Furia Powers – as designed by .Ra at coxcomics.com
Furia Powers, the former Praetorian Hero and now the “Hero of the Day” for Paragon City, has gone through a few costume changes.
When we first saw her in the pages of “The Guardian Powers”, she was in her “Praetorian Hero” outfit. It was a combination of various styles, including elements from the Praetorian Police, all to give her the appearance of someone who clearly is in league with the Praetors.
Her original look, however, was all-white, and was meant to resemble someone a little more familiar.
As explained in “Guardians of the Dawn Spotlight” #25, Furia was created during a free preview of the City of Heroes: Going Rogue expansion program, which gave me temporary access to all of their content and story material. We were encouraged to create a new character to try out this new world, so I created what was supposed to be a Praetorian version of Galatea Powers. Of course, I also wanted to try out some of the new features, so instead of super-strength, she had kinetic melee. It was a nice preview, and I hated it when the trial period ended. Thankfully that was only a brief respite and I was able to get the expansion program and bring Furia back to digital life, along with some color changes to her outfit.
I always wanted to do more with Furia in “The Guardian Powers” once I was able to introduce her in the comics, including possibly have her take over as the central character instead of Galatea. Unfortunately the demise of the MMO ended those ideas.
But once I was able to bring “The City” back to life thanks to the magic of Titan Icon and demorecording, I decided to give Furia a makeover, since she was going to be the central character in her own series.
Of course, much like Galatea’s makeover (again from GotDS #25), Furia’s makeover was a process of trial-and-error. Different outfits were tried out, but none of them really stood out. One such outfit, the “Paragon Hero” version of her Praetorian outfit, was first seen quickly in the “Guardians of the Dawn 2012 Special” and became the interim outfit for Furia in the first two issues of “Furia and the Guardians” and even was on the cover for Issue #2.
But even that didn’t seem right. It seemed too busy.
One of the things about doing costumes, be they for MMO games or for comics, is that there has to be a balance between detail and simplicity. The original costumes designed in the comics of old were simple because the comics were drawn by hand using paper and pencil. The same artists had to draw the same costume over and over again, so they didn’t have time to keep drawing extensive detail. They needed to keep things simple, not only for time but also for money. Pencils and pens and ink cost money, and if you didn’t sell enough comics, you couldn’t afford to keep getting those things.
Of course, nowadays, characters are designed on computers, which gives the artist or creator plenty of opportunity to make the outfits as detailed as possible. They can add little detailed pouches to their utility belts. They can add those “accent lines” on their costumes. They can make costumes look more like uniforms than unitards.
And obviously, with the help of Titan Icon, I could continue to do the same thing with Furia. I could keep coming up with something complex and detailed like I did with her “Praetorian outfit”.
But then I decided to go the other way with her. Much like how Galatea’s outfit eventually stayed simple, I needed Furia’s to be the same. She needed to have something simple.
The end result was the outfit you see now. Much like Galatea’s outfit, the top and bottoms are one-color, with the yellow seam serving as a reminder of her original outfit. Her golden yellow visor remains the same, and while she keeps the red in her gloves and boots, they’re now simple. A “barbarian” ringed belt replaces the Praetorian Resistance belt she had, and she has a full cape instead of the “Fortunata” cape, complete with a single red-star clasp that could also serve as a symbol for her.
Of course, the funny thing is that once I showed off her outfit to my fellow City of Comic Creators, it was so liked that one of them made her wallpaper of the month for CoX Comics and helped to promote the launch of “Furia and the Guardians”. So if you’re a fan of CoX Comics, you actually got a preview of Furia’s new outfit months before it showed up in the issue!
Even funnier is that his preview actually had a hand in the final design for her outfit.
Furia’s “new outfit” originally was to include the same kind of padded gloves that you see Ryder Lightning wear in his new “hoodie” outfit. But when .Ra started working on the 3D version for his site, there were some things that he couldn’t translate from the MMO. Her cape clasp, the style of belt, and the padded gloves all couldn’t be included. But then I took a look at it and I realized that removing the gold padded gloves on top of her red gloves actually fit in with the “simpler” concept.
If you liked .Ra’s version of Furia, get ready for some more, because not only did .Ra come up with some more 3D images of her that will be showing up in the future pages of “Furia and the Guardians”, but you could also see her making an appearance in CoX Comics. And, don’t worry, some of .Ra’s characters will also be making appearances in our comics. We are, after all, one big happy City of Comic Creators.
Oh, and be sure to see what else is changing for Furia as “Furia and the Guardians” #5 goes online on May 29th!
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