#shadowmoth redesign

[sillygoofylittleartist]

All three of my hawk moth redesigns side by side.

[teawinx]

The man himself, Gabriel

I was not looking forward to redesigning him, he’s just so ugly. And by that I mean his design and 3D model are unappealing. A character can be “ugly” and appealing, but Gabe just looks unfinished.

Something you learn about character design is the importance of visual clarity. And both Gabe and Hawkdaddy miss the mark by a lot.

Gabe’s grey/cream sweater and hair work, but they’re then juxtaposed by his red trousers and toothpaste swirl ascot. All together he doesn’t look like the bad guy, and more importantly doesn’t look like a fashion designer. Where’s the flair? Where’s the fun? So I removed all the red from his design and replaced it with a monochrome look. It’s the sterile Agreste brand I have going on. Adrien and Nathalie are also in mostly white, visually tying them to Gabe.

Next Hawkmoth. Insert egg head/bald joke here To me it’s not the bald head that’s the issue, it’s everything else. There is nothing about him that informs the audience that he’s a butterfly. He’s just “man in purple suit and ugly head mask”, he’s not even vaguely threatening. And same goes for Shadowmoth. He gets two visually striking animals and chooses boring.

Styling a butterfly for a man is hard, especially for a man who wants to maintain his masculinity when transformed, but if they HAD to give him a boring suit, at least make the collar or the sides of the coat visually interesting?

So I looked at some high end fashion. Shapes and textures are important, and since he barely ever moves from his man cave, he can get away with having an impractical design. Maybe he can remove the coat and reveal a pair of wings underneath when needed? I just want him to have an epic air battle with Ladybug.

Some old concept art for him depicts him in all black with a visor shaped like the akuma mask. I love that. It looks really cool and makes him look hella threatening. I have the idea that throughout Season 1 you see a shot of Paris with Hawkmoth talking over it. Then in the season finale the camera pans back to reveal we were looking at his visor the whole time. This could show that he could be anyone and anywhere.

Only two more baddies left to go, I wonder who’s next?

[sillygoofylittleartist]

Shadow moth redesign. Shadow moth has one of the most disappointing designs in the whole series to me. He’s a villain, fashion designer, and is combining two of the flashiest creatures in the theme, a peacock and butterfly, yet his design barely changes at all. Ladybug got a lovely and different design when she got the bee miraculous and that was for less than a few minutes in a single episode. Shadow moth is supposed to be hawkmoths upgrade to make him more dangerous and powerful but that is not represented in his new look.

First off I gave him claws because peacocks have claws and they are more villainous than normal gloves. I lengthened his coat for more drama and gave it a butterfly shape with peacock designs. His shoes look like peacock feet and I gave him a dramatic peacock collar. I also added actual peacock colors since they fit naturally into the color scheme already.

🦋🦚