Thursday, April 9, 2015

Rob's Room: Daredevil Character Posters

Am looking forward to this!
versus this...
(I cannot tell you how much I disliked this version of Bullseye...)
or this...
Updated!
Character Design & Storyboard Panels by Joe Quesada
The Devil Is Here!
Well gang, our journey’s come to an end but boy it’s been a fun thirty days and it sure has flown by. But on the bright side, in less than 7 hours you can all tune into Netflix and watch “The Man Without Fear” come to life right in your own home.  Today I thought it fitting to leave you with some never before seen art: the initial designs for the  black vigilante costume.  These are based on the original John Romita, Jr. design from Man Without Fear only with a slightly tweaked, real world, commando feel. JR JR’s original design was so smart and practical.  Matt simply wore the athletic gear of the era, a heavy cotton hooded sweat shirt, cotton sweat pants, high top basketball sneakers, leather gloves and a bandana mask.  It made perfect sense as it was exactly the kind of stuff that someone like Matt could afford and easily purchase in any store.  Looking at modern sports gear and fabrics as well as what can be bought in a store and online, I wanted to update that look while keeping the classic bandana mask.  So I came up with a combination that I thought made for an interesting silhouette, a compression shirt, slim-fitting commando pants, lightweight tactical boots and tactical gloves.  In the end it’s still Johnny’s Daredevil design, the only difference is this version of Matt Murdock purchased his gear in 2015 as opposed to 1994. 

Behind The Design

Here’s the truth, I was never intending to do the costume design for the show. In fact these illustrations that you’re looking at are just a few in a series of very rough sketches that I did for Drew Goddard and Steven DeKnight that were meant to express what I thought could possibly be the tone for the initial vigilante costume. I always assumed that if they liked this proposed direction that these sketches would then go to an actual concept artist who would use them as a starting point or throw them out and do their own thing.  However, both Drew and Steven reacted positively to them and thought they were right on the money.  Suddenly what I thought was merely a very rough suggestion became a part of the show.  That’s it for 30 Days To Daredevil folks. Thanks for sticking around, I hope you had as much fun as I did and I hope you enjoy Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix. We’re all so incredibly proud of the show and can’t wait for all of you to watch it.

6 comments:

j-swin said...

I remember seeing that hulk movie as a kid and thinking "that's not what DareDevil looks like" then i read frank miller's 'man without fear' years later and the tumblers just fell into place.

Rob said...

Did Frank Miller ever indicate he got the look of the black costume from that Hulk movie (though it seems pretty apparent that he did)? Inquiring minds want to know...

j-swin said...

Not that I ever heard, but such is the genius of miller.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Looking so forward to this one. I remember the glory days of Daredevil comics. I am someone who liked what Rex Smith did in the 70s. He was a freakin' pop star and he got the character right.

Rob said...

Interesting that the pictoram above indicates the black costume in Frank Miller's "Man Without Fear" was planned years before the TV movie. I guess that answers my question...

Rob said...

I AM SOLD! 4 episodes in to the Netflix series... "Daredevil" does everything right that Fox's "Gotham" does wrong! And I grew up a DC fan...