Costumes and Character: Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest

How does a costume reflect a character? I can't think of a better object lesson than Alfred Hitchcock's landmark suspense thriller "North by Northwest" (Warning: The following contains spoilers for a fifty year old film)

When we are introduced to our protagonist, Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) he is walking the midst of a busy crowd, establishing the "everyman" nature that makes him so identifiable, as well as vulnerable. 

Roger is an advertising executive, or as he puts it, "I lie for a living", (a line that was no doubt influential on the creation of "Mad Men") This is further evidenced moments later when Roger takes a taxi from another man, saying that he has to take his sick secretary to the hospital, when nothing of the sort is happening. 

Since Roger is a businessman he is wearing the expected attire of a man of that position in the 1950s, a gray flannel suit, the most popular fashion choice for men at the time. So popular in fact that everyone was wearing them. Thus we get the first hint of the theme of this film. This could be any man, even you. Is it any wonder that the plot hinges on him being mistaken for someone else? 

This color choice also has a double meaning, Roger wears gray because of his moral ambiguity, as he has to lie in order to get out of trouble so that he can expose the truth. 

The plot thickens when Roger is framed for a murder. He manages to escape custody, and flees to try and clear his name. Despite his picture being in every newspaper in the country, he continues to wear the same clothes, (It may not make sense in retrospect, but it is done to keep the character consistent) although he does don a pair of sunglasses that amusingly fool absolutely no one. 

The one time in the film that Roger deliberately alters his appearance is while escaping from a train. He does the classic bit of knocking out a man and stealing his clothes. However, they're not just any clothes, he chooses the uniform of a station redcap, somebody who is one many anonymous workers at the train station, only identified by their eponymous hats. This frustrates the pursuing police officers who knock off the caps one by one in a failed search for their man. This continues the theme of the everyman who easily blends into the crowd.

Towards the end of the film, Roger is shot. For all intents and purposes after this, Roger has "died". His name is cleared with the authorities and they are preparing move in on the real villains. 

However, this is when there is a distinct change in Roger's character, which is represented by his change of clothes. While recovering from his gunshot wound at the hospital, he is given a new white shirt. Roger has been reborn and his heroic colored apparel has also inspires him to become a proactive figure. No long content to hide, sneak about, he takes charge by going out to rescue his love interest from the clutches of the bad guy's fortress like a classic white knight.

LOEB: Sketch Studies - Jason Vorhees

It seems that the Halloween season has snuck up on me once more and I've been so busy getting my act together that I've gotten behind in my horror movie watching and monster drawing. Not only have I failed to hold up the holiday, but I've also forsaken my country in its time of need. Woe is me!

I never have this problem around Christmastime. Maybe its because I know I'll lose my soul if I don't watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "How the Grinch stole Christmas".

At least I can say I've kept with the spirit of the season by listening to all sorts of spooky tunes like the best of Bernard Hermann, Roy Webb's scores for the Val Lewton features, classical pieces such as Toccata and Fugue in D Minor or breakaway pop hits like "Ghostbusters" or "Thriller". Though most of these are already first in my audio quiver so I don't know if that really counts as anything special. 

Something I had been putting together in anticipation of All Hallow's Eve is some rough sketches that I hoped might develop or inspire full fledged illustrations.

 

Its times like this when I'm grateful for my Waccom tablet, which can capture the spontaneity of a quick pencil sketch by simply scanning it in and tracing over it, adding and subtracting details as necessary without the hassle of needing to start from scratch to try something new.

Looking at it again, the original Jason sketch on the upper left seems to have been inspired by the loose geometrics, broad torso and skinny legs of another monster; Killer Croc as seen on Batman: The Animated Series.

Speaking of aquatic monster men; Achivements in Gaming pays tribute to the Golden Age Gillman!
Other Monsters from the League:
* Brian recollects The Monster Times!
* Batfan goes old school!

Four Daughters of the Apocalypse

This character design project was actually the brainchild of Cecil Trachenberg, who runs the amusing named "Good Bad Flicks", a web series dedicated to celebrating underrated or otherwise forgotten B-Movies. Its a very funny and entertaining show, after you've read and commented on every single one of my posts, you should definitely check it out.

Last summer, Cecil pitched an idea for a comic/animated series about how the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse came to Earth in the '80s believing that the Cold War would be the end of the world, only to discover that they'd jumped the gun. Stuck on Earth, they settled down and produced a quartet of daughters who have inherited their supernatural powers and the responsibility to destroy the planet.

