For our new project, we will be designing a superhero or a supervillain. We will be producing a presentation sheet, analysing the design of our character stating why we designed it this way. For this lesson, I will be looking at a variety of superheros and villains who have already been created.
Rocket Raccoon:
Rocket Raccoon is a superhero created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen. The character is an intelligent, anthropomorphic raccoon, who is an expert marksman and master tactician.
In the drawing above, a variety of colours have been used. The character wears red and dark blue clothing, making the red stand out a lot more. The use of yellow in the drawing around the edges creates a 3D effect and also shows the lighting against the characters body. There is not a single block colour, but instead multiple tones of different colours. This is very prominent in the characters head, where you can see different shades of brown and black used to create a 3D effect on it’s head.
The character is clearly not a humanoid type superhero like many modern day characters are, but instead based on a raccoon. The proportion of the drawing seems just right. The character is meant to resemble a real life raccoon which is very small in size compared to many animals you may see.
The characters expression shows determination, perhaps symbolising how heroic the character is and that it is on a mission. The drawing also shows the character in a running stance, once again showing he is determined and needs to be somewhere quick.
Rocket Raccoon has the normal attributes of a regular earth raccoon, possessing speed and accurate senses of smell, hear and touch. The character is an expert in piloting spacecrafts and has excellent accuracy with the two laser pistols he carries. As you can tell from it’s name, the character is also an expert in large ammunitions such as rocket launchers. Rocket Raccoon is also a highly-skilled military tactician and leader. As the character is only small, his appearance could not tell you this as you wouldn’t really expect a raccoon to be a master in shooting guns.
Spiderman:
Spiderman is a superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. The character is a human with spider like abilities.
This superhero wears two main colours, red and blue, however his outfit does also include minor details of black and white. The black detail shows a web-like pattern on the red parts of his outfit and also on the spider silhouette on his chest. The black on red helps the web pattern to stand out and links in with his name, Spiderman. The only white on the whole outfit is on his eyes, surrounded by a thick black outline.
In this drawing, 3D techniques have been used such as toning. Although the main colours of the character are blue and red, the two colours come in a variety of shades, emphasising the 3D effects of the characters, casting shadows and more. The drawing style is a lot different to the drawing of Rocket Raccoon. The lighting and shading of Spiderman gives off more of a 3D effect than Rocket Raccoon’s and that was more stylised.
Spiderman is definitely a humanoid superhero and is shown that way in all his illustrations. The character of Spiderman is a human with spider-like powers. Looking at the drawing above, the characters seems to be in proportion to a normal human being. Spiderman’s physique is very muscularly and is drawn to show this using more 3D effects. This tells us that the superhero is very powerful and is quite strong.
As he wears a costume, you cannot see Spiderman’s expressions. However, if you are going by the expression of his mask, you could say that he appears to be very determined and serious about what he is doing. In the drawing, Spiderman appears to me mid-jump, with his arms thrown behind him and his knees slightly up. This could be described as an action shot of the character, showing his skill and power to the watcher/reader of the comic or film.
Spiderman has a range of powers, all orientating around a real life spider, a lot like Rocket Raccoon’s powers. This character has the ability to shoot webs from his hands, which he then uses to swing around and get to his destinations quicker. Spiderman also has the ability to stick to surfaces, allowing his to scale tall buildings with little effort. This power also allows him to be stealthy and remain undetected by hanging from ceilings or other areas that his enemies wouldn’t expect him to be. Sticking to the theme of spiders, the character has “Spider Senses” which allow him to sense different things such as danger. The character uses his senses to react quickly in fights and discover when somebody is in danger, allowing his to help them quicker then the authorities may be able to.
The character’s appearance does present some of these powers by the use of spider-like designs on his costume. The black silhouette of a spider on his chest and the webbing design around it can be related to his spider-like abilities.
