Avenger's Captain America Suit designer Interview

[nick daring]

Watch the video interview here-

Ryan Meinerding Talks THE AVENGERS, Designing Captain America's Uniform And More!

He awkwardly blames Joss Whedon for the wonky Avenger's suit design. Lots of stammering around the subject. You can tell he's a bit disappointed with the final product.

Interesting, no?

Nick

 

[MCL34N]

Watch the video interview here-

Ryan Meinerding Talks THE AVENGERS, Designing Captain America's Uniform And More!

He awkwardly blames Joss Whedon for the wonky Avenger's suit design. Lots of stammering around the subject. You can tell he's a bit disappointed with the final product.

Interesting, no?

Nick

Hmm considering the fact that it's a French interview, it's hard to blame him for any stammering. I don't think he's ashamed of his work so far, Captain America is a hard design to interpret. Everyone loved the "First Avenger" look, but for Avengers they needed a modern take. I'll admit, I like the new Cap suit.

 

[nick daring]

Oh I agree. Cap is really, REALLY tough to translate. In fact there is a whole thread talking about that very subject- http://www.therpf.com/f24/captain-america-costume-discussion-45330/

But he basicly states "We worked hard and did the best we could" when addressing the fan backlash to the suit design and says they were trying to capture an image that Whedon had in his mind from his comicbook reading youth. Really felt like he was saying "It's not my fault" through much of it.

Nick

 

[Sandman0077]

The new suit is awful. Even Chris Evans looks sad to be in it. Too much vibrant blue for my taste.

 

[mcnopants13]

I really loved the first cap suit design they made, it was perfect in keeping with the tone, reality and era ... and this new outfit has a lot to live up to. I know regardless there will be more people complaining about it then people loving it. I do like the new suit It may not be the best comic book costume adaptation, but i mean when your working with a costume that has been both unbelievably iconic and yet so often tinkered with and created anew how can there not be people drawing lines in the sand.

I simply stand here excited and awaiting the "Avengers" movie
cheers

 

[terryr]

Zippers on the thighs? WTF? In the history on the world, no pants have ever had zippers on the thighs.

 

[Chris Fields]

Ryan Meinerding is one of the main reasons these films have looked so great. His work has been outstanding. I don't think he's awkwardly addressing anything or is ashamed of anything. He did a fantastic job with Ironman, Thor, Cap TFA, and now Avengers. Everyone was complaining about the TFA suit before the movie came out, now everyone loves after seeing it in action. Same thing will happen here. So many people are complaining about the Avengers Cap suit now, and after seeing the film, they'll love it. Suit looks great. Evan's looks great in it. Everytime I've seen him in action in the trailers or TV spots, it's look fantastic. It's Captain America, right on the money. Bright, bold, and vibrant, as he should be. I'm curious to find out how the movie explains the new suit, that should be a fun story.

 

[nick daring]

I think the ear covers must have been a very last minute addition since they don'e appear in any of the early production artwork-

I really hope we get to see the "Visible Ear" version of the costume in some way in the future.

Nick

 

[EyeofSauron]

whoa the suit without the ear covers looks amazingly better. how much 1 little detail can change

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

I think that there still is a huge difference between a concept artist designing a suit and a costume designer designing a suit. A concept needs to be transported into the real world from just a sketch, and that IMO can only work with a huge amount of knowledge on materials and costume history. While I like a lot of the concept designs of today, I feel that a lot of those lack depth.

Ryan Meinerding says that he wanted the transition from WWII to present day be as awesome as possible. But I personally think that the First Avenger suit fell completely flat in that it pretty much neglected any knowledge of up-to-the-1940ies designs. For my personal taste the transition from 1940ies suit to modern suit is weakened by not enough contrast between those two.

 

[nick daring]

One thing I'm surprised about the new cowl is that they have it set up so that if he looks up his neck gets exposed in an unflattering way.

An under strap to the helmet would have helped to prevent that. Like the Dark KNight cowl.

Also another interesting design decision is the hard geometric brow ridge.

This design feature isn't in the original design work and I bet was a design element requested by Whedon due to his love of the work of John Cassaday.

Nick

 

[third3ye]

Whedon pushed wrong here, but overall the blame is shared with Marvel Studios / Kevin Fiege as they have executive control over the design elements in their movies. It's not a French translation issue, you can tell Ryan was hesitant on this topic and tried to approach this without throwing Whedon or anyone else under the bus. It's just a shame that the designer wanted to carry over a more realistic and bulkier Cap costume from TFA into the modern take because that was what I missed in the new design, and unfortunately Whedon wanted it to look like the comics too much.

The irony is that in TFA, the designers and producers said they used the USO Cap costume to show how ridiculous the pure comic version of the suit will look in real life, and yet here we are in Avengers. I do believe Ryan's comment that when the movie gets going, we can look past that design... well except for maybe the helmet fetish fanboys

Hopefully they listen to the feedback and give Rogers a new and more realistic suit in Cap 2.

 

[nick daring]

That's a good point! They have essential put Cap into the costume that they mocked in the first one.

Too funny.

Nick

 

[captain avenger]

I'm writing this after seeing the movie... THREE TIMES! From the very beginning I liked the new cap suit. I love both of them, and i think that both of them emphasize some different aspects of cap's character. In TFA, they really focused on the tough, soldier side of him, while the new costume was sleeker, bringing out the acrobatic aspect of him that is so often referred to in the gold/silver age comics by stan lee. meanwhile, the slashes on the shoulders are a symbol of rank in the army, sort of emphasizing his leadership/command position position in the group. True, the neck is kind of awkward,and they could have left the ears. In the future, I'd love to see a mix of both the suits in the future, sort of the new suit minus the neck coverings and with more straps and a real ammo belt like in TFA to give his new, sleek look a hint of utilitarianism

 

[tkRyno]

I think Caps suit in Avengers is my least favorite part of the movie. When he confronts Loki the first time it took me back to that power rangery feel I got when Spiderman and Green Goblin first encountered in Spiderman 1. It feels a tad cheesy and embarrassing. Frankly, with mask on, Chris Evans looks dorky. The bulbous look is a bad one. If the mask looked like it was illustrated/painted (above) I think it would have been fine. I was so happy when the chitari dude tore caps mask off during the battle in avengers so i didn't have to feel awkward about looking at him anymore. I like to disillusion myself with that being intentionally for that purpose.