hehe they cant both be left! :P
Mew
...Did I mention I also fail at directions?
Seriously. It's a running joke among my circle of friends that I am NOT allowed to be in control of getting to someplace.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go commit jigai.
Well, some of it has to do with colour choice. Not the colours specifically, just the brightness. Try some of the darker or less saturated colours on the left and right edges of the palette. I usually only use the middle ones when I need to make something "pop" against a darker background. If you use the brighter ones as the background it comes off as a bit garish.
Also, on both those costumes you just have a light/dark combination of the same colour. It might be more interesting to use different colours as the light and dark (depending on the colours, it could also turn out hideous :P). Adding in a third colour can also help. I've seen some really great, really simple classic costumes that use three colours total (Not counting hair).
Something that can also help is not being afraid to use sets. Sure, techbot chest with techbot legs and techbot boots might be a little uncreative, but it also looks GOOD. I usually don't mix top and bottom sets unless I can find a combo that really works.
Honestly, it's not as bad as you feel like it is. I think you should just play around with the colours a little.
*Edit* You can see some great examples of using a >2 colour scheme in This thread
Astoria in D Minor, a horror arc. Arc ID: 41565 - The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts. Arc ID: 170547 - Ignition of the Machine, a story with robots. Arc ID: 318983
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today. Arc ID: 337333 - Signal:Noise, where is everybody? Arc ID: 341194
@The Cheshire Cat - Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
12 second horror stories - a writing experiment.
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today. Arc ID: 337333 - Signal:Noise, where is everybody? Arc ID: 341194
@The Cheshire Cat - Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
12 second horror stories - a writing experiment.
Here's your problem: if you're going for a Silver Age look, you've got to fight your urge to select highly-detailed or realistic pieces.
The Silver Age was simplistic, with bold colours. At most, you pick two primary colours, with a third for accent. Apply them to something that's mostly tights, with maybe a fancy belt, or a dress or something like that. Even when drawn modernly, there's a lot of simplicity in the designs of that age. For example, Saturn Girl.
My advice? Ditch those boots and gloves, and try a different tights pattern; you've got Sinister on both of their tops, and it's one of the least Silver Age patterns possible!
What Foo said. Silver age costumes are fairly bright and cheery for the most part, and very simple. Patterns on top and bottom tend to match and so do color schemes. Two main colors with a third as an accent, usually some sort of metallic color like silver, bronze or gold, often on boots, belt or gloves. Sadly, we don't have any good texture choices for boots or gloves that also fit the silver age theme. The Jeweled belt is a pretty good choice and so are some of the metallic tech belts. Ampules can really work on a militaristic character. Don't forget about hat options either. No matter what you do to the body, if you add a Beret it automatically conjures up images of the military.
That's all I can think of right now. I'm running on very little sleep and just got off a 12 hour shift, so this is all stream of thought right now. Maybe more later. But, probably not.
your = Belonging to you.
you're = Contraction meaning "You are."
Ur = The name of an ancient Mesopotamian city.
ur = This is not a word.
a good group to think for silver age looks is the Silver Age X-men. compare them to the 80s and on looks for the X-men and you have an idea of the difference. How basic looking they were.
Not the best picture shot of them but here's a statue line of them:
Silver Age X-Men
Beast, Cyclops, Angel, Marvel Girl, Iceman
MA Arcs - #67636, #92202
deviantart page
Slag Heap: Why you hurt Guardian!? Guardian no hurt you!
Paragon of Hope
Transcendent Torrent
Planetary Paladin
Just started playing, but I think those are simple and sort of classic looking costumes.
The silver age look looks really, really good in this game too. It's simplicity will fool you.
The best comics are still 10�!
My City of Heroes Blog Freedom Feature Article: "Going Rageless?"
If you only read one guide this year, make it this one.
Super Reflexes: the Golden Fox of power sets!
WARNING: I bold names.
Transcendant Torrent's pattern might be pushing it a bit, but the other two would fit.
MA Arcs - #67636, #92202
deviantart page
Slag Heap: Why you hurt Guardian!? Guardian no hurt you!
