Sep 07 2008
Superhero Visual References: Gloves
B. Mac provides another set of gear to help you design superheroes that don’t look goofy. (See his collection of boots here).
1) These stretch gloves are as simple as gloves get. They will help your hero look more human and relatable.
2) These are also very conventional. Like #1, they lend themselves to human-looking gestures but are more professional and smooth. The contrast between the light-gray and charcoal portions gives these a mild sci-fi vibe, but you could easily eliminate that by recoloring the light gray portions.
3) These look poorly-fitted and uncomfortable. To make these look less uptight, I’d recommend ironing out the pockets of air in the finger and palm. I like the longer sleeve, though. It helps makes the hero feel epic and out of the ordinary. The long sleeve would be very appropriate for, say, Superman (if he wore gloves).
4) The bold seams here give these a gritty, badass feel. But these could easily be adapted for a light and whimsical character like Static Shock by blending the seams and changing the colors. The straight lines are clean and striking. The logo space could easily be adapted for something appropriate for your superhero.
5) These gloves are too bulky around the fingers. The character’s gestures will probably look unnatural. However, that could be advantageous if the character is a villain, particularly one that’s supposed to be a faceless henchman.
6) These gloves are gaudily military. I wouldn’t recommend using them unless the character’s uniform is otherwise very military. To adapt these gloves, I would reduce the color contrast and simplify them by removing the straps.
7) These look like something Robocop or a dystopian biker might wear. Armored gloves will always look unhuman, but these are particularly unhuman because of the strange protrusions rising from the fingers. If you wanted to make this character look more heroic, I’d recommend ironing these gloves out and making them smoother.
These are similar to #2 but more badass. I’d recommend simplifying these by removing the ornamentation on the thumb.
9) These are more Golden Age. B-3 pilots crews wore them.
Hey, what do you think about fingerless types of gloves?
For the right character, they might be appropriate. However, I feel that they typically make a character look like he’s a hobo, in a cheap biker gang or the protagonist of Pokemon. I don’t think they look good.
What do you think about these?
I have to wonder, what about work gloves, like the kind you might see at a Home Depot? I mean, yeah. All these above gloves are cool. But unless you’re going to write into the story some reason he’s got access to high-tech gloves, then it begs the question, where’s he gonna go to get heavy-enough-duty gloves to work for a super?
I read one story where the superhero just used a disposable costume that got burnt/tornup/otherwise ruined pretty much every time he went out to save the day. So his gloves didn’t “work” for a super, but they were easy enough to replace. The gloves we listed first would cost somewhere between $1 and $2 at a US supermarket, so that’s pretty replaceable.
As for work gloves, what would you think about these? I’m not very fond of the color scheme, but the design of the gloves is not bad.