Note: Taking a page from a bygone era, Henrik Sahlstrom has taken the costumed characters of Gotham City squarely into the realm of noir. Some of the designs go a little bit to far afield of the characters’ inherent identifiers, all-and-all it’s a wonderful concept that I’d love to see expanded on. – Chris A.
Note: Last week we unveiled the top entries from our Storm: All-Weather Wear contest, and today I wanted to focus more in depth on the individual picks of our judges. Our winner Kelly Smith earned one of the highest cumulative score (87%) and was the highest score for many of of judges, but some of the others down the list were also given highest marks by individual judges.
This This piece by Matt Lane was 17th overall in the contest, but one of our guest judges Brian Wood gave it a 9 — his highest mark, which he also gave to #4′s Thomas Branch and 2nd Place Zhihuang Dong. The X-Men scribe called the piece “incredibly striking,” feeling both epic and important.
P:R Regular Jordan Gibson submitted the above piece, and while in the overall rankings it scored 5th it earned highest individual marks from Vito Delsante, Kim Belair and Glen Weldon.
And lastly, this piece by Randy Bishop got the highest marks of both Delsante and Belair, with Delsante calling it “regal” and Belair loving it especially for the closed/open cape.
Note: Dean ran across this link, and we’ve been batting it around the office all morning. Here’s an example, then click the image to see the full tumblr. – Chris A.
Note: One of the best places to see top-notch costume design in comics these days has been on the Disney XD show Ultimate Spider-Man, and again we turn to an Ed McGuinness design used in the show — this time for Luke Cage, Power Man. In comics, Cage has seemingly been at odds, design-wise, with his “Power Man” moniker, but this design takes the name and the codename and blends them into one nice, understated design — both in the clothing as well as the haircut. – Chris A.
Note: One of my favorite Wonder Woman runs of all time was Phil Jimenez, so its with wistful and renewed admiration that I see that Marvel has hired Jimenez to redesign its own Hippolyta character for an appearance in the forthcoming Fearless Defenders. Jimenez posted this glimpse over on his twitter, and what I wouldn’t give to see his other concept sketches for this. – Chris A.
Note: After wowing us earlier this year with his stunning rockabilly redesign of Batman and the assorted characters of Gotham City, Denis Medri returns for a victory lap by showcasing his designs in several action shots and illustrations. You’ve seen the designs before — now see them in action! – Chris A.
Note:There’s more to super-heroes than Batman and the X-Men, and from time to time we like to remind the artists who read and submit to us of some of the biggest fashion faux pas in comics. Last time we pointed out heroes like the Phantom, Martain Manhunter and Star Sapphire, and this time out we’re focusing exclusively on villains. If you’re an artist trying to find the perfect subject to re-invent for Project: Rooftop, look no further! – Chris A.
Ultra-Humanite: I stand by what I said before: his only costume is a girdle, a crotch-flap, and gold-studded red suspenders. That doesn’t say “original supervillain” to me, it says “Christmas at the Furry S&M Club.” - Jessica Plummer
Note: After his debut earlier this month with Hawkman, we couldn’t help but highlight African artist Mista-M once again with another of his designs — a stunning take on DC’s Power Girl. He doesn’t shy away from the cleavage that Kara is known for, changing the so-called “boob window” into more of a low-cut top. The cape is unique, and I applaud the simple tribute to the Superman S-Shield with the belt buckle. – Chris A.
Note: Our recent Spider-Man: Webhead 2.0 contest propelled a really strong debate, and got people really thinking about what works (and what doesn’t) with a Spider-Man contest. After the entries came in and the results were tallied, California artist Mika Dimayuga came out on top as winner of the contest. Now that the dust has settled, we wanted to ask Mike about his choices that led him to the winner’s circle. – Chris A.
Mike Dimayuga's Winning Entry
Project: Rooftop: First thing’s first – when you first heard about the contest to redesign Spider-man, what were your thoughts on the original costume and what needed changing – and why?
Mike Dimayuga: My very first thought upon finding out about the contest was “dang, this is gonna be another difficult one.”. In my opinion, Spider-Man’s original costume is perfect. It’s iconic, relatively simple to draw, but detailed enough to be visually interesting to look at. Its sleek, fashionable and just so right for the character.
So really, what can I change while still making it “Spider-Man” since the costume was near perfect already? well, having drawn Spidey since I was a kid I knew the least fun for me were the web patterns. They were really tedious to draw. Also, I knew I can play around with the red and blue portions of the suit. I figured I NEEDED a theme, since I was so stumped in the beginning. thinking about Spidey and having just been watching some anime, I realized Spider-Man’s kind of a ninja, so I wanted to do Spidey as an urban ninja. Hardly original, I know. But hey, any port in a storm, right?
To that, I add my other philosophy: when designing a costume, I imagine how iI would design a character if it were meant for a real monthly book. What would an artist have fun drawing over, and over, and over, again? What would be simple to draw, yet still have some interesting detail that would draw the eye? Something distinctive. So with those parameters I was able to finally narrow down what I wanted my design to be.
Note: Superman is one of the hardest costumes to change — just ask DC. Artist David Williams takes up that challenge with this design, which he calls ‘The Kryptonian.’ I love the lines with the design, and he even kept the spit-curl! – Chris A.
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