Superheroes honored for bringing smiles to Children’s Hospital Colorado patients

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - A local art studio is honoring the superheroes behind the costumes as they bring smiles to patients from Children’s Hospital Colorado.

A handful of kids spent the day away from the hospital and with their favorite DC and Marvel characters.

Batman and Thor brought their super strength to Vita Brevis Fine Art in Colorado Springs to have their photos taken and transformed into digitally painted works of art.

"I felt like yay, superheroes, because I love superheroes. They're very nice and kind and they were actually a lot like their characters and they had a lot of knowledge of what they did in the movies,” participant Joshua Haubenschild said.

The experience was all made possible by the art studio that wanted to give back to the men behind the mask.

'Batman', who is known as Casey Barrett underneath the mask said, "My family and I have been I guess I call 'frequent fliers' of the Children's Hospital for a long time.”

Barrett said his passion of bringing smiles to children began from personal experiences.

"My daughter is special needs. She's in a wheelchair. My son is on the autism spectrum, so we go to the hospital a lot. Basically, in the lobby, [his son] starts kind of having a full blown meltdown and out walks Captain Jack Sparrow, who was just perfect, you know, in all the ways. For me, that was one of those kind of epiphanies, like, aha, like it's that simple to make a huge impact on any kid's day,” Barrett said.

Similarly, 'Thor', a.k.a. Kirk Brackmann, said his passion relates as Barrett is one of the reasons he got into doing this type of work.

"The excitement that they have and the smiles you see sometimes from across the room when they run up and want to meet you or high five you and just the instant fun is infectious,” Brackmann said.

The children and superheroes will be gifted the photos after artist from studio digitally hand paint them.

Additionally, a 50-inch portrait will hang in Children’s Hospital Colorado for all to see.