John Zizolfo’s Batman and Joker

Batman is the original issue Horizon kit, Michael Keaton from the first film. Brush painted in Testor’s Flat Black (I got lucky that an enamel paint stuck to a vinyl kit) and Testor’s Gloss Yellow..

The skin area is acrylic paint, don’t remember exactly which brand though. It’s also kind of tough to see in these pics but, the eye area (where his face was painted black) is done in a different flat black…subtle, but it’s there

 

Joker is the original Billiken issue. All 5 shades of purple on the kit (pants, jacket, hat, 2 shades on gloves) are hand mixed. There are (or were then, at least) very few purple paints on the market. The shirt, tie and hanky are all over painted with clear metallic versions of the base colors, to give them a shiny, satin kind of look

His walking stick is nothing more than a piece of sprue with a gas cap from a trashed sports car kit on the end. The kit also comes with 2 different heads…the other one is a “normal” hat, the one he wears at the end of the film during the parade scenes

Interesting story about the choice of head. I always hated that floppy artist’s hat in the film. I thought it looked stupid, but I decided to paint both heads anyway. (I had the paint open, why not?) As I was still framing the film for reference shots, I stopped at the end of the museum sequence (“BOO!”) and started dabbling with the tan paint. At this point, I figured, if I screw up the head I didn’t like in the first place, no big loss. I turned out loving the effect more than the “standard” head, and have gotten tons of complements on it since!