"With Disney's acquisition of the Star Wars
Franchise, Kevin McGill and I were discussing how Vader is in need of a
bit of a redesign. Thought I'd take a stab. Also, never tried posting shots of
my stuff to show progress from one stage to the next - thought it would
be fun to try it out here. Let's see how it goes - here's the initial
rough-out..."As I continued rolling the concept around in my head, I decided "What the hey, may as well explain the process to any interested parties out there. If you're reading this far, I suppose that means you, so read on:
I think it's arguable that Darth Vader sets the archetype for the modern "shrouded villain." When we humans interact with each other, the main point of focus is the face, and particularly the eyes. If you start messing with that, you interrupt the main path that familiarity is built upon. That's why having a conversation with someone in mirrored sunglasses is always a bit unnerving - a significant human element has been removed; an impermeable barrier has been erected. Why do you think they're so stereotypically favored by members of law enforcement? The "shrouded villain, " and particularly Vader, push further down this path, removing more and more human elements until you can't be sure exactly who or what you're dealing with. It's a tactic that keeps those on the outside of the mask off-balance, uncomfortable and intimidated.
Another recent example of the shrouded villain appeared in Tron: Legacy. Rinzler, CLU's gladiator-assassin, spends the entire life of the movie behind an unreadable full face shield, in spite of the fact that in the original Tron, he had a very human face (can't say any more without dropping a major spoiler for anybody who hasn't seen the movie, so I'll just leave it at that). If you'll notice, none of the other main characters share that trait. They may hide their face for the sake of drama at one point or another, but never for long. The main protagonist, Sam Flynn, never hides his face. Why? Because he's the good guy, of course! Good guys are dashing and engaging, not dark and brooding. They (eventually) bring freedom and light, not uncertainty and fear.
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| That's Rinzler on the right and Sam - with the clear face shield - on the left... |
Ah, but what about Batman, you may ask? That's another conversation, but I believe I could convincingly argue that the rules still apply there. Besides that, the character of Batman has a significant dose of anti-hero in his DNA - that gives him some leeway in this area.
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| He may be a hero, but he ain't interested in kissing too many babies... |
By contrast, Superman effectively has zero anti-hero, and as a result, his face is fully exposed. Spiderman may hide his face behind a mask, but when the writers want to show his human side, you'll often find him up on a roof somewhere, hammering his angst out with his mask in his hand instead of over his face. Anyway - back to Vader…
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| Always thought there could have been a lucrative Turtle Wax marketing campaign here somewhere... |
Vader's face is a hard-edged, unmoving death-mask in a very shiny, very black Samurai warlord's helmet, with a little bit of WWII German military thrown in for good measure. It's such an effective design tactic that Vader's iconic helmet makes up about 70% of his overall visual identity (I'd say the red lightsaber adds about 15% of that mix, plus the chest piece with about 10% - the remaining 5% can be scattered over the rest of the elements however you'd like). The point here is that, if I'm going to take a stab at redesigning the character, I'm going to have to be most careful in the area of that mask/helmet. The further away from that helmet I get, the more I can play around with new concepts, but if I go too far afield with the face, I'll kill the character. I'll look a bit more at the history of that design in my next post. Part of getting where you're going is knowing where you came from, right?
Peace.
(All copyrights regarding the characters above reside with their respective creators/owners)
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