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HarrisonGrey — Power Girl Redesign
#comics #danvers #dc #girl #kara #karen #power #redesign #starr
Published: 2016-09-19 23:06:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 1018; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 0
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I finally got around to doing the Power Girl redeisng I've always thought about doing. I love Power Girl, I think she's a fantastically fun character, and I honestly love her normal costume, but I also see how it could use an update.A couple main things. I honestly think the keyhole design works for her. My belief is that superhero costumes should behave like clothes for superheroes; design should be more about character expression and less about practicality and realism (unless practically and realism is a part of your character's personality). Power Girl is a great character specifically because she's confident, brash, and kind of aggressive. The keyhole design is basically that. As long as you're not making some mopey, terrible origin for it, like she couldn't think of a design and it represents a hole in her heart or whatever, use it as a means of expressing that she's the kind of person who would wear it and I think you're fine. I did want to update the structure so that it didn't look like it could be a wardrobe malfunction at any moment, so I went with the cross design based on fancy dressed and workout gear with a keyhole. I think bare arms feel like a symbol of strength while I think the bare legs serve no purpose on Power Girl other than titillation, so I switched them. I also really love the assymetrical design of her original cape; I couldn't fit the pauldron on this design (believe me, I tried), so I expressed the assymetry of it with the cape's attachement and the workout gear inspired embellishments. Last but not least, foldover pirate boots. Foldover pirate boots for everyone.
I may update this image later with a back view and possible improvements on anatomy.
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Comments: 5
So showing off boobs is about character expression, but showing off legs (you know, like with a gymnast's outfit) is about titillation?
How does that work?
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Because keyhole designs appear relatively commonly in day to day fashion (just off the top of my head, Michelle Obama wore one on the Late Show a few days ago), but leotards just aren't. And I'm not saying the swimsuit cut is pure titillation in every instance; I rarely see Wonder Woman redesigns with pants that feel right, mostly on account of her coming from a Greek society that didn't wear pants as we know them now (though they didn't wear swimsuits either, so that's a faulty correlation on my part), and the bare legs feel like they convey a sense of athleticism. With Black Canary and Zatanna the fishnet stockings over bare legs (or light stockings) feel expressive of their punky attitudes or stage personas, respectively. But with Power Girl, it feels like the reason she has a swimsuit cut bodysuit is just because that's become the standard design for female characters, and frankly, that's not really fair. Showing off her bare arms feels better for Power Girl, to me, because the emphasis is on strength.
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I agree that showing off her arms is the right thing to do.
But you have to admit that boob windows are (especially in day to day fashion) much more geared towards titillation than bare legs are for athletic outfits. In fact a boob window would be more gratuitous in a gymnastics leotard than on a dress.
And since superheroes are traditionally dressed like athletes (since that's what they are), bare legs are less of an arbitrary design choice than a boob window would be, and you can't legitimately dismiss the former as titillation without coming up with a much stronger justification for the latter than "personal expression".
That was my point.
Now that being said I totally agree that bare legs are much more attractive than bare tits but that's beside the point.
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I actually wrote a whole article about why I think the keyhole works for Power Girl specifically before; this is why I didn't discuss it too much in the blurb above, as I have this to discuss the design choice further . TL;DR, she's an aggressive, confident, feminist character with a voluptuous body; it makes sense that she would choose to dress in a way that emphasized that (because it makes her feel good, not for attention), and the simple, obvious cleavage window matches her bold, blunt personality.
Bare legs in gymnastics gear has its place. But the deal is it's way less common now than it used to be, with yoga pants or sports shorts frequently taking its place. While the leotard was a solid aesthetic that tied to athletic gear for a while, that connection isn't as strong or obvious now, and without an immediately obvious connection to sports gear, it comes across more as titillation than utility. Returning to the idea of expression, the cleavage window is gratuitous, but it's gratuitous in a way that still feels like a fashion choice that a real woman might make, the leotard less so in our modern day. Again, on other characters bare legs feels more like a choice that makes sense based on their character, but on Power Girl it doesn't particularly express anything for her personality so I opted to go for a more modern, covered look there, and save the bare skin for a placement where it made more sense for her.
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I'd point out that gymnasts still do wear leotards in competitions but it's true that it's unfortunately less common.
Still I don't really get why you thought she "needed" a contemporary redesign (with pirate boots) but then again superhero comics have always been burdened by their soap opera publishing format and the clumsy trend-hopping it entails, so I understand why a DC marketing executive would call for it. Not really something I can wrap my head around but now I can see how it makes sense in light of the tacky fitness fashion trends bought by the 21st century.
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