Designing costumes! (Planning)

 Context

In my one of last blog, I discussed on the importance of character designs/costuming. Now, I will be planning out my character's outfits in this blogs to clearly communicate their role and personality on screen!

Planning

As I have stated before in one of my blogs, I wanted to set mine roughly in the 1960s-1990s. This is because this was around the end of the rise in domesticity in the United States where clothing often defined social roles. I looked at references of clothing during this time period to better help me in designing both costumes (as shown below! I mainly took inspiration off of them).

Sketches of Outfits

Here are some of the quick drawings/sketches I made, deciding what costume the characters could wear. 

Costumes for Lucille

For Lucille, I wanted her costume to make her visually stand out while still subtly relfecting her personality. As I've mentioned before, I used red to symbolize both love/affection and hate/blood. From the image above, my partner and I chosed to go with the third option.

It was inspired by 1970s styling, where presentation signified discipline and attentiveness. The bow additionally adds a "youthful/innocent" element too. 

In the back (when paired with darker hair), it can also look like a black widow (she has a bow on her skirt making look like 8 limbs.. arm, bow, and legs). This idea was made by my partner! This is very subtle foreshadow as when a black widow finds a mate, she will always kill and eat him. 

As for the male lead (Steve), I wanted to make his costuming very simple and plain. By making the shirt white, it can also reference how he will "die." His outfit also feels more structured and predictable which visually contrasts Lucille's outfit. This also emphasizes his naivety, innocence and neutrality.

All in all, these are the outfits planned out for production, but... I still need to turn these sketches into real life (I will showcasing in a future blog). I understand these might change as well! However, planning costumes ahead of them through meaning and historical references helps to ensure that both characters feel intentional and not random!