Costume Challenge: F-22

So most of my characters fall into two categories; Eldritch abomination cosmic horrors in human form, and cool robots. But there's a new category I would like to try out; Military Hardware. That's why for my next character I want to make a scrapper based off of what might just be the best plane in the world; the F-22.



The question is, how do I make this into a costume? Well theres a few ground rules I set down for myself:

-Keep it sleek. I love adding tons of little doodads to my costumes. I need this one to be smooth.
-Make sure flight is a core theme of the character. Echo wings, fins and jets whenever I can.
-Keep the colors in control. I'm thinking gunmetal grey for the mostpart, with a few gold bits thrown in for emphasis.

Now as it turns out I am not the first person to try and make a humanoid F-22. Starscream from the live action Transformers movies is one:



Now thats a bit more fiddly and detailed than I would like to go (not to mention capable of), but it carries across the same basic themes. You can tell just by looking at the guy that he's supposed to be a jet.

So help me out here. What awesome ideas do you have for me?

I was never a fan of the robots in the Transformers movies. To quote Yahtzee's take on War from Darksiders, "it's like someone started drawing him and never ******* stopped!" And I'll be damned if I can quote the guy without getting hit with the language filter. To me, they look like someone took five flats of sheet metal, sent them through a shredder and sort of threw them together to form what may or may not look like a robot if you squint really hard. I know that's the intended effect, but that's a bit like dressing up roadkill in jedi robes. It may or may not be a legitimate artistic take on Star Wars, but it's still disgusting.

As far as the idea at hand, I don't have a picture at this time, but I'd go with the Rocket boots (obviously) and probably Justice gloves for symmetry. You'll probably want to use the Vegeta shoulders drawn in gunmetal grey, as well as the Enforcer chest and belt. For base textures, I'd go with tights upper and lower body with the Metallic texture for both.

For the head, you have a couple of options,and both involve half helmets. Either you can go with the pointy helmet and use some sort of smooth face-concealing combination of details to depict a jet's nose (which I wouldn't recommend, because it's silly), or you can go with a simpler depiction of a fighter pilot's helmet. For this, a basic half helmet will do, with no helmet detail 1 and a helmet detail 2 that kind of looks like communicator headphones. You want that clear visor to go with it, I don't remember what it's called. It's in the Science Booster. Also, you'll probably want the Science Booster gas mask with a hose that goes to the chest, just for the sake of instant recognition. And you'll probably want a face pattern of some sort to hide the exposed neck, because that just looks bad. I'd suggest Technis, as that covers the neck pretty well without infringing upon the actual face.

That's what I'd go with, at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I dont think you can make a decent one without non-flappy tech wings.

I don't know if it's sleek enough for you, but maybe something like this:

Ahhh, the F-22. Takes me back to playing Strike Commander as a young'n. Well, I tinkered for a little, and here's my first experimental model:

We have a whole thread for this inSFC.

Thanks so much for the input all! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you; JETSLASH!

Hey, cool! My Metal texture made it through

That's a pretty cool costume, Squid. I really like the shoulders. I didn't think the Vegeta shoulders came with a flat texture. Looks like I've forgotten. I'm not sure I'd have gone with actual flapping wings, myself, but I can't really argue against them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Do you have a bigger pic of this? Those gloves look very interesting, but they smudge between the pixels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Posting ninja.
Why so much gold?
I dont think the ultra sleek metallic pattern really suits it either.