CV1210 Costuming--Assignment 3

[Erika]

Create a detailed costume design for your hero. Be sure to include descriptions of materials, and discuss why you made the decisions you did.

This is a picture/short answer assignment.

[Twitch]

My tentative costume (some heroes are quiet picky about the team's look) is shown below.
The design is build around my powers and what I plan to be doing in the field. Although, the 'overclocking' gives me faster response time, I'm not a combat specialist. I need some protection. I also wish to maintain a secret identity for privacy reasons.
Costume break down by piece.

• Mask - Altered domino style, It hides some of my expressions while letting me have full vision range. No special material.
• Black shirt - simple spandex. I don't want to sweat directly into my armor.
• Breastplate - There are several expensive materials in this piece. The top plate (tan colored) is hardened plastic. The red 'cloth' is carbon fiber that sandwiches packets of molecular armor. This stuff is awesome! It's a Newtonian liquid that is thick and pliable until hit. The force hardens it until it passes through it. Wikipedia defines three different levels of protection.

1. Shock Absorption: Material absorbs impact energy through phase change (hardening). 2. Shock Delay: Material delays the transmittance of some shock to the human body over a longer period of time. 3. Dissipation: Impacts are dissipated over larger areas of the body.

• Vambracers and Ammo Pouch (yes, it's drawn on the wrong arm) More carbon fiber/molecular armor. However these pieces have a silk lining for comfort. Why have I put armor on an ammo pouch? I don't want to get whacked on the arm, then have it blow up.
• Pants - removable silk lining (for winter wear) then carbon fiber. The sport stripes are more molecular armor as are the knee pads. 
• Shoes - Although the same color as the pieces of molecular armor the tops and heels of the boots are not shock absorptive. While there is a some padding those are reinforced kicking surfaces. 

Notes: The pants are designed from painful memories of diving feet first to homebase. It's a good skill to have, but I don't want to rip my buttocks off during a fight. The belt is the most ornamental piece of my costume. It was designed to 'cheat' my waist length. (I'm stocky with long arms.) I picked a triad color scheme that works with my complexion and tried to add plenty of warm tones. 
 
At the start of this course I listed three messages a costume sends - how approachable I am; my affiliations; and level of force I'll use.
I believe I've created daytime/friendly persona with some beat down skills. A sports nut might spot a few more salutes to my softball days, and I hope to develop long-range projectile strikes by launching them with a bat/pipe/bokken/etc. (I have to pick carefully to avoid being a 'copycat.') By graduation, all I will have to do, is think up a name and emblem.

Grade: AWESOME. Picture is good, description is grand and thoughtful, and major kudos to considering not only the function of the costume as relates to your powers and plans as a hero, but also to your actual body. Simply brilliant.

[rypperd0c]

With a base of nomex and riot armor in shades of Blue the duster is made out of ballistic resistant and fire resistant cloth on par with that used by the Secret Service.

Because his power gives him absolute control of everything close around the hat and jacket can become like armor, shielding both the Hero and anybody he is close enough to protect, or the flexible fabric can become a weapon, capable of striking out.

With complete mastery of everything within his limited range, combined with his desire to help, and heal, the Hero known as "The Witchdoctor" takes shape. Occult symbols and darker color tones, he fosters an image of someone dealing with dark powers. The Anti-Hero image, in addition to the hat and mask, is used to discourage people from trying to be overly friendly, so that he ca better protect his secret identity.

The Witchdoctor aims to appear intimidating, without being down right frightening, so he will meet less resistance when on duty, but still be able to help those in need.


Grade: 13290 points. Very nice

[Kashiro]

Essentially, my power depends on shadows, therefore, very loose, baggy clothing to facilitate a worst-case scenario: teleporting out of my clothes. Because of this, the costume itself is not very expensive, and consists of a black hoodie, jeans, blank mask and joggers. The important thing is, if I'm ever caught in a straight fight, I've already lost. So, the point is to avoid unwanted confrontation at any cost, and by not having a formal costume, I'm able to blend into the crowd easily and avoid suspicion (given I take off/discard the mask, of course). So, if I was to go for a more aggressive type of costume, it would include body armour and weaponry etc. However, I would much rather sit near the sidelines and cause havoc without them realising who was doing it. Thus, every misplaced weapon, every important thing they leave unattended for a single second, can be teleported away, given favourable circumstances. My fighting style favours subterfuge over confrontation, and thus I have chosen a costume that is relatively durable, but also easily replaceable, easily discarded, doubles as an escape route and is inconspicuous. If I truly need a weapon, well, everyone's feet cast a shadow directly connected to them, and besides flyers (whom I should be able to avoid in the first place), I should be able to disorient and displace enough enemies for me to either defeat them through gravity (i.e. thinking with portals) or to distract them long enough for me to escape. This may sound impractical as a hero, but sometimes simply appearing behind a criminal silently with no warning is enough to surprise them, to the point of dropping their weapons, at which point their shadows allow them to 'disappear' and thus make the criminals unarmed.

Furthermore, the baggy nature of the clothing lends itself to some...odd abilities and applications of my power. By placing key items in clearly separate, marked-out areas I intimately know, I can teleport weapons, aid, handcuffs etc. directly into my pockets. Yes, I turned 'teleportation through shadows' into 'hyperspace arsenal'. However, besides allowing me (theoretically) infinite amounts of food, melee weapons, first-aid supplies, etc. this also bring up a moral dilemma when it comes to heroes using firearms, and thus my policy is to not use them at all.


…but I digress. The costume I want is generic. I don't want something iconic. I want it to be dismissed as an Average Joe going about his day, at night. And if that becomes iconic, becomes associate with my identity as a hero, well, then I'll change it.