Starfire in the Young Justice art style
Tried to combine key elements of all her major costumes but make it cohesive, whilst adding my own spin to it.
Included an older sketch of this design, showing some of the minor updates.
Starfire is easily my favourite Teen Titan, and actually one of my favourite comic-book characters too. Loved her in the old TV series, continued to love her when I discovered comics (she’s had a few rough patches *cough* early RHaTO *cough*.
I wanted my design to do be practical, elegant and regal. I made a point of covering her up more, but was careful not to go too far, since showing skin is important to Starfire’s character design IMO. I went with her cartoon colour scheme, and in many ways this design is just the cartoon version of Kori’s costume but more detail and a few modifications.
Her thigh-high boots clip under her skirt, similarly to suspenders and stockings. I did that for practicality – I remember watching a cosplay video in which the cosplayer said thigh-high boots/socks were annoying since they had to be pulled up occasionally. The knee hole was added to give a sense of both her classic knee-high boots, and her more modern thigh-highs.
The top was also inspired by the “Justice League vs Teen Titans” costume, in the way that it exposed her hips and goes under her “skirt”. I moved the boob-window from that costume to just under her breasts, to give a nod to the areas of skin in her classic costume while being more aerodynamically logical (A boob window would create a lot of air drag since it would basically act as a mini-parachute if you think about it). If you look at the areas of exposed skin on the torso, it’s principally the same as her classic 80′s costume, but if that costume had covered up more. I decided to avoid cleavage all-together, it makes no sense for a flying character, and the risk of spillage is too real.
I kept the single arm band on her left arm, which in my headcanon covers a brand that the Citadel put on her during her time as a slave, or something to that effect. Or maybe it’s just contains some Titan’s tech, a tracker etc. Not sure, but the asymmetry of it has grown on me.
I struggled with green gems or red gems, but went with green because they honestly look better IMO, and I only considered red to be faithful to some of her comics costumes.
Though not shown here, in my version, Starfire has red/orange/yellow Starbolts, that match the glow of her hair, like some of her more classic Starbolt depictions. The green gems therefore serve to match her eyes. I felt like this was a more cohesive colour scheme. Her TV Teen Titans design worked with green Starbolts because her hair didn’t glow like in the comics (a decision I’m sure was made to save animation budget). If one includes her glowing fiery hair, having green Starbolts is an unpleasant glowing colour clash *cough* Starfire solo comic *cough*.
Plus, I think a fiery colour scheme for a Starbolt is more likely to be physically realistic (Starbolts don’t make much physics sense, but looking at it as plasma, it would probably be yellowy orange or blue-ish IMO). Blackfire is supposed to have more powerful Starbolts, so Komand’r having blue/violet Starbolts would be a more realistic indication of that I think (blue light is a more energetic due to a higher frequency than orange light) and it helps make her more visually distinct to Starfire.
Also in my headcanon, Starfire’s eyes don’t actually glow in the conventional sense, but rather she has “cat eyes”. So under the right light conditions and angles her eyes look like they’re glowing, and make her pupils seem to disappear.
Also she can see UV light, which I imagine would be a useful adaptation for a Tamaranean, to help them find the best places to get the UV energy they need. It would also explain Starfire being able to make out more distant objects than humans, as explained here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk2izv-c_ts
Her costume is made of tough Tamaranean materials that can deal with the sort of damage she would expect to receive in her hero work. It’s also mostly transparent in UV light, so that it doesn’t inhibit her UV radiation absorption, which she needs for her powers. Sure, if I’m gonna be consistent with my own ideas, this would mean her costume would look like it was translucent for Tamaranean eyes, but I don’t think that is a make/break issue at all, since Tamaraneans, Kori included, are perfectly comfortable with nudity.
Was sure to make sure she didn’t have heels. Seriously…how has that persisted so long in female costume design (¬__¬)
