Iconic Marvel character design is one of the most exciting yet daunting art direction challenges I ever faced in my entire career. We started to take on this challenge after we established the alternate early 60’s Mid-Century Modern art style for the world of the game. That provided the basis for the initial approach which was taking the early 60’s design of a Marvel character (or earliest version if they weren’t created in the 60’s) and add some elements of modern design. We agreed on the 80% 20% rule: 80% of the character design was based on the iconic character design and 20% would be a mix of Mid-Century Modern and contemporary tech or aesthetics. The first character we chose to work on was Captain Marvel. Not only is he the most iconic of the 60’s Marvel heroes but the most difficult to design.

The early designs were interesting but Marvel thought these were too off brand. At least we established our boundaries. It’s alway good to push but always listen to the client and in this case treat the IP with care and respect as if they were your creations.

These are samples from the second pass of character design work. These were successful and were met with acceptance and enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, our internal Lead concept artist, Billy King, took over and honed in on a more refined look.

Design #14 was the finalist and this character sheet breaks down the 80% 20% rule we set for the character designs.

Following Captain America we began exploration on other iconic Marvel characters that were going to be in the game.

Jerad Marantz understood best how to work with Marvel and design the iconic characters. He has worked on many of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and knew the boundaries to best work within and create approved designs.