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bowling-with-skulls · 8 months

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i made this spiderman back when the atsv had just come out. german expressionism design infodump under the cut :^) also the name isn’t solid i don’t speak german

so glad i held off my knee jerk instinct which was to just slap spiderman’s face on cesare the somnambulist and looked at other influences.

my rules were these:

exaggerated but alien silhouette, distorting the shapes of the body to create something that is not necessarily attractive, chic, or to modern tastes, but rather is effective. (i think i still didn’t get close enough to an unusual, unappealing silhouette and my modern design sensibilities still snuck in, but i tried to convey the two differently sized body segments of a spider)

realism/practicality is like tenth on the list of priorities. if his universe is a silent film, there will not be long, fast, acrobatic fights like other spidermen have, so you can get weirder and more ornate than a simple bodysuit

top priority is returning to the base concept of A Man with the Qualities of a Spider, prowling the city with unknown intentions, and the emotions that would prompt in a paranoid Weimar-era public. this spiderman is Trying to evoke creeping terror

art style should take influence from Weimar-era film and theater posters as well as other interwar German art

he should fit into a universe which is all stark black and white, with vertigo-inducing angles and bizarre shapes. he and his world should be uncomfortable and disquieting for outsiders.

should seem potentially inhuman - you can’t tell if he’s man, monster, or machine

i’m really pleased with how the design came out! GE has such a fun and bizarre costume design language to tap into. it was hard to render a costume that’s just different materials of black :~) in my head, the lighter grey parts on the torso and limbs are semitransparent black chiffon/stocking material; the black spider on the chest and the stripes on the limbs and the mask and the collar (which is supposed to resemble mandibles) are black velvet; the eyepieces and 6 additional “eyes” are metal and glass; the spiderweb headpiece is plastic; and the poofy shorts are a more rigid material, maybe velvet or taffeta lined with some thick felt. when i was drawing it i was picturing them in vinyl but i think the era i’m targeting would make vinyl slightly anachronistic, even for a theater-type costume. obviously the toe curlies are just velvet over wire.

i’m calling it earth-90125 which is fritz lang’s bday in yy/mm/dd format. it says something else on the drawing i think, cant remember what that number means

also i realize “conrad veidt + peter lorre” is a fairly wild thing to ask someone to picture given that their faces are opposites in most meaningful ways. here’s faceapp’s attempt at combining their faces which i will grant is slightly more skillful than mine and pretty close to how i was picturing peter. just imagine him more quiet and reticent and sweaty and nice than he looks here