Marvel has been very specific when it comes to superhero costumes be it for the enormous cinematic universe or the small screen rulings. The recently released Marvel’s Daredevil too had a Marvel artwork touch by Ryan Meinerding, a designer and costume artist at Marvel.
After almost a month of the critically acclaimed season coming to an end, Marvel released concept art for Matt Murdock’s costume from Netflix’s Daredevil television series. Designed Ryan Meinerding, the iconic red outfit was conceptualised by a team of artists including Rodney Fuentebella, Andy Park, Jackson Sze, Josh Nizzi and Anthony Francisco, who are known to design costumes for Marvel Entertainment.
Marvel CCO Joe Quesada got in touch with Meinerding’s team and got them working on the TV series. Quesada like Meinerding’s design the most, especially the detailing of the armature and its use of rivets so they used his as a baseline and developed it.
“Joe Quesada got in touch and asked if I could help out,” Meinerding recalls to Marvel.com. “Our whole team actually did designs, [including] Rodney Fuentebella, Andy Park, Jackson Sze, Josh Nizzi, and Anthony Francisco. I think we all did a round of designs as fast as we could, and they settled on one of mine. Beyond that, we did our normal process of modeling the head and the cowl [in] 3D with Josh Herman, and then I was involved throughout the costume creation process.”
“The tone that was really communicated was the sense of realism that they were going for,” Meinerding continued, describing the design process. “I think the way that [manifested itself in] the costume was through the armor and making it feel a little bit more padded than you traditionally think of Daredevil being. When we do these designs, there’s a concept of grounded and a concept of reality. The grounded nature that they brought to the vigilante costume was the simplicity and effectiveness, because you’re trying to conceal your identity but also [have to be] mobile enough to fight.”
“When you do a super hero costume in that world, it’s hard to be as real as you need to be, because you’re making it heightened. So you try and find the touchstones for that with armoring pieces that you would want armored, like your shins and your forearms for blocking and hitting as well as having things be riveted on. The overall layout of that costume is really that it’s meant to look like a Kevlar vest with stuff underneath it. That’s what we were going for,” he ended.
Daredevil has been greenlit for season 2 in 2016 and with addition of more characters into the Marvel universe with A.K.A Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist with all these then joining for a miniseries The Defenders, (TV’s Avengers but set only in Hell’s Kitchen).