Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Young Legion 2009

The second shot of the Empress is the most compelling, IMO.

Now I'm hoping to see a close-up of Dreamy!

Yeah, and Dawnstar!

Nice.

Thanks.

I hadn't planned on doing Dawnstar for a while yet (probably not until I did Wildfire) but since you asked...



Click thumbnails to view larger picts; the first image is rendered using my normal light set-up, but takes much longer to render due to the wings. The second and third are a quickie, low-quality render.

I'll render and post some Dream Girl picts tomorrow, time permitting.

Quite a few of the more caucasian Legionnaires seem pretty gray (Supergirl in the pictures with Brainy is very noticeably so), but the darker Legionnaires, like Dawnstar there, look amazing.

Very cool. Nice work on the wings as well. That couldn't have been easy.

Incredible!
I can't believe how quickly you can do these!

I love your attention to detail on Dawny, the necklace, the belt, the leg ring, the wings, the general outfit!

She's beautiful.

Thanks, that's good to know. I think I've been making the female caucasians a little paler, to have them appear fairer than the males, and I may have overdone it (on my monitor they look alright, but if they look pale on yours then I should let 'em get a bit more sun). I'll post a more tanned Kara tonight, time permitting.

As I mentioned, I'm lazy.

I've been building and collecting 3D bits and pieces for years, so for Dawnstar, I spent about an hour, hour-and-a-half assembling the pieces I needed (testing and discarding a few that didn't "work" for me), including the pre-built wings (I had to test a few to find the ones I liked). Most of the clothing I had to resize and reshape because they were built for a different, more realistic base model.

The only thing I had to build absolutely from scratch was the forehead star, and that only took about 10 minutes.

Total assembly/modeling time, about two, two-and-a-half hours.

Once built, though, i never have to do that again, now it's all gravy.

Thanks again for the skin info, that's the kind of criticism I'm looking for.

Thanks very much.

Eventually I'll make her proper, fringed boots, but as I'm aiming for a younger audience and a toonier look for animation, I'll probably not open the costume up with the strings and such... plus, I'm lazy.

I set up another better-quality render before bed (the better lit ones take about 20 to 40 minutes to render, the others, maybe two or three, all due to the numbers of lights and those darn wings).

The wings look *awesome* spread out like that. The angle is also nice, showing that the wings attach at the top of her shoulders. Some of the front-facing renders make it appear that her wings attach more lower-shoulder/mid-back and it looks awkward. It think it's just the length of those feathers close in to her body that give that illusion, 'though.

Don't sweat the fringes. IMO, putting fringes on the boots of Dawnstar and Dani Moonstar and Wyatt Wingfoot always felt like a lazy out for the artists, to make the character 'look Indian.' It felt less like a valid costume element and more like artist 'code' for a native american character.

Hope these will do:

Wow! This is so much fun. Thank you!

Dreamy is adorable, of course.

Question:
Are these basically dolls?

Dawnstar's legs look like they're attached like a dolls, is why I ask.
If you like that distinction, fine.
If you don't, you might want to lower her costume line to match Dream's and Shady's.

I really like the bustier look, even Dawny's looks like one with cap sleeves attached.

That might be a neat distinction for your girl Legionnaire costume designs ~ a way to make them different from the Jo series cast.

Not a suggestion, really, just a thought.

Whatever you do, these are fun (like Sketch said) and exciting!
Thanks for doing these and sharing them with us.

Oh, that Dream Girl is very cool!

Nope, not dolls, they're one-piece 3D meshes. Now that you mention it, though, I can see what you mean; Dawnstar's bodysuit is narrower at the bottom and, from the right angles, it does kinds of look the way some dolls are made. I chose that particular suit because it plunged a bit at the top (to pay homage to the comic version) but it only takes a minute to swap it out with the same bathing suit the other girls are wearing:



Thanks for the comments and ideas, they're very much appreciated.

Wonderful!
And she's wearing a little jacket over the suit.
That's a great idea and another distinctive look, something the other girls might utilize.

Are you sure you don't want to design for the 'real' Legion?
They could certainly use someone!

A couple more of the Silver Age heroes; first, Star Boy (in one of the ugliest costumes colour-wise, INHO):

... and next, a pre-Legion Andrew Nolan. As I don't consider him "Ferro Lad" at this point, he's wearing civies, they type he might wear if he were visiting a pre-Legion Rimbor...







As always, click on the thumbnail for a bigger pict; critiques and suggestions always welcome.

I think Andrew would look better in human form if his mask still had the silvery/iron look to it, instead of being white. The rest of the costume is awesome, 'though. Very old school!

I could never tell in the original Adventure stories if his mask was actually cloth or metal. Good idea, though, thanks. A couple of different metals to try out (should I go for darker, lighter, or more grey?):

The lighter grey is better on my computer. The darker one looks brownish.

Up close, the costume looks even better. I love how the fabric looks shiny and metallic!

I agree about the lighter version.

That's a great costume for him!

THanks for the comments, they're appreciated.

The brown is part of my laziness.

I've been running the renders through a quickie set of actions that give them a bit more "painted" look, but it also shifts the colours slightly depending on the hues of the overall picture (background included). In the renders of Andy holding the robot over his head, for example, the "iron" colour came out lighter and whiter, but when the PS actions were run with Andy against a blank background, it made the colours darker and browner to balance things our.

Here's one where I took an extra 20 seconds to manually shift just the helmet in Photoshop:

That extra 20 seconds definitely shows. The helm looks much more metallic in this one.