As a designer, illustrator, and comic book fan, it’s always a fun challenge to redesign existing characters. It doesn’t necessarily mean the existing design is flawed, but it just means the illustrator wants to try their hand at creating something that fits into a certain world.
I love websites like ProjectRooftop.com because it showcases so many different artists redesigns and reimaginings of existing characters from many different areas of the comic book world. Some time ago, they held a competition for a redesign of Stephanie Brown, AKA Spoiler from DC Comics. This contests entries showed a lot of mixed influence from her time as Robin as well as her Spoiler costume.
Stephanie Brown has always been a favorite character of mine. In the Bat-Family, she’s the fun-loving youngster who is the daughter of one of Batman’s villains who had to fight for the approval of Batman and former Robin Tim Drake. She finally wins said approval as Spoiler, and briefly becomes the first female Robin in that continuity. She most recently took over the role of Batgirl when Bruce Wayne disappeared.
When DC announced their reboot of the entire universe, it was unclear where Stephanie Brown would land. Between the new designs of all their existing characters, and playing Batman: Arkham City, I started thinking about how she would fit visually within these new universes, and came up with this:
Click image for larger view on Deviantart
For my redesign, I wanted to incorporate elements from all of her experiences, as Spoiler, Robin, and Batgirl. The Spoiler elements include the full face mask, hood, cape, messenger bag, and pouch-heavy utility belt. I mixed the color schemes of her Spoiler and Batgirl costumes, and used the scalloping of Batgirl’s cape and the ribbing on the sides and insides of the arms reflects (and nearly matches) Stephanie’s recent Batgirl costume. The Robin elements I included was the tunic-style top and the stitching down the front of it (only i made it purple instead of yellow). I wanted it more off-center, like an imperial coat. The gloves and boots are an amalgam of all of these things, still allowing for the bat-like ridges. and i made them finger gloves because…well, I just like finger gloves layered over gloves I guess.
In terms of color, I felt for the Bat-world, black and purple worked much better in connecting her to Batman’s crew than purple and blue. Also, removing the blue further removed her from her villainous father, Cluemaster.
The one fault of the costume would be the lack of mobility if the cape was clasped like it is shown above. Althouth, in theory, she could just undo a couple of those clasps and be free as a bird.
And there we have it. I feel like I came up with a functional costume that properly represents the past and present of Stephanie Brown, THE SPOILER! What do you think??
