Yearly Archives: 2013

Make It Sew – The Costume Blog – Alexandra Byrne

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Alexandra Byrne

Costume Designer

Oscar Winner: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Biography:

2014 300: Rise of an Empire (filming)

2012 The Avengers

2011 Thor

2008 The Garden of Eden

2007 Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth_The_Golden_Age-2

2007 Sleuth

2004 The Phantom of the Opera

2004 Finding Neverland

2001 Captain Corelli's Mandolin

1998 Elizabeth

1996 Hamlet

1995 Persuasion

1993 The Buddha of Suburbia (TV mini-series)

Wizard World Interview Excerpt:

Q: With Thor and with The Avengers, a lot of people
have fantasies about being super heroes. You might tie a red towel around your neck when you’re a kid and say you’re Superman, or you might cosplay as a adult. But you’re making the costumes to be real, working outfits. What was that like?

A: Well the great things is that I was working with a lot of people who are absolutely experts in that field. I hadn’t read the comic books before coming to Thor, so in a way the combination of somebody who’s a complete novice, therefore, will question things and not be burdened with the baggage of you “He has to have this or he has to have that.” It’s a good combination to work with people who are so steeped in the world, so it means there’s good dialogue and I’m not afraid to ask questions.

It can be difficult. You’ve got a guy with long blonde hair with a red cape swinging a hammer. You can’t pretend it’s not a challenge, but equally, one of the great things about costume design is that you have the actor, and you have costume. I always maintain that the actor, their very being, their physicality, their proportions, how they move, bring a huge amount to the design process, quite apart from their own part as an actor. It’s, it’s about making a body, a physicality work on camera. Chris Hemsworth is amazing. And the moment he steps in the room you think, “Ah, he’s Thor.” And you’re working on something and you’re solving how to translate the costume to him.

The red cape was interesting. That’s a real practicality. We did a lot of work, did a lot of prototypes. And the result in the end is, I mean again, what I love about the process is that I could not have on day one said “The cape is going to be made of this and it’ll be like this.” You evolve and you grow with it. And the solution is it worked. It was amazingly un-high tech in its execution, but it was right. So it’s all in combinations, but maybe that cape with the textures and the way it was made wouldn’t have worked if the suit hadn’t been made. It’s a combination of information and sometimes it’s contradiction and a juxtaposition that adds up to the whole costume.

The Big Question ♯10

My question this week is, what is the best comic book story ever written and why?

By story I mean a single storyline, it doesn't have to be confined to a single issue or even a single comic, but it must be a resolved storyline (e.g. The Dark Knight Returns). I'm being  vague here because it'll be interesting to see what you guys come up with.

Personally I'd nominate V For Vendetta, because Alan Moore is a genius and I'm biased for V over Watchmen (the more acknowledged of his two great masterpieces) because it's set in Britain so I relate to it better. The best thing about both these stories is that they have so many layers, an inbuilt depth that can only be created by great authors. Both are political and violent but under the surface there is a heart, a hope that the human race is capable of better.

That's my (surprisingly short) say, so now you guys can have yours.

Caption Contest #6

This week, I want you to come up with the best bit of replacement dialogue for this picture

Caption Contest

 

Remember, keep it clean. You have until next Wednesday.

Anime Talk: Shipping

Hi everyone, JR here. As Kaldath is taking some time off from the blog, I'm going to fill in for him for his Wednesday posts this week (we'll see what's going on next week before I completely take over). I apologise about the following post, I haven't watched as much anime as Kaldath so some of my examples may seem a bit different to what he usually puts.

This week we'll talk about something that's loosely related to what Kaldath was talking about last week; Shipping. In basic terms, Shipping is a fan term for the belief that two characters are/ should/ could be in a relationship (the term coming from the ship in relationship). The term was originally used for Mulder and Scully from X-Files, but has migrated to the world of anime, and also to other serials (the Harry Potter series for example).

The names of ships can vary, with there being lots of different ways to name a ship. You can have the names of the two characters with a / between (character1/character2), a word followed by the word shipping (e.g. Rocketshipping from the Pokemon franchise), portmanteau combinations of the two characters (e.g. Narusaku- Naruto and Sakura from Naruto) being the main ones used.

