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AdamWithers β The Riddler
Published: 2011-07-14 04:39:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 9028; Favourites: 377; Downloads: 155
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Description
Convention sketch from Motor City Con 2011; Copic marker & PITT pens with white paint pen for details.Riddler is my favorite Bat-villain of all time. Such style, such brilliance, such an attitude; I love that he's a criminal just to prove he's smarter than everybody else. He's like Sherlock Holmes but crazy and off the rails.
This look heavily influenced by the awesome stylings of one , who does an awesome Riddler himself.
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Comments: 65
I hate the riddler cos of his ego but you sir are a tallented artist
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Well sure, but he's a villain!Β They're all terrible people and we aren't really supposed to "like" any of them! 
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Always. But please formulate your ideas as riddles. "Who is like a boss?"
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the one with a green hat 
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Dear AdamWithers, I've seen your artwork in deviantart and must say you are an extraordinary artist.
I've been in love with a particular art titled The Riddler: [link] and is wondering if you could give me the permission to feature your artwork in one of my website: [link]
If you do not give me the permission, I will not use your artwork. If you do give me your permission, I will give a image credit and link it back to your deviant art profile. I hope to hear from you soon. You can contact me via critical_todmacc@hotmail.com
Stay excellent
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Sure thing - go to town. Thanks for asking, and I appreciate the offer.
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I second CrazyAnimeTako's comment, because I simply can't find any better words to describe this magnificent piece.
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This is beyond great! I love intellectual villains, so Riddler is a big fav of mine. Man, I just love your art style, especially the way you let the clothes flow.
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I'm all about the flow. Dynamic wrinkles and drapery, my friend - it's where it's at.
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Oh baby. XD Awesome piece, love the folds in the clothes-especially the shirt and pants. And its sorta just nice to see a Riddler pic that isn't covered in green...for some reason.
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I do my marker in warm and cool greys, so there's no color at all. Just the illusion of color your mind creates when it sees the slight tonal variation from warm to cool. I think it's a neat effect, plus it saves me a bundle not having to keep a bunch of color markers stocked!
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Cool, I learned something. Thanks
and good point, that definately sounds affordable XD
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I definitely recommend the Copics. Not only do they work beautifully, but the refills make them exceedingly affordable. Each marker costs about $4-5, which is expensive, but the refill bottles cost the same each and can refill any given marker as many as 10 times or so. So for $8-10 you're getting more than 10 markers worth of use.
In short, it's a bigger buy-in cost than say Prismacolor, but long-term you're saving a lot more money. And now you know.
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I have heard that copics are the better route because they're refillable but i've never heard it so laid out. Thanks a lot man.
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Happy to help. I was the same way, and I wish I'd heard it put plainly earlier - I wouldn't have waited so long to try them out!
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The Riddler...He is THE ONLY batman villain that could go toe to toe with the Joker and have a chance of coming out on top he's THAT badass!! Insta fave! Epic picture.
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It's funny because it wasn't his baby.
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this riddler has a little bit of Bono in him...not a bad thing...just saying. I always thought of Riddler as the "tie is always perfect" kinda guy
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See, I went the other way entirely. This is the version that is so busy with mental pursuits and working the angles and playing the brain game that he doesn't waste mental capacity on anything else. And yeah, I see the Bono in there. Probably channeling the Fly/Macphisto arrogance. Damn my subconscious!!!
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//He's like Sherlock Holmes but crazy and off the rails.//
So not like Sherlock at all. You must be thinking Prof. Moriarty. Batman's Sherlock.
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Meh. Moriarty is an actively BAD guy, though, and I don't see Riddler that way. He doesn't want to or necessarily like hurting people or doing "BAD" things, he just enjoys the hell out of outsmarting the smartest people in the room. And since the smartest guys seem to be on the Hero side, he goes the other way. It's one big game of "Lookit what I can do, and you can't stop me because you aren't smart enough!"
So then when he does lose, it becomes a psychotic obsession. He now HAS to KEEP GOING until he wins, because he must win in order to validate his need to be the smartest.
