*SPOILERS* Who is this? *SPOILERS*

Kind of what I was thinking, yes. Sort of like the tech equivalent to that psychic butterfly thing that Psylocke used to manifest.

Is that also what Mother Mayhem's headpiece does?

Superman wears red briefs over blue tights

But his top isn't red and orange.

It has red and yellow on it

You could really freak people out with some 'leaked' concept art. Try putting Captain Mako in a Longbow Uniform. Or Lord Recluse wearing Statesman's faceplate fighting Sister Pyche with an Arachnos tatoo on her cheek.

Was going for a sort of Roman laurel thing there.

I'll have to remember that for April Fool's.

I hadn't really thought of that

Mother Mayhem seems more detatched from the "normal" imperial feel of the rest of the dictatorship, and with her close connection to the story of the Praetorian Penny Yin and Penny's fairytale view of the world, I'd always viewed Mother Mayhem as the evil stepmother treating her "children" badly.

Well how do you like that? My horseshoe ended up resting next to the peg.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Is that Resistance code?

The old expression "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" and connect the dots from there.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I should blow up the orphanage?

Ah, she FINALLY sees the light of the darkness!

This costume is... Weird to me. I can't say that I don't like it, because it Is a very interesting design, but at the same time, there are a few things that bug me, even with David's explanations. Let me see if I can articulate why.

First of all, things I agree with. I like the blue hair. It makes sense for Penny to dye her hair and use that weird hairdo. I mean, I was once her age, I wanted to have blue hair. Hell, I still do, but I can't achieve that for fear of destroying my hair. But I'd personally have gone with a hair colour that's more obviously blue. As it is right now, the blue comes off more like a highlight colour to depict depth, like you'd see on an older printed comic book (part of why Batman looks blue so often) than an actual hair colour. I met a girl with blue hair recently, and hers was blue like the forums background here, like one of the Freakshow mohawks. If we wanted hair that's dyed blue to be rebellious, I'd have thought it would be a lot more blue.

I like the midriff, too, or at least the reasoning behind it. As a fashion-conscious young woman with a nice body, yeah, it makes sense for Penny to show off. I'm not sure what the belts are for, but I can deal with them being there just for decoration. or possibly so she can't suffer a wardrobe malfunction.

Now for things I don't like... The underwear on the outside of her pants is a BIG thing. Penny is essentially wearing panties and stockings, only they're not REAL panties and stockings, they're just panties and stockings painted/sewn on her tights. Why? I mean, I get that "underwear over your pants" thing is a super hero "thing," but it's a parody more often than something played straight. Occasionally you'll see it with guys, but with girls, it just comes off as sleezy, to be honest. I mean, put her in panties and stockings if you can justify it, I can accept that. But this seems like wanting to get the look of panties and stockings without the social stigma of essentially pantsing your signature character.

Then there are the high heels. Why? I can kind of see the panties and stockings painted over her tights. I don't like it, but I can see it. But why the high heels? Why do all female super heroes need to wear high heels unless they have a VERY good excuse to wear something else very specific? Not only high heels, mind you, but thigh-high heels. There's fashion, and then there's putting your ankles at risk. Yeah, OK, she's not a fighter, but it's just... Why? When we first see penny, she comes off like a regular kid. She wears pants, sneakers and even a baseball cap. Then all of a sudden, she's dressing up a fashion model. It just seems like a big swing in character. Maybe I've been misreading her all along, I don't know.

Then there's "face junk" which I just don't get. I mean, I can see how the face plates might enhance her psychic abilities, but what are they being held with? Double-sided tape? And why does she have red stripes on her cheeks? It seems like someone's been obsessed with painting red stripes on women's faces ever since First Ward. I could see face paint OR the face plates, but both just comes across too busy, like someone put EVERYTHING on the costume, making sure there's something in every category. If she's supposed to be a fashion-conscious, rebellious teen, why not give her a small tattoo somewhere? Or is that going too far?

Then there's the costume overall. I like the look, but I also don't GET the look. I know City of Heroes moving forward has tried to pile on the fidelity, but this costume just confuses my sense, especially in terms of colours. I don't get why the items have the colours they do. I can kind of see her fake underwear being red, so the red corset, panties and stockings, but why the black and white? Why are her pants white but her top black? The stretch of white fabric just looks out of place, since it's only in that one small area of her upper thighs.

