Costume Designers Log – May 7th, Sunday, 2017
The 9 Finalized Costume Designs
In designing the costumes for Rubbish Theatre’s show, If An Orchid Was All You Had, I did some research into the kind of materials and design elements I could utilise for my designs. The first thing I did as Costume designer was collaborate extensively with the Set designer, James Crawford, so that I was staying within the plays consistent aesthetic style as opposed to creating something that looked completely out of touch with the rest of the aesthetic.
Notes taken during meeting with set designer James
After communicating with James on what kind of overall aesthetic he wanted for his set design, I could go away and look at some of the points James had brought up in the discussion. The first thing I did was to look at the aesthetic inspiration points that James and I had agreed would help with the costume; the Fallout series, Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn, Shane Acker’s film 9 and post-apocalyptic costume creator Nuclear Snail Studios on YouTube.
Cover Art for Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
An Outfit From Horizon Zero Dawn (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Firstly, I looked at Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn for costuming inspiration. The costumes and outfits within the games world have a strong techno-tribal aesthetic to them – bits of traditional clothing like furs overlaid with parts of the in-game lore’s technology – however after drafting out a few designs and comparing them to the notes I had taken from James, I felt that these designs would not work for a few reasons; practicality and aesthetic consistency being two.
Design based off of Horizon Zero Dawn
The Logo for the Original Fallout game (Interplay Entertainment / Bethesda Game Studios)
The second piece of material I looked at for the costume designing was the Fallout video game series developed by Interplay Entertainment initially and, most recently, Bethesda Game Studios. The Fallout series has long been a favourite of mine, so extensive research was not exactly necessary however research into the conceptual art of some Fallout armour, clothing, and unique characters was undertaken heavily to help understand the process the conceptual artists undertook for the game.
Concept art by Adam Adamowicz (Bethesda Game Studios)
I found Fallout to be particularly useful when designing early drafts of the costumes. I chose to focus particularly on two factions within the game world; the Raiders and the Children of Atom. The reason I chose these two factions is because of how strong their designs were, they had effectively upcycled elements of the pre-nuclear world into armour or costuming for their purposes. Where the Raiders had short clothes because of the heat, the Children of Atom had long robes that gave off a monk-like appearance. Designs I used inspired by Fallout would go on to influence my final designs.
Design based off of the aesthetics of the Fallout series
Poster for the film 9 by Shane Acker (Bazelevs Animation / Relativity Media / Starz Animation / Tim Burton Productions)
The last piece of material I used for costume inspiration is the 2009 animated film, 9. 9 features a cast of 9 rag doll like creatures that have survived in a kind of post-apocalyptic Europe and each exhibit a strong character trait that their personality and costume are built around. 9 was the final piece of material I looked at for inspiration on how to create the aesthetic of the costumes. The way that the creatures in the film looked like parts of the world and that they could have been assembled from small pieces of scrap was something I particularly enjoyed about the designs, as well as the individuality yet uniformed appearance of each character, giving them a sense of togetherness but not quite the same.
Two of the Characters from 9 (Bazelevs Animation / Relativity Media / Starz Animation / Tim Burton Productions)
After researching some of the concept art for 9, I attempted to design a costume based off the materials and designs that were featured in the film. Overall I feel that this was the largest piece of inspiration in creating my costume designs and that 9 helped me to decide the type of material I wanted and the type of look I wanted to give the creatures, these somewhat shambolic beings that exist in a world nobody will understand.
Design based on the 2009 film 9
In my final designs, I had taken my designs from each of the three pieces of inspiration and watched tutorials by Nuclear Snail Studios on YouTube (a costume designer for photoshoots and cosplay events who specializes in post-apocalyptic designs) to give me some idea on where to insert heavy amounts of detail and how to assemble the costumes that I had created. Overall I am happy with my designs, and the individual elements of each were taken from different aspects of human history or different elements expressed within the show. If I had more time and ability I would have liked to make the designs more intricate and have them feature moving mechanisms within them to make them more dynamic, however due to a limited time schedule this idea had to be removed.
References
– Guerrilla Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment. The Cover Art For Horizon Zero Dawn. 2017. Web. 7 May 2017.
– Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nora Protector Armour From Horizon Zero Dawn. 2017. Web. 7 May 2017.
– Interplay Entertainment / Bethesda Game Studios. Fallout’s Original Logo And Title Design. 1997. Web. 7 May 2017.
– Bethesda Game Studios. Concept Art For Fallout 3. 2008. Web. 7 May 2017.
– Bazelevs Animation / Relativity Media / Starz Animation / Tim Burton Productions. The Poster For The Film 9. 2009. Web. 7 May 2017.
– Bazelevs Animation / Relativity Media / Starz Animation / Tim Burton Productions. Two Characters From The Film 9. 2009. Web. 7 May 2017.