CBRunway Round 4 Entry

So I made the deadline with 1 minute to spare. Man, this challenge took it out of me!

The goal was to recreate Power Girl's costume making it more iconic. It's funny because a day before the challenge posted I had talked about iconic characters and costumes in my Myth Conceptions column, then I had to put my theories to test.

I spent three days designing new looks for the cousin of Superman from an alternate reality, but most of them looked too much like the original. Since I got points off for lack of originality in my redesign of the Vision a few weeks back I couldn't risk that again. So I just couldn't settle.

I went through 10-12 designs before finally settling on one design. Then I went through 6 variations of that one design and three color schemes! And this was all before I even started drawing the actual pinup!

So once I finally got the costume nailed down (around 11pm Est) I had to start drawing fast with the 12am PDT (3am Est) deadline fastly approaching. I got it drawn, but had trouble with the legs and feet and battled with them for an hour and a half. I'm still not happy with them, but everything else looks pretty good I think.

Then I had to color it. My colored pencil work wouldn't do this one justice, so I had to go the photoshop route with less than two hours until the deadline! That was not pretty.

I thought I was going well until I realized it was 2:45am and I still hadn't colored the cape, boots, face or designed the signia for the back of her cape!

So I colored the cape, boots and part of the face and submitted it at 2:59am. I ended up working on it for another hour and a half and finally gave up. It's okay, but a colorist I'm not.

As for the costume, here's the description and reasoning I submitted with my entry:

"Okay, like everyone else, this was hard for me. I literally went through 12 different designs trying to find one more iconic than the original, but they were all too similar, and I wanted to do something more unique.

On the final design I literally went through 6 variations and three color schemes before settling on this.

Now, I wanted to keep the spirit of the original and the sex appeal, but make her more majestic and, of course, iconic. I look at PG as the rebel/wayward child/black sheep of the Superman family, and so she couldn't have the same appearance as Supes or Supergirl, but I still wanted her to be recognizable as part of that mythos.

The cutout on the chest is an altered design of the Superman symbol, and the blue trim on it separates her from them even further. Had I been able to finish the logo in time, which goes on the back of the cape, It would have kept the yellow face and had a stylistic "PG" in it.

At first I had the red as the dominant color, but I felt the white was both more true to her personality and that it stood out more, so I switched them. It still wasn't bold enough, so I added the blue trim to set it off.

I toyed with gloves, but I felt the wristbands denoted a more powerful and timeless being. The boots are the classic Supes boots more or less, only blue because red just seemed to bland.

The reason the left arm is covered was a stylistic one, nothing more. I wanted to make her hip and modern as well as iconic, and that seemed to almost do it, and the slanted skirt part finished that goal.

The full red cape was overkill, and no other solid color seemed right, so I went with the two-toned look. The red is still there and is strikingly bold, but the white really makes her pop when it's spread out. I kept the hair short, but not quite as short.

I was going for the Kate Beckinsale look in Underworld, but of course here it's blowing in the wind, and the coloring job on it is horrible.

I was a little concerned about the red, white and blue motif, but I really hoped the yellow would break that up. I'm not sure if I pulled that off or not, but ultimately I'm happy with it. She looks iconic, hip, still sexy, but not too cheap. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out."

Later today I will post some of the early designs and variations of the final design. Throughout, of course, are the pencils, final colors and signia. Let me know what you think!

B-Out