I designed the girls to have contemporary clothes and attributes that would fit into easily identifiable cliches. To the untrained eye they might appear like normal girls, but on closer examination you might notice that their appearances have symbolic significance to their supernatural heritage.

The Leader/ The Army Brat. Choleric Temperament. An extraverted thrill-seeker with a hair trigger temper who is always pulling the others into trouble. She is always chewing gum, but every attempt to blow a bubble blows up in her face, not unlike the many crazy antics that she cooks up. 

It was hard not to think of "Kim Possible" during the design process as fiery red hair and baggy camo pants feel like natural traits for a hot blooded action girl.

The Lancer / The Party Girl. Sanguine Temperament. She's everywhere, and hangs out with everybody. You might say she's "contagious". 

She has a snarky sense of humor and a grunge scene exterior. She'll often wear T-Shirts that have the names of various diseases made up to look like band logos. Said shirts are long and stretch below the hip not unlike a hospital gown. She also wears a woolen cap not too dissimilar from something a chemo patient would wear. Her wrists are adorned with multiple hospital admission bracelets, and on her legs are a pair of gaudy tights with multiple tears in them, meant to resemble open sores without being gory. 

The Shy, Smart One. Melancholic Temperament. I wanted to avoid designing an anorexic girl as I didn't think that'd be very fun. Then I remembered that passage about the famine in the end times were "a loaf of bread could buy a bag of gold" and figured that you'd need to be good with numbers to calculate that kind of currency conversion and hit on the idea of making Famine into a nerdy schoolgirl type.

Her pigtails are meant to resemble measuring scales, but it may take a few more drafts to make that evident.

The Strong One/ The Only Sane One. Phlegmatic Temperament. I pictured her as someone who was very laid back, having a "seen it all before" attitude and would know better than the get involved with the other three's zany schemes, often burying herself in some other solitary activity, only to come and save their bacon every time they got in over their heads.

Death's daughter was the most difficult design as I deliberately wanted to avoid something like Neil Gaiman's "Death", the pale skinned perky Goth type. Instead a tried aiming in the opposite direction, giving her a more plump figure, not unlike a bloated corpse (you might say she's larger than life) and dressing her in ghastly green rather than in the typical black. She doesn't wear any sort of skull jewelry or clothing because it thought could it could be more interesting if she was the most unassuming of the bunch and yet was the most dangerous in terms of power.

The League has other highlights from apocalypse:

* Nerdy Life provides a History of the End of the World

Superhero Sketches

In between projects I like to cook up ideas for original superheroes often with goofy puns names in that classic Silver Age style. Just to give an inkling of my process I thought I'd showcase some of my sketches.

Admiral Atlantis

I never liked the idea of characters like Aquaman and Namor being both King of the Seven Seas and part time surface superheroes, being a ruler is a full time responsibility. Instead our aquatic actioneer is a former Atlantean war hero and master strategist. I wanted something that emulated a old style of naval uniform with some decorative nouveau shapes of underwater animals like the manta chest emblem which is meant to resemble an "A".

Bamboozle!

Billionaire Biff Powell’s parents were tragically murdered by ninjas. Now he has dedicated his life to avenge their deaths by battling the ninja underworld by studying the ancient art of Onomatopoeia; the ability to manifest sound into a physical form. 

"Criminals are a sneaky, silent lot. The sound of an alarm or siren will send them fleeing. I must become something that shatters the silence!" Hours later after surfing the Internet for inspiration, Biff stumbles across the famed "Sneezing Panda" video. "GASP! A simple sound that strikes suddenly! It's Perfect!"

I loved the old Adam West Batman show as a kid and was disappointed to discover that creating sound effects with his fists was not an actual superhero and wanted to create a tongue-in-cheek type of hero that would reconstruct that fun feeling I had with the character when I was young.

Battle Butler

Geoffrey Grieves is a servant themed superhero, one of a long legacy of Battle Butlers. Tall and slim, with heightened reflexes and agility, ninja level stealth and precision. Armed with a serving tray and silverware that act as discus and shirken. Being clean and meticulous has helped to hone his keen observational and detective skills.

Crown Jewel

She's probably the one superhero I've spent the most time trying to visually develop, and yet her eponymous headgear still remains ill defined. 

Film Buff

Golden Guardian of the Silver Screen! Film Buff's powers mostly include deducing the obvious.

