Hopefully he will be done in the next few days and then I will be half done the crew!

Kevin