[ QUOTE ]
What Foo said. Silver age costumes are fairly bright and cheery for the most part, and very simple. Patterns on top and bottom tend to match and so do color schemes. Two main colors with a third as an accent, usually some sort of metallic color like silver, bronze or gold, often on boots, belt or gloves. Sadly, we don't have any good texture choices for boots or gloves that also fit the silver age theme. The Jeweled belt is a pretty good choice and so are some of the metallic tech belts. Ampules can really work on a militaristic character. Don't forget about hat options either. No matter what you do to the body, if you add a Beret it automatically conjures up images of the military.
[/ QUOTE ]
Check out that link to Saturn Girl, though. You can add modern belts and retain the Silver Age feel. The key is in making the additions accents, and not the costume's focus. Heck, look at Batman. Even with modern boots and belt, he's still very old-school.
Beyond a few coloring bumps (which I'll smooth out later), I actually got a revised version of Captain Empulse down.
I'll post it in a bit - I actually busted out my older LSH comics and thought about it for a bit while playing around with things this time.
And got a higher-res screenshot then I did the first time around. I keep forgetting to boost my graphics for this stuff. :/
Update: I gotta stop taking pictures in Outbreak.
The lighting sucks. The next few revisions for her, thankfully, will likely be in Icon. Soon as I finish lunch, anyway.
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[ QUOTE ]
What Foo said. Silver age costumes are fairly bright and cheery for the most part, and very simple. Patterns on top and bottom tend to match and so do color schemes. Two main colors with a third as an accent, usually some sort of metallic color like silver, bronze or gold, often on boots, belt or gloves. Sadly, we don't have any good texture choices for boots or gloves that also fit the silver age theme. The Jeweled belt is a pretty good choice and so are some of the metallic tech belts. Ampules can really work on a militaristic character. Don't forget about hat options either. No matter what you do to the body, if you add a Beret it automatically conjures up images of the military.
[/ QUOTE ]
Check out that link to Saturn Girl, though. You can add modern belts and retain the Silver Age feel. The key is in making the additions accents, and not the costume's focus. Heck, look at Batman. Even with modern boots and belt, he's still very old-school.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh, I agree. I was just going with more general design concepts though. Sometimes we nerds can over explain things. 
your = Belonging to you.
you're = Contraction meaning "You are."
Ur = The name of an ancient Mesopotamian city.
ur = This is not a word.
What I find is usually a good idea is to pick out 2 colors. Make them contrasting or complementary. Look into color theory for this. I get it because I paint miniatures, I learned color theory and accents and all that. Learn that, then your costumes will just POP when you make them.
Take a look at one of my characters, Equalitarian, she was designed Golden Age, and what I did was take two colors that complemented each other and put them to good use.
Cat Bot v 1.36 : NRG/elec Blaster : Level 50
"I thought so." - Hank_Rearden
Please use the term complementary properly. Complementary colors are two colors when mixed in the proper proportion produce a neutral color (grey, white, or black). These colors are on opposite sides of the color wheel.
Examples:
red and green
blue and orange
yellow and purple
For help with color schemes, I would highly suggest: http://kuler.adobe.com/
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
>.> And yet, no idea if the Captain actually managed to not look like as much of a fashion nightmare.
I think I figured out what most of my original problem was when designing costumes, and I *think* I can fix it if I remember to go through the hassle of it. Most of the issue stems from me using the lowest possible graphics settings to do stuff, which means I get a bunch of ultra-bright, low-res colors that make it hard to figure out if everything goes together well with the graphics up a bit.
Definately a lot easier to design with a decent graphics level. May have to work on springing for a new PC at this point. :/
The trick with silver age costumes is communicating a confident simplicity without looking like a cartoon. Choose a single detail the face, the chest, the legs - and design around it. Keep the rest of the costume unfussy: avoid additional details that cause the eye to jump around, like unnecessary belts, boots, gloves and shoulder pads.
Avoid anything that looks 'cool' right out of the gate. This includes most of the newer tech details and embossed armors. A costume that uses dorky, underutilized elements is more memorable.
Play around with patterns. Try to make them look unfamiliar by using weird combinations.
Pair a bright color with a subtler one. Dont be afraid to use uncommon hues: oranges, yellows, browns, burgundy and duskier blues. Be very careful with purple its the cartooniest color. Use black sparingly.
As applies to evening wear, when you think youre done and ready to go out, take one thing off. 
SparrowhawkHummingbirdDungeon MasterCapricornHour WomanQueen NefariaJunkyard GirlDoll FaceStitchbladeRed MinstrelMimic
I never take anything off. I am a never nude.
Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
Carnie Base
"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
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Suggestions
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There were far fewer nipples in the Silver Age.
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Suggestions
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There were far fewer nipples in the Silver Age.
[/ QUOTE ]
lol whoops that mod is still in from my Dunk Booth demorecord for the Carnival of Twilight Dreams base tour....sec and i'll fix that 
EDIT: ok fixed That was a mod that combines the old style nips on costumes way back in issue 1 with the abdomen from icons dummies, which i used in a joke recently in the CoTD post I made in Base forum
Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
Carnie Base
"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
i think you just have a +nipple mod, perv
Liberty
My 50s:
Hero: Armor Assassin (scrapper), Cross Dresser (scrapper), Surly Seaman (blaster), Defensive End (Tank), Rad Rhino (Cont)
Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
[ QUOTE ]
The trick with silver age costumes is communicating a confident simplicity without looking like a cartoon. Choose a single detail the face, the chest, the legs - and design around it. Keep the rest of the costume unfussy: avoid additional details that cause the eye to jump around, like unnecessary belts, boots, gloves and shoulder pads.
Avoid anything that looks 'cool' right out of the gate. This includes most of the newer tech details and embossed armors. A costume that uses dorky, underutilized elements is more memorable.
Play around with patterns. Try to make them look unfamiliar by using weird combinations.
Pair a bright color with a subtler one. Dont be afraid to use uncommon hues: oranges, yellows, browns, burgundy and duskier blues. Be very careful with purple its the cartooniest color. Use black sparingly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Here's my Golden-edging-into-Silver Age guy: Mighty Lad
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As applies to evening wear, when you think youre done and ready to go out, take one thing off.
[/ QUOTE ]
I did that once, but everyone at the Opera wondered where my pants were.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I love that Mighty Lad costume. Nice work!
The best comics are still 10�!
My City of Heroes Blog Freedom Feature Article: "Going Rageless?"
If you only read one guide this year, make it this one.
Super Reflexes: the Golden Fox of power sets!
WARNING: I bold names.
Yeah, Mighty Lad seems to fit in that golden/silver age theme. Nice "M" mod... I wonder how it looks to everyone else?
As for the OP, imagine you had to draw the SAME character 100 times a month in different poses, at alternate angles, varying sizes, doing a wide variety of things (flying, hitting, speaking, walking, etc etc etc). Would you really want that character to have all sorts of multi-colored spikes and accessories?
The answer is "no".
So, KISS... seriously, Keep It Simple, Stupid. =)
Also, if you're going for a military look, remember that there are military flack jackets and uniforms in the costume creator under "Armor" and "jackets", repectively. If all else fails, start with a "normal" military uniform, and modify it from there.
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
So, after messing around a bit with costumes the past few days in a surge of altoholism, I've come to the conclusion that I really fail at designing costumes. Sometimes, I hit on a really nice design purely by accident that I love ( Like Nanao ), but most of the time I end up just not being able to produce anything that I really *like*. And the urge to just go nuts with a fire axe all over the toon (when it's not their fault) is just a bit much.
But, I'm sure this is a common problem. What I have here, though, is a situation I'd like a bit of help in fixing. And maybe some tips to keep in mind when actually designing stuff that flows better.
Lately, I've been messing with 'classical' looks for heroes and villains, because I started reading in the 'silver age' of comics, and have been a fangirl over Legion of Super-Heroes for the longest time. I keep trying to recapture the magic there, but...
It hasn't worked so well.
The problems - the left (Captain Empulse, a Rad/Elec Defender) just 'feels' all wrong. The color choices I can probably resolve on my own (what *was* I thinking?) but trying to create a pseudo-military look without using actual armor bits, and still capturing a 'classic' feel has escaped me. The only static parts of her costume at this point are her glasses and gloves (I like the look, and it's got a backstory basis).
The right (Caldanna - Energy/Cold Corrupter) I actually like, and think it works well... but I can tell it needs some major improvements (I'm terrible at color coordination) that I'm not sure how to fix. While I love the overall look (especially the shoulders/boots), if anyone has a suggestion on improvements that work out just as well, I'd be happy.
I think I'm mostly done rambling now. ._. Please, help these two girls get some fashion sense!
(Edit: Sorry, it was my OTHER left.)