Thanks to the Jessica Cruz Green Lantern entry in DC Collectibles' Bombshells statue line, traffic cops have never looked so good. Available right now, the roughly 11-inch-tall piece features the relatively new addition to the Green Lantern Corps directing cars with a traffic light-themed Power Battery and constructs like a "Go" sign, whistle, traffic cones and even handcuffs, in case some wise guy tries to get tough.

Debuting in 2014 and created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, Cruz began her hero career with Power Ring's Ring of Volthoom, but became an official space cop at the end of "The Darkseid War." Since then she's proved herself in the pages of Green Lanterns and Justice League.

The Bombshells line kicked off three years before that, and has focused on creating retro-inspired takes on DC's most iconic female characters, starting with Wonder Woman. The statue line has spawned everything from its own comic book series to action figures, and even playing cards.

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CBR caught up with DC Bombshells Art Director Brian Walters to get the inside scoop on bringing Cruz to life as a resin statue, along with a few looks at what could have been, in the way of preliminary design sketches of ideas that didn't quite make the cut.

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CBR: What are the pluses and minuses of working on a piece like this, based on a character who hasn't been around as long as someone like Wonder Woman?

Brian Walters: Jessica Cruz was, I'll be perfectly honest with you, the most challenging design that we have ever faced in this line, and we're over 25 statues long. We were shocked that we hadn't done a Green Lantern in the line in the first place. Jessica Cruz was all the rage when "Rebirth" started maybe a year-and-a-half, two years ago. So she was a primary character and we were ready to do a Green Lantern character at that time. That's why she moved to the foreground, but her backstory is a little light. The blank canvas of that was kind of freeing in a way but also very challenging.

So at the end of the day, because she didn't really have a great backstory, we decided to harken back to the core qualities of the Green Lanterns, that they are space cops. And that's what we used as the foundation of our design in the '40s.

Given the starting-from-scratch nature of this, how long did it take to figure out the general concept and nail down the design?

A few months. This project was running behind because of it, but we wanted to make sure we got this right. We did a design earlier because Jessica Cruz tends to be a bit shy or reserved in the comic, so we were trying other costumes with a masquerade mask and her kind of peeking out from behind that. At the end of the day, we're glad we landed on the traffic cop design because that speaks to what a Green Lantern is more than anything else, which is such a great place to start when you're trying to pull things from the rockabilly culture and the '40s to make this feel retro, but edgy and new all at the same time. It did take quite a bit of time to get this one to the place where we thought it was comparable and up to the standards of the Bombshells line.

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For the costume itself, were you pulling from any specific Green Lantern looks in addition to the overall '40s aesthetic common to the Bombshells line?

We had a number of Green Lantern costumes from Hal Jordan to Guy Gardner to Jessica Cruz, of course. So you start with the direct literal translation and then you can circle back and work in all those Easter eggs, design elements and fun facts like her Power Battery, which is a traffic signal. We wanted some literal translation for what her Power Battery would look like in the '40s or '50s. That was all super-fun to work on. We were totally looking at the comic costumes and figuring out how to reinvent them in this world.

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What went into the idea to make accessories like her whistle, handcuffs, badge and Go sign ring constructs?

Once you got past her basic clothing, then there is the Go sign for traffic as a construct, the whistle can be a construct, the handcuffs can be a construct. It was all the accessories to her suit, because we figured she's dreaming of being a traffic cop today. We had a billy club in one of the other designs that we nixed along the way. Any little accessories that are associated with being a traffic cop we decided to turn them into constructs, so it was really quite simple, honestly.

Speaking of constructs, this piece also comes with two traffic cones that can be placed wherever. Was there ever a plan to have those attached to the base itself?

Originally they were permanently affixed to the base, but over the course of the Bombshells line we really haven't included much on the bases at all. The only exceptions are Mera and Catwoman. If a fan didn't want them there they could just remove them. Also it helped from a breakage point of view. If they were permanently affixed, in shipping, they might snap off.

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I'm not sure if it comes through in the pictures, but the Power Batter is actually hinged so that it swings back and forth a bit. Why is it important to add movement like that in pieces that are generally considered static?

Number one is breakage, so that it will survive its way to the fan, but also to have a little bit of movement. I have a fan here in my office and every time it swings by when it's rotating, this thing moves in the breeze. Resin statues can be really static if you're not careful. We've tried to capture as much life and motion as we can in our designs. The traffic signal here helps with that. This was sculpted by Jack Mathews, who's worked with us for decades. He's great, as is Tim Miller who's done most of the statues in this line, at capturing movement so the statues don't appear too static.

A key components uniting all of the Bombshells statues comes in the face which emanates power, self-assuredness and beauty. Was it difficult getting that just right with Jessica?

The great thing about our artist on this line, Ant Lucia, is that he is able to inject so much character into just those facial expressions. That's what really drew us to him in the beginning. We always want these characters in the Bombshells line to be confident and powerful, so we pay a lot of attention. The eyebrows do a lot for us. You can get really sleepy in a hurry if you're not careful. The big smile and the high eyebrows feel full of life and happiness so that was really fun. Where we have some challenges in other areas of the statue design, Ant gladly takes it there on its own which makes that a little easier.

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You mentioned a few ideas and elements that didn't make the cut. Were there any other interesting ones you can think of?

Yelling through a bullhorn. A radio. Anything you might see on a police officer’s kind of utility belt was definitely in the cards. As you make these statues more realistic and move along in the production process and the sculpting things [go away]. Plus if you add too much a statue looks too busy, so we wanted to make sure what we chose hit home the hardest from a selling point of view.

The Jessica Cruz Green Lantern Bombshells statue from DC Direct, designed by Ant Lucia and sculpted by Jack Mathews, is available for purchase right now for an MSRP of $125.