Maybe it's my screwed-up sense of balance, but I'd expect that if there is white on her pants as a secondary colour, that this white show up on her top as a secondary colour, as well. Instead, because of how the costume areas are swapped around, her top's primary colour becomes black and the secondary red. So you have a bottom that's red/white and a top that's black/red, and this confuses me. Yes, white does show up on her top, but only as a detail colour, and that's not the same thing. And red shows up as a detail colour, too.

---

I look at this costume, and my brain sees a quilt. I look at this costume, and I fail to remember anything about it, other than that it has black and red. I have the costume open in another tab as I write this, and I have to constantly keep checking back on it because I am incapable of keeping an image of it in my head. It is complex, but it is complex in a way that doesn't feed into a singular "look." There is no one character hidden behind the costume that I can look at and say "Aha! THIS is what Penny looks like!" I looked at all the proposed alternate costumes, and to be honest, they're all jumbled together in my mind the same one costume, different in ways I can't really put my finger on.

This is the Arachnos base problem all over again. Technically, Arachnos bases are an incredibly diverse tileset, with dozens of different corridor pieces, each of which has its machines, pipes, supports and grating arranged in a different manner, but all my brain sees is one jumble of parts I can't comprehend that looks exactly like all the other jumbles of parts I can't comprehend. It's like trying to say that one pile of sand is different from another. Yes, it is, but to me, they both look like piles of sand.

Penny's costume is eyecatching on its own, but it is not memorable, because there is no mental image I can make of it that I can remember. I see bits and pieces, I see patterns, I see belt buckles, but I don't see a whole costume. It's too complex to spot at a glance, and this complexity does not feed into a larger, simpler design that can be understood.

The only way I can recognise Penny is by the few pieces that I CAN make sense of. She has her own unique hair, which I can recognise, and she has a bare midriff, which I can sort of recognise since hers is the only one with belts across. But the rest of her costume? I would take paragraphs upon paragraphs to describe, and that's by looking at the picture.

If I were redesigning this costume, I'd go with the following basic rules of thumb:

1. Pick a primary colour for all her basic elements. Let's say red. Then we have her boots, her gloves, her corset and her panties be red.
2. Pick a background colour. Let's say white. Then the background of her boots and her gloves can be white.
3. Pick a detail colour. Let's say black. Then all the detailing on her costume - belts, shoulders, face plates, etc. could be black.
4. If necessary, pick a secondary detail colour. Let's say gold. Then all the little buckles could be gold, all the little trims on her details could be gold and so forth.

This kind of costume would have a very simple kind of logic that my stupid brain can comprehend on an instinctive level, and then reproduce in my mind's eye. There's nothing wrong with detail or complexity, so long as I can boil that complexity down to larger chunks which I can work with off-hand without a picture in front of me.

Take, for instance, Black Scorpion. His armour is incredibly detailed and I couldn't begin to tell you what all the little etchings are, but it doesn't matter, because Black Scorpion isn't made up of these little parts. Black Scorpion is made up of three parts - the armour, the head and the tail. The armour is detailed, but it's one colour so it boils down to "the armour." The head REALLY sticks out, and though it's detailed itself, it still boils down to "the head." The tail looks a lot like the armour, but it's an unusual character feature, so it stands out, especially in silhouette. It's very detailed, but it still boils down to "the tail.

Penny's costume doesn't "boil down" to anything at all. I can't see her as pants, top and head, because there's continuity between pants and top. I can't see her as a costume that breaks down into multiple colours because there's no logic to which colour goes where, beyond "it just looks cool." I can't boil her down to "costume and head" because her costume is also on her head, and because of the midriff. I can't find a single easy, simple way to describe Penny, thus I am forced to see and comprehend the costume in its full complexity, and I'm not smart enough to do that.

Simplicity in costume design is essential, and you CAN achieve that simplicity by proper use of overwhelming detail.

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.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

You know what I'm fixating on? She has a belly button. When can I have one of those?

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.