For those of you who read my last thread ("What NOT to do...") Then you have a pretty good handle on my story line/character. If not, here it is in a nutshell. Female, 16, straight blonde/white hair with a blue streak. Bad family, mom committed suicide, father trying to get by. Lives in the projects. While my MC, Ty, tries to commit suicide herself, she finds out that she can levitate. Now a super hero, she tries to tell her best friend who doesn't believe her. After being rejected by her friend, she sits at the top of a building because she feels clostrophobic inside. She is almost attacked but her body takes over and attacks her would-be attacker. It is here that she finds out that she has the power of force fields and the ability to shoot smaller sheets of these fields and deflect things. I'm trying to make it as not-cliche as possible. Now I have reached a point where I have to really think: Costumes. I both worship and loath the word. I don't want her in spandex, and I don't want her being a slut like other heroines. Does anyone have any advice? What kind of costume should I make? Should I make one at all? Or should I just have some sort of street clothes that she tends to wear whenever something happens that prompts her powers? How should I add a costume for her without it getting cliche? Hopefully someone can help? NOTE: she doesn't need to have any special material or anything for her to powers to work. She levitated in her converse, force fielded in her sweatshirt et cetera et cetera.
if she can levitate, then can I suggest trousers rather than a skirt? Really, anything can become disctinctive attire. Think Harry Dresden's duster, Homer's white shirt and blue pants and Frodo's Elven cloak. If she has a favorite striped blouse and happens to be wearing it for more than one superhero event then it's just as likely to be associated with her.
I think that by having your heroine in plain clothes it will make it easier for the readers to relate to your character - personally it just seems a bit cliche when they have some sort of costume. So yea, unless she needs one for some sort of secret identity, I'd advise plain clothes
No offense, but you say you don't want a cliché, yet it seems to me you have made a young Invisible Woman? (from Marvel's Fantastic Four.) Invisible Woman's powers are invisibility (duh...), levitation, force fields and force balls. Anyway, why does the costume have to be so special? Why not go with regular clothes, perhaps with a symbol or something? Your choices are not either spandex or slutty. Or slutty spandex, for that matter. There's a reason why people wear normal clothes.
I would recommand her to just go with a mask in her bag/purse. Unless she is also super fast and can change her clothes in one second when theres trouble.
The Force-Field/Force Balls would tie in easily to flight by stating she is emitting a force from her body to keep her in the air. It's not really cliche unless she then goes invisible! I would say that she could be wearing a normal clothes(perhaps jean shorts?) or something bright that is associated with her. If it's cold out a long-coat of some nature would work as an icon. Personally I think having a run-on theme would be funny to do. In my story the character will have a personal and vocal hatred of phycics, yet she has an ability that when described out-load is very similar to what a phycic would claim(it's not a paranormal/sci-fi book though-hard to explain!). Having a run-on theme of the main character trying to design an outfit and the ideas of a spandex uniform making her feel nervous would be very funny to read, if you can write it properly. Yes, a lot of female super-heros do dress....a bit....Well very eye-pleasing. That said, the new Wonder Woman outfit that DC released is a good idea of something that would work. I'd say maybe white-khaki's could do it though, those are very visible... Sleep on it a bit IMO.
This is the best idea yet. I suggest just giving her a ski-mask and BAM instant ghetto superhero. If I were living in the projects and I suddenly realised I had supah powahs à la suicide attempt, I'd probably just grab whatever was lying around and take it with me rather than waste my time making up a super costume. Who needs glamour when you can levitate?
Is she trying to keep her real identity a secret? If yes, a costume is somewhat necessary, and it should be able to be worn under regular clothes, so that it's available if needed. Hence the popularity of spandex among comic-book superheroes. If she doesn't care about keeping her identity secret, then any regular clothes would do.
Something you can do to toy with "super suit" Ideas is download a game called Champions online, it is free so don't worry. It has a wonderful character generator with a metric crapload of costume options to customize and choose from. You don't even have to complete the character to play with the generator. Just at thought that may help with visualization
I looked this up and started downloading it before my older brother informed me that its a huge file....huger than I thought. So it looks like a no-go on that. Although it looked pretty cool -_-
