Batman designs

I had this photo sitting on my hard drive for a while, and I figured I’d post it. It shows the design progression of the Batman character. It is interesting seeing the many artists improve on their work.

(1992-95)

This version was the first design of the Batman uniform. Noticed the old school blue/gray uniform. During this time, Batman and the rest of the characters in the Bruce Timm universe were much rounder in form. There were more details to the character models, but this caused a problem. You see most of the actual drawings of the episodes were done overseas, Japan and S Korea. The producers found that despite all the hard work done by the different studios, each episode had a slightly (Sometime drastic) different look to the characters. And people could tell that different studios did the animation on each episode.

(1997-98)

Because of the problems I stated before, they decided to resign the entire show from the ground up. Batman’s uniform was changed to a darker tone, and they gave him a slimmer appearance. You will notice that his shoulders are squarer. This streamlined design helped keep all the studios within the design guidelines, and it also gave all the episodes a uniformed appearance.

(2001-2006)

This was the Justice League version. They decided to merge the two designs from earlier into this one, and they gave him longer ears. They still kept the streamline looked, but crafted to a more Anime design.

(1999)

This was Bruce Wayne in the distant future right before he retired from crime fighting in the futuristic show Batman Beyond. You can see where the long ears in the Justice League version comes into play in this future design.