There is a meaning Self-sufficiency is ingrained in Batman mythology. Bruce Wayne has no superpowers – just his intellect, fighting skills, and gadgets. That, and a Batcave full of cool vehicles.
Batman, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson, offers a grimmer and darker portrayal of a gagged crusader army than we’ve seen before. The production design is astounding; The Gotham feels very relevant and gritty, and the Batmobile is one of the best devices to ever grace a big screen. Mr. Reeves clearly likes motorcycles too, as this movie has three of them.
Batman has the Batcycle, Bruce Wayne travels around on a beat cafe racer [above] when he wants to remain anonymous and Catwoman exclusively moves on two wheels. Her trip is a BMW R nineT which sources tell us was customized by Kaichiroh Kurosu at Cherry’s Company. But the other two, and the Batmobile, were designed by Ash Thorp.
Ash Thorp is a multidisciplinary digital artist with a great imagination. He knows about the ‘kit-bashing’ CGI auto customizations he makes as half of Make.Haste.Corp.and he’s one of Ken Block’s collaborative vehicle design partners.
He also worked on various designs for the 2017 movie Ghost in the shell, which unwittingly set him up for this job. Hollywood’s top filmmakers all operate in the same circle — so when Batman’s Production designer, James Chinlund, asked Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders if he knew anyone who could design the new Batmobile, and Ash’s name popped up.
“James and I had a great first call in which he told me he was working Batman as a production designer,” he tells us. “We were successful and had a great creative partnership from the start”
Ash’s first job was designing the Batmobile. “When I visited James at the Warner Brothers property, he pointed me to a few key inspirations. He told me succinctly: ‘Okay, this is the real world Batman. He built it himself. It has to have the culture of the Americana muscle car, raw, real and you have to feel it visually. “
It took about two months for Ash to finalize the preliminary Batmobile design. Heavily influenced by American muscle cars, and with a giant turbine jutting out the back, it’s the parts equivalent of DIYs and bonkers. And its first appearance in the movie is truly a goosebumps moment.
With that said, it has been incorporated into motorcycle designs – a topic with which Ash is a bit less familiar. “Honestly, I love motorbikes,” he said. “I like the way they look. But I have speed problems – so my wife will never let me ride a motorbike. ”
Ash is familiar with the custom setting and is a big fan of Radical Ducati especially. From his perspective, customisers like Radical have done with physical bikes what he’s been doing with digital cars for years; take them apart, mix and match the parts and put them back together. So he bought a bunch of 3D ready-made motorcycle files and started designing the Batcycle.
“I treated the process as if I really were him and really did it,” he explains. “And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll take that piece from there, I’ll take that word, and I’ll take this from there. Okay, I’m missing these – I’ll just build and craft it. I will put it there. Okay, these wheels will get there. It is getting closer. Does this sound like something people would be afraid of? Does it look fast? Does it look scary? Okay, that’s great. Let’s keep adding to it. ‘”
“I continued to approach it as if I was a crime fighter living my best fake life as Bruce Wayne. Even with the car, I think I treated it that way.”
Affected by Ducati Monster, Ash sculpted his work around a trellis frame. He pulled the fork and front fork from a Ducati (he can’t remember exactly which model), then built his own brakes and wheels. The tank, saddle and rear end were all rebuilt from scratch.
As for motives, Ash decided that since it was a movie he could break the rules a bit. (A Batcycle deserves at least some fantasy elements, after all.) So he decided to exaggerate the engine and wheelbase.
The engines are essentially two BMW boxer engines, deconstructed and stacked. Inspired by Suzuki Hayabusa, Ash lengthened the swingarm and added a giant tire at the back. He explained that he wanted the car to look like it was built for high-speed pursuits, but admitted that it might not be the most maneuverable machine.
“You can see my lack of motorcycle knowledge in the overall design of things. Like the swingarm at the back, it doesn’t make sense geometrically. And I’m sure I’ll get a new one by super bike lovers, which is totally fine. I deserve it — I’m just an art guy. ”
Once Batman’s bike has been contracted, it’s time to move on to Bruce Wayne’s two-wheeled whip. There are parts of the movie where he moves around the city in ‘uniform’, but secretly, and so he opts for two wheels.
Ash came up with the idea of a cafe racer that was light but still seemed fast enough to catch the bad guys. “And also, it’s the DNA of what he’s going to build if he builds the next version of it, which is the Batcycle,” he added.
With the trellis frame and L-twin engine, there’s more than just a bit of Ducati Monster DNA in Ash’s ‘Drifter’ bike design. And looking at the renders, it’s clear that Ash is a master at creating realistic photo textures in digital space.
Once the renders were finished, Ash handed them over to the production team and took the wheel. Finally, the Drifter bike was built using a mid-size four-cylinder Honda CB. The overall vibe remains, but the actual bike in the movie has more of a real-world feel to it.
Batcycle translates more accurately to the screen, which is not an easy task. Rumor has it that the production team sculpted it on top of an electric motorcycle, leaving them free to implement the fantasy elements without making them work in any real sense. (It’s a common Hollywood practice.)
“It was a huge leap from digital design,” says Ash. “My goal with my renders is to make them look as realistic as possible, but that’s not a real production-ready implementation, because you have to do everything. to scale and you have to pass everything on to the drafters and the production team and the people who take the design and then translate it into reality, which is a whole other thing. “
“It’s hard to let go of your design but James, Matt and the amazingly talented team did an incredible job throughout the production.”
“Sitting in the theater and watching, I was overwhelmed. I thought ‘wow, I’m finally part of something that I’m so connected to with a spectrum of tones and flavors throughout.’
Ash Thorp | Instagram | Thank Adam Fitzgerald / Iron & Air
Movie credits
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Production Designer: James Chinlund
Batmobile / Batcycle Designer: Ash Thorp Design and Production Team: Ben Last, Patrick Dunn Baker, Daniel Frank, Haisu Wang, Joe Hiura, Dominic Tuohy