Of course, not all ships are canon, and many spring up through casual (sometimes unintentional or even dub edited) hints or through pure fan fantasy. Shipping is especially prevalent in series with multiple lead characters (often when there is one lead male and many female leads like in the harem genre), and often leads to rivalries between supporters of the different ships, especially if the issue of romance in the series isn't resolved.

Now that we know a little bit more about it, what are your opinions on shipping? Any ships you support? Discussion below.

Hiatus

Once again I most apologies, as I sat down to write my Poll Position, Anime Talk, Random Panel, and Caption Contest posts I found that I was simply drawing a blank on what to write. Truth be told I am in so much physical pain at the moment that the old creative juices are not flowing and ideas on what to write have been hard to come up with for several weeks as a result. Due to this pain issue I am taking a few weeks away from writing for the blog as I try and get my pain levels back to normal. I will still be handling my Moderator duties in the forum, just not writing until I feel myself again. Thank you all for your understanding!

Power User Profiles: Herr D

Ages ago, in the mists of time when Jeff still did all of the blog posts, there was this thing called Power User Profiles. The idea was to highlight certain members of the Heromachine community who make a big contribution to the community. I always loved this topic on the blog, so I thought I'd bring it back for a few 'machiners who I think really deserve the title Power Users. This week, a very unique creator who has a definite style to all his pictures and certainly to his comments. So please welcome, Herr D.

Continue reading

My Apologies!!

I Had a very bad weekend this past week, a combination of intense pain, rage, and depression and so I forgot all about my Posts I was suppose to write up for today.  I am still not feeling all that well at the moment so I am going to take a nap right now, but I plan on getting those posts written later tonight and posted either this evening or tomorrow.

Character Design Contest ♯32- Keeping It In The Family

For this weeks challenge I want you to create a family based superhero team (like the one shown above).

Rules Specific For This Week: Each submission picture must include at least 2 characters that are related to each other in some way (Husband/ Wife, Brother/ Sister, Grandparent/ Grandchild, Parent/ Child), larger group shots are allowed. I will allow the use of external programs to put together larger group shots (more than 3 people), but ONLY for that purpose, not for effects and shading. Anyone taking liberties with this will be disqualified (believe me when I say I will be able to tell).

Please make sure you have read the rules before entering. As usual, no limit on entries, so have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

What Were They Thinking- The Death And Rebirth Of Superman

This week, I'd like to talk about a quite contentious subject, something I like to call the Jesus Effect. Of course, we all know that comic book characters don't age like we do, but apparently they don't die like we do either. And the blame for this I lay squarely at the feet of Superman.

Now, don't get me wrong, his was not the first rebirth. It happened as far back as 1963, when Lightning Lad from the Legion Of Superheroes managed to die in January and then be resurrected in September (only for that to be reteconned as some-one else using his form, gotta love DC continuity), but after extensive research, I can only find four others who have died and been resurrected prior to the death of Superman story in 1993. These being Lex Luthor, who died in a plane crash but was then later revealed to have cloned himself to escape death by cancer and faked his other death (?), Iris West Allen, who was killed by Reverse Flash but resurrected in the 30th century, Alfred Pennyworth, who was crushed by a boulder but then returned to life using a regeneration ray (Holy WTF Batman!?) and Kang The Conquerer, who, let's be honest, has so many alternate forms it doesn't really matter when he dies.

However, if we look at the list of characters resurrected post-DoS, the list is alarming (and consists only of DC and Marvel characters I might add). 69 for DC, 102 for Marvel. Now that is just ridiculous. When a list contains a fairly decent Avengers team, the big 3 of DC, 3/4 of the Fantastic Four and Aunt May from Spider-Man, you kinda have to admit things have gotten out of hand. It's the ways these deaths are removed as well, some of them are clumsy at best (see Captain America) were as some they just couldn't be bothered (Graviton I'm looking at you there).

I know all characters are valuable intellectual property, and killing them in an event is a good way to boost its sales, but this is getting ridiculous. When even a long forgotten character like Barney Barton (died 1969) can be brought back to life (resurrected 2011), I think it's time to take a step away from that big red reset button and say "Hold on, I think this one has been over done before, maybe we should think of something else."

Sorry about the rant. Just had to get it off my chest.

If you have any ideas for this or any other of my blog posts, either say below or PM me in the forums. Laters.

Pop Quiz – July 13 – Winner

This week's winner is Atomic Punk! Great idea and very well done. Congrats!

atomicpunk-sheriffoftheisland