Tetsuya Nomura Catwoman Variant Play Arts Redraw

So my wife was in the process of replaying some Kingdom Hearts games and I decided to tackle redrawing a rather infamous Catwoman design by the director of those games, Tetsuya Nomura. Now, I like his designs for the most part, and I enjoy his aesthetic. I have studied Nomura’s work, but I decided to redesign his Catwoman figure that he created sometime last year because it seemed very over the top.

This design first caught my attention at Escher Girls and I decided to take a crack at this. Also, my wife is a big fan of DC comics, and felt that Catwoman was badly represented here.

First off, I had to break the design down to a format I could make changes to, so I took a look at the original promotional material.

After studying this for a while, I made an ink drawing to familiarize myself with the design.

And so, having taken a look at the design, I decided to incorporate the color scheme of the figure, roughly as it appears in real life, and not with the washed-out, desaturated color scheme it has in the promotional poster. And thus:

And in so doing, I could more easily identify exactly what was wrong with the figure. Going back to the ink drawing I did, I marked the piece with red in the places I felt it could use a bit of a redesign. And thus:

Yep, it made little sense, especially in context with the Batman redesign Nomura did just a little while before this one. The claws didn’t make sense, especially in a world where Batman wears powered mechanical super-armor, the helmet didn’t seem practical at all for literally any purpose, her boobs were hanging out, and while it appeared that this Catwoman was wearing some kind of bronze body stocking, it still didn’t make sense that she would be wearing armor and neglect to wear any on her chest. Which, statistically speaking, the human chest carries most of the organs that a human being would want to keep not-shot or non-lasered, which would be a concern, in the distant future that this design was created for.

My wife held similar sentiments, but at a different volume.

The first thing she said was “CATWOMAN DOESN’T-WHY ARE HER BOOBS OUT?! IS SHE WEARING LINGERIE OR ARMOR? THAT TAIL, WHAAAAAT WHY WOULD WHAAT CAN SHE EVEN SEE HUH WHAT?”

I struggled to maintain consciousness as her confusion and rage reached its peak.

As the floorboards of the building splintered, I stumbled toward cover, and I managed to crawl into a small nook as lightning crashed and the meteors fell. Before I passed out, I resolved to make the design a bit less sexualized and impractical.

And thus;

So, in my first attempt, I managed to incorporate a more practical bit of chest armor, took away the claws, the silly tail, and the gun. Not bad, but this redesign was a little conservative for my taste, especially considering that the Batman design that Nomura did was so crazy and out-there. And thus;

Behold! A cross between Sam Fisher, the Emerald Weapon from Final Fantasy VII, and my Titan that I play in Destiny. I made the design at once ridiculous and over-the-top, while still looking vaguely like a secret-special forces soldier you would see Solid Snake beat up in the first few hours of a Metal Gear Solid game, before things get bananas.

I didn’t have the time to add her whip, but I imagine this works a bit better as armor, even if this has just as little to do with Catwoman as the original Nomura redesign.

I haven’t shown my wife yet, but hopefully this will instigate a small bit of catharsis.

Hopefully.

Very nice re-conceptualization of that outfit.  And also thanks for sketching out the original more clearly, there were some details I didn’t notice in the original because of the dark lighting and background. I really really love it.