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CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004
Posts: 1,235
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Visionary

Subj: So, what was I thinking when I drew this?
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 at 12:59:37 am EST (Viewed 349 times)
Reply Subj: On CSFB's costume... *slight edit*
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 at 11:24:46 pm EST (Viewed 1 times)

Previous Post

> Oh, and with that subtextual reading of the Superman costume, I wonder what you'd have to say about, oh, I don't know, an orange and green costume that de-emphasizes the chest even more ... ;\)



Well, as drawn it's actually a very masculine design... The anatomy de-emphasizes the torso in favor of the limbs and head, while the torso is as broad across the shoulders as it is high from crotch to neck. The division of color breaks up the outfit pretty evenly, although the strength of the arms is stressed in their relative size and the large shell of orange.

Projected onto a more realistic male body, I'd say it comes across as fairly asexual... The even distribution of orange and green breaks up the form without focusing attention on any particular feature. It could be "pushed" to emphasize most anything if an artist so desired, so I would expect that a variety of artists would find the costume very malleable... Those who wanted a sensual bend would be able to shift shapes around slightly to achieve it, while those who wanted a more rugged look could likewise find it.

*edit* One addendum: The lack of a belt line to break the abdomen from the crotch would likely make a sexual bend to it harder to avoid... so "asexual" is probably off the mark. Still, there's the possibility for a wide range of takes on this same design.

Three elements were consciously in my mind: Spider-Man's gloves, and how they "connected" to the lines of the rest of his costume; the Silver Age Green Lantern's torso, and how the shoulder pads and "underpants" were likewise "connected;" and the Generation X uniform's X-Men logo, and how it was branded on so many of the costume's circular shapes, from the shoulder pads to the zipper-pull.

Really, I wanted to create a costume with a flow and a continuity of line, to set it apart from the hard divisions of the standard superhero costume's clearly defined boots, belt and "underpants."

Spider-Man has that fluidity in the arms and chest of his costume, while the Silver Age Green Lantern had a more simplified version of it in the way his shoulders, midsection and below-the-belt regions were emphasized (looking back on it, it's remarkable how many ass-shots aggressively hetero hero Hal Jordan got, even back in the Silver Age ... way more than most of his fellow male heroes, then or now, and almost as much as a lot of female heroes, even by today's standards).

Beyond that, I did want a balance of colors, in a way that would allow them to kind of blend into each other more organically, and the choice of orange and green came about when I decided that I wanted the colors of his costume to be mirrored in the colors of his hair and eyes.

Believe it or not, the smiley-face logo was the last thing I figured out, because while I knew I wanted him to have a round symbol, that could be stuck anywhere on his costume that had a circle, I couldn't think of any design that wouldn't clash with the smooth arcs I'd made out of the rest of his costume, until I realized that a stylized version of the smiley-face could be made out of two circles and a half-circle, since both shapes were reflected in the rest of his costume.