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Retro Sci-Fi Character, also known as the story of a statement on social politics

Melinda May
Jul 21, 2015
2 min read

"Make a character" they said... "Retro sci-fi" they said.

So I went looking for reference, as you do. I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan myself (I'm a fantasy person) so I had a vague idea of the thing of style I was going for but I needed a better idea.

And I found things like these...

The Google image search was just full of costumes just like the ones here. Now, personally I wasn't exactly comfortable with trying to design something like this.

But why not just design a male character instead?

Well, I could do that and avoid the whole issue, but maybe something was in the water that day because I felt like making a statement.

A few years back I found out about this thing called the Hawkeye Initiative... For those who don't know, it's a trend among artists and Marvel/DC fans alike to redraw the absolute worst of the female heroes' costumes and poses using Hawkeye (and occasionally the other male heroes.)

Look at that.. Isn't it beautiful? (I'm really sorry artist who drew this, if I knew who you were I would give credit but I don't remember where I found this image.)

The point being, the idea of having female characters in ridiculous outfits and in spine-breaking poses just to show off the sexy bits is so ingrained into some parts of pop culture, and only when you substitute in a male character does the brain see how just how wrong it is. Sad, but true.

So... I did the same thing.

True to the trends of the genre, I tried to think of as many ridiculous parts of the outfits and smoosh them all together. Heels were top on the list, as was random holes in the clothing (See: boob window.)

Some facial options too.. Can't forget those. Combine that with making him traditionally pretty, I picked my favourites and created my Retro Sci-Fi alien, Xenon.