The character doesn’t actually use any weapons primarily, as he doesn’t wish to harm people. He sees him self as a protector of the city, bringing people to justice. If he needs to use violence, it will only be to protect himself or the people in the situation, not to kill.
The character of Spiderman has quite a bit of a background story. The character in the Marvel comics, Peter Parker, is actually the character of Spiderman, but nobody, apart from a people who are close to him, know this. Peter Parker works for a fictional New York newspaper publisher called the “Daily Bugle”. He was originally given the task of taking pictures of Spiderman when he was first noticed protecting the city. As he was Spiderman, taking these pictures were quite easy, leading him to get bigger stories to cover during his work. The character of Spiderman does not have his own “secret base” as such, as he only becomes Spiderman when he is needed. He tends to resident in his Aunt May’s house.
Iron Man
Iron Man is a superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Iron Man is Tony Stark’s alter-ego and is a mechanical suit, full of gadgets and weapons. The suit is held together by an artificial intelligence created by the character of Tony Stark known as JARVIS.
The Iron Man suit consists of two main colours, red and gold, however there have been many variations of the suit, changing the colours and it’s whole design. The suit also contains light blue which is emitted by lights and not a physical colour. In the centre of the suit’s chest, a circle of blue light can be found which is the core “power supply”, so to speak, of the suit. This supplies it with all the energy it needs to run the JARVIS AI and it’s weapons and gadgets.
The colours are not consistant tones of red and gold however, as shown in the image above. As with the other superheroes above, many different tones of the primary colours have been used to create a 3D effect using shadows. This style of drawing relies a lot more on brighter colours, creating a metallic look on the suit.
Iron Man is a humanoid superhero, as he is a human, named Tony Stark, in his Iron Man suit.
Iron Man has a variety of gadgets on his suit that could be regarded as his “powers”. The superhero can fire beams of energy from his hands, fly using his thruster boots and even shoot rockets from his wrists. His arsenal of weapons always seems endless and it is amazing he is strong enough to carry them all.
Hulk:
The Hulk is a superhero created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The Hulk is the enraged form of Bruce Banner, taking on his form of the giant green monster when faced with danger or other stressful situations.
In the drawing above, fairly basic colours have been used, but still create a details drawing. Three colours have been used in particular, green, black and white. These colours are not consistent and have different shades used throughout to create a nice 3D effect using the shadows. This can be seen on almost all of the other superheroes I have analysed so far.
The Hulk is human-like in some ways, but is also very different. It is human-like in the fact that it has two legs, two arms and a head, but is also non-human-like in it’s size. The character is much more powerful and much bigger than the average human and therefore is very different.
The proportion of the character is quite interesting. Compared to the other superheroes I have looked at so far, The Hulk is the character that is the most out of proportion. The Hulk has a normal, human sized head, which does not fit very well with his enlarged and muscular body.
The character of The Hulk is very large and muscular, implying he is very powerful and could destroy almost anything with just his fists. It also tells us he would be able to hold any heavy weaponry to use against his enemies, however we know he doesn’t and that his weapons only consist of his bare hands.
In the drawing, the character appears to be very angry and tense. You can see this from the expression on his face and the prominent tendons sticking out of his neck. Bruce Banner, the alter-ego of The Hulk, turns into the superhero when in danger or stressed about something, so this may explain the expression on his face.
The Hulk is also in a fighting-type stance, his fists raised and knees bent to support him. This implies he is in a fight or perhaps preparing to fight something.
The character doesn’t actually have any superpowers other than his super strength which he uses during combat to get an advantage on his foes. The Hulk also uses his super strength to help his allies unblock pathways or even create shortcuts to location by breaking down walls. You can tell this is one of his main powers by his appearance, as he doesn’t wield a weapon and is very muscular and powerful.
The Hulk is the alter-ego of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, who is a scientist. Banner sometimes gets enraged when conducting his experiments and ends up transforming into his alter-ego, The Hulk.
Jordan HD 