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Friday, November 5, 2010

Costume Studies

One of the things I do a lot when prepping for a book or project is costume studies. When I'm doing these I'm not especially worried about the character design, matching the style to the book... what I'm concentrating on is the individual parts of a costume. How they work, what the textures are, how the material overlaps. I do a bunch, mixing and matching details, usually from museum sketches or Osprey military history books (great references) or library borrows. Once I have a hefty amount under my belt, I'll use them as reference for what background (and some main) characters should be wearing, and can concentrate entirely on storytelling, not having to stop and labor over research and technique. Anyway, I figured I'd post some over the next couple of weeks. These are costume studies for soldiers in a 1920s Chinese warlord army. They'll be playing a large role in the fourth Crogan book, Crogan's Escape. One guy, ostensibly part of the "Big Sword Brigade":


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