Wolverine Redesign

Well so much for keeping this under wraps for the big reveal. The results are up at Project: Rooftop for the "Look Sharp" contest and this time . . . I ah, didn't do so well. 

Looks like Project: Rooftop's first real upset contest with the majority of the finalists being new faces. Which is great. Yup. Just a mere bag of shells Alice. I had em, and I lost em. Easy come, easy go.

You can read all about my inspirations for this design here, and see the preliminary sketches here. It's a modular costume design. The Sleeves/Hood are attachable to his vest, allowing for multiple looks that are reminiscent of his comic book and movie costumes.

Project: Rooftop Wolverine Sketches

Wolverine: Look Sharp Inspiration Board

So it's Project Rooftop time again. This time the challenge is Wolverine. Yeah no sweat. Design a costume for a character who has several iconic costumes and looks best when wearing plain clothes. The mind boggles.

My first step in these redesign contests is to hit Google search and see where my mind wanders. As new ideas develop more and more images are gathered through design and coincidence. After I've cast my net wide I refine the images down to a tight group of images and they are put in there own folder. This becomes the "Inspiration Folder" for the design and from there I get to drawing. I love this research process. I liken it to dipping your brush in an inkwell. Without absorbing the ink you cant begin drawing.

This Inspiration Board below is my collection of images for this project:

Annotations from Top Left to Bottom Right

1. Alex Ross' unused redesign is close to perfect. Why it's never been used is beyond me. It's X motif use is key.

2. Hugh Jackman's jacket is iconic enough to get it's own scene in that shitty shitty movie. (Pa Kent gave it to Logan, apparently). The Great Majority think "leather jacket" when they think "Wolverine", so it would be silly to ignore that fact in any subsequent design.

3. See Grant and Frank understand.

4. The Hooded Man. Logan from the far future. The Hood is a fantastic way to integrate head-gear without the mask shaped like his fucking hair, and it would allow the character to make steps toward his "future self". 

5. Brown and Yellow-Orange. His best colorway. See: leather jacket.  Also: Wolverine's classic silhouette is a sleeveless unitard. Every comic book costume he's had has been this way. So how do I make his costume sleeveless and feature the leather jacket. Hmmm. . .

6. . . Voila! This is Mountain Research's Jacket with removable hood and sleeves. Now we have an innovation that the costume can be hung around: A multitude of styles out of a single garment.

7. Stirrups on the pants look tough and keep your pant leg straight.

8. Russell Crowe as Robin Hood. Check out that removable hood and the cool silhouette it creates. Badass.

9. Sam Elliot = Biker Sexiness.

10. A hooded leather vest with attachable sleeves by S2VS. Check out how cool it looks open with the gloves.

11. Ordinary clothes works best. So this design has to look like ordinary clothing assembled into a uniform.

12. The genuine articles. Key to the look: jeans and denim vest with patches of leather. But blue jeans are too informal for a superhero costume. And it doesn't fit the chosen color palette.

13. But heavy duty Duxback Cotton does. That Carhartt Yellow Orange implies working class, lumberjack, hard work, durability. It's perfect, and the reinforced panels will be done in the chosen brown leather. 

14. THE SOURCE: Let's get drawing!

Batman 2.0 Design Process pt. 2

Continuing from the last post.

So I've got my Design locked I think. I initially wanted the cape to be short for agility and connect to the underside of the arm. I then started to think that was too derivative of my Vampirella Redesign. So I went back to an idea I've had kicking around in my head of the riding cape/parka, which when flared would kinda make the bat symbol shape.

This is the costume design as it was going into the final drawing, minus the cape. It's your common bat costume with only a few minor tweaks that are Nightwing-ish. All the pieces that were black were going to be reinforced leather or amor. The face mask is meant to echo the old Dick Sprang/Adam West cowl look. It also recalls Robin's domino mask and the sculpted armor of the Batman movies. I figured the movies really inform on the way the general audience perceive Batman, so any new comicbook design shouldn't reject that style entirely. So the emblem has relief dimension to it as well. The gauntlets on his forearms become a short glove with (wrist spike) over arm-guards.

The Belt. The belt was originally going to be the old Robin, mixed with a police utility belt. all black leather with brass fittings. In the final drawing that looked under designed and way out of place. Or bad. It looked bad. So back to the literal drawing board. I redesigned it to have a more climbing-harness-lifting-belt look to it. This was too busy and still clashed with the rest of the design. So I started to strip things out. Irregularity of shape and extra elements were thrown out. What's left with is an all black belt made up of uniform compartments with a single button in the center. No buckle! The flares up the side is the same ribbed elastic armor from the arm guards. They serve to hold up the weight of the belt, and look Nightwing-ish.

This is the final drawing before rendering and background were added, paired with the color flats. The blacks aren't really black but a very dark and desaturated navy. The cape is a felted wool, lined with blue silk and reinforced with fabricised Kevlar. The suit is lined with that as well.

And finally a preview of the finished piece:

Remake/Remodel IRMA VEP

This was damn good fun. Warren Ellis has brought back his own character redesign meme. Now hosted on the Whitechapel Message board, this weeks challenge was to Remake 1920's film serial femme fatale icon, Irma Vep.

So I decided that to stray from the original is to lose the original's iconic look. So I elaborated on the catsuit's silhouette. The body stocking is a stretch knit styled after a commando sweater with the epulat shoulder pads. The Leggings are of course vinyl and the utility garter belt hopefully adds a touch of french sexuality while serving function. She has a clear plastic faceplate which provides a heads up display for her decrypting super computer.