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OH HELLO PERSON I LIKE YOUR OPINIONS CAN I SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER :c
But yeah it's legit canon that people have said about Riddler that he needs to be the smartest man in every room. Every room. It's just a really psychotic need to prove himself to be The Cleverest and if he doesn't get that he just keeps barreling on until he does or until he's stopped. He's a fairly contradictory character; he basically thinks the masses are dumb but at the exact same time, he desires their approval and attention because LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK WHAT I CAN DO ACKNOWLEDGE I'M THE SMARTEST EVER
and really it depends on the writer but he generally tends to be written as avoiding direct conflict (he's terrible at fighting forever...) and...not a harmless villain but compared to the others in the rogues gallery he's less likely to swipe someone off the street to hurt them randomly (he just puts them in death traps where if you're not smart enough you lose, and he expects people to lose. 
It's basically one huge game for him, really! Winning means he's the best and smartest and losing means he has to prove himself to be the best and smartest against Batman, who he...sees as more of a worthy opponent than anything :T I guess.
/CHARACTER BIAS
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Well, it does depend on the depiction. For me, the defining Riddler has always been BTAS Riddler. And he enjoyed using the threat of murder in order to pathologically scar a person. Sure, he wasn't randomly killing for the hell of it, but he didn't avoid lethal traps either. (BTAS is the best because it shows how crazy he is when he is taken to Arkham.)
And then look at the trailer for Arkham City and his story. He kidnaps a bus full of people, and plans on killing them if batman fails at solving his riddle. Mass Murder. Right in line with Moriarty's plots.
Then there's Jim Carrey's Riddler. Down right insane instead of the calm collected smart Riddler. But that's mostly Carrey's joker-ish portrayal because the Riddler's only mental fault should have been his compulsion to leave riddles.
And in the comics, at a certain point, he returns to crime, and even tries to do it without leaving clues. It works for a time, but eventually, he reverts back to leaving clues.
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Fair points. I don't feel like the cartoon, video game, or (especially) film depictions completely jive with the best of the character in the comic, and they have needs of their own for their characters that supersede how they would otherwise be treated in the comic.
And even the comic itself has to reset him to ground zero every so often since they're more interested in maintaining trademarks and selling merchandise than telling good stories with growth and change... but I digress.
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True, but especially with Batman, the animated and live action comics have had a history of changing/influencing the comics so much that its hard to imagine the comic version pre-infulencing.
Riddler only exists as we know the comic riddler to exist because of the 1960's Batman show. Before that, he was just one of those dime a dozen villain of the month during the (as i know it to be) silly comic era, appearing 3 times in a decade (according to Wiki)
Harley was created for BTAS, and only after that added to the comics. Can you really even picture the Joker without a Harley?
The problem is that a tv series has less of a chance to really expand on less than arch-nemeis characters, unlike the comics with longer spans, easier conceptualization and even multiple series at a time. But when the tv series defines the characters for the comics, it is hard to consider them separate.
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Again, good points, but I'm always hesitant to allow multi-media depictions to color my ideas of who and what a character is too much. There are exceptions, but those are usually based on the fact that the outside media really does an excellent job channeling the core of a character to the extent that what you get on screen is the very best of what you'd get in the comic. Perfect example: Joker in The Dark Knight.
That being said, I prefer to picture Joker without a Harley. Because the Joker I most prefer would never be stable enough for a Harley to survive with him. Now, I'm not against the Harley character at all. But I do think that she can tend to take away from the Joker character if she's played too much like the laughing, goofy, 40's-doll from the cartoon. To hang with the REAL Joker, Harley would have to be much more dangerous herself.
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You mean like the time she got batman all by herself, and the joker ended up (suggested) beating her for it?
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I just think the animated series Harley is too cutesy to work with the comics Joker. The one time I thought it worked well was in the "Joker" graphic novel by Azzarello and Bermejo. [link] It was the first time I'd seen her in a comic where she actually made sense being with Joker at all.
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Moral of the story, never hench for the Joker.
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Disagree? Henching for the Joker is like a guaranteed death (and that's the optimistic outcome). I'd much rather work for Freeze or Ivy or The Riddler.
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I was only mourning the sad fate awaiting anybody unlucky enough to work for Joker. Or any of them, really. Henching is a pretty sucky field to work in.
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It probably has a better ROI, hours and benefits than coal mining or waste water field management. And the on the job injury rate might be lower than others. Fortunately most henching insurances cover assault (but specifically exclude Batman under Act of God/Force majeure clauses). Hell, AIM even has dental (but not Hydra even though they are both under the same umbrella company).
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