Pocket Protector

A pint-sized powerhouse in the vein of tiny titans like The Atom or Ant-Man. He's also a bit of a super nerd as emphasized by his costume designed to resemble a quilted sweater and suspenders. 

The Scarf

For whatever reason, the letter "S" was really popular with pulp heroes of the '30s and '40s. The Shadow, The Spider, The Spirit, The Scarab, The Saint, The Shield, The Spectre and more. To that impressive list I'd like present my own entry; "The Scarf", the Silky Scourge of Crime! Starting out as a Golden Age coat, hat and aviator goggles style of crimefighter-adventerer before moving into the Silver Age with bright tights and an atomic powered utility belt.

Snow Angel

Giant snowflakes for wings. Thats all I've got so far. Did I mention how much I love puns?

Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward Final!

Hey Guys! Thank you to everyone who contributed their suggestions towards my entry for Project Rooftop's Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward contest. So low and behold, here is my new look for Marvel's Cosmic Quartet:

A big thank you goes out to Brian Kane for his invaluable suggestion about altering the logo. I was quite proud of my design which used the letter "F" turned on its side to create the number "4" as well, but his  recommendation of intersecting the two, opened all sorts of possibilities with positive and negative space, not to mention made the whole thing more compact. Not to mention it kind of looks like a cross between the Facebook "F" (with the white character in a blue box) and the Apple Logo with a piece removed from the whole and repositioned on top.

This was a lot of fun for me, and hope you enjoy as well.

Yes. I can illustrate for you. I'm a traditional illustrator and can help you achieve your goals through art. Learn how to work with me at www.erikjohnsonillustrator.com 

Crown Jewel: Empress of Awesome!

Wanted a chance to pipe up in between my posts celebrating professional and historical illustrations, to talk briefly about a project of my own I've been scratching across three sketchbooks over the past two and a half months. You see I love comics in all forms and ever since graduation over a year ago I have been trying to come up with my own ideas and characters in hopes of creating sample pages to showcase at conventions and wherever else I can.

I'm not well known for my confidence in my own work, so I thought I'd implusively spring for talking about some of my ideas on perhaps my readers (now in the double digits!) would be kind enough to share their thoughts.

This is my first drawing of "Crown Jewel", a comic book superheroine I've been developing since around April. This is a rather simple design conveying her royal and bejeweled theme with a simple tiara, crown shaped breastplate and belt buckle along with a diamond shaped skirt with large studded gems which could open to reveal weapons or tools like her Scepter Deflector.

But alas, I could never stay satisfied with something so simple, wanting to give her a more distinct look.

This version replaced the breastplate with a large glowing jewel over her heart and several smaller gems leading down to her belt which formed a "CJ" kind of shape.

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Her breastplate and boots became more ornate and complex.

Most pages were cluttered like this, I've just been giving you the highlights thus far.

This is were my peristance pays off, as the upper right corner reveals, I developed a shape that looked like a series of three pointed crowns interlocking around the letters "C" and "J" with an octagonal gem in the center. This would be a permanent fixture in every design afterward.

I also experimented with giving her a mask to break the silhouette as well as make her a bit unique as very few heroines wear masks. Least their faces no longer be pretty or something like that.

I thought I had all the pieces together when I did this page, only to step back and saw an odd juxapostion of a doe eyed face with the broad body of a female wrestler, to say nothing a very complicated set of boot buckles.  I decided some action poses would help loosen thing up and give Jewel some more life.

I continued to experiment with torso designs before moving on to her eponymous crown.

Here I hit about the idea of abandoning the skirt for two colored bars on either side of her hips with a elongated chestpiece and loincloth, so as to form a crown shape across her body and to allow for negative space through darker colors.

I also briefly replaced her hair with crackling energy. 

I refined the design, adding golden shoulder pads to make her look stronger and more balanced. This design helped to guide the eye down, but had the unfortunate side effect of splitting textures on her breasts, which made her torso look angry.

Further refinement with a new breastplate

New breastplate fits firmly, with jewels on over her heart and both shoulders. Darker areas crackle with shimmering sparks of energy just beneath her skin like a living engine. Her crown and face are now one in the same.

Finally, Color! Lots of gold, particularly around the torso, she turned out to be brighter than I imagined, and combined with the flaming red hair I think she resembles Frankie Raye from the Fantastic Four a bit too much I think and fully golden breastplate reduces the amount of purple lines to guide the eye down to the rest of the figure, so there may still be some more tweaking to do yet.