9 / 22
Apr 2021

I might start with Star Trek. I remember a lot of very different costumes (some better than others XD) for non-Federation/military characters.

Just by memory I can tell you some tv shows that might help you with diverse aesthetics if you like to binge watch:

Star Trek
The Hunger Games
The Island
Tron
Brave New World (there was a movie, but I recall there's a serie somewhere, pretty bad rated like the movie though)
Altered Carbon
Blade Runner
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

And well, surely there are waaaaay more references to look upon, but since I'm a movie sucker while drawing... well, this is what I can offer to you haha

Something a little bit more on the military-ish practical side of things given that said character is a robotic soldier.

@migxmeg

Oh, Star Trek could work now that you mention it.

Oh. Military!

Then go straight to dystopics (as if I wasn't suggesting them before haha)!

Fahrenheit 451
Black Mirror (some chapters are more sci-fi than others)
IA (the pleasure robot has quite a charming look that might like you despite not being military and using a trenchoat haha)

Extra bonus: police robot? Robocop!
If you are considering machinery in your aesthetics try to expand the reference range too to other sources that might help you out with metal, gears, wiring and welding. Perhaps some steampunk and very old school sci-fi.
Understanding how robots functionate will make your character more believable.

There isn't one "right" way to design clothes for sci-fi. Design your clothes to fit the world of the story. For example, in "Firefly", their clothing very basic like the clothes cowboys wore in the American Old West. Since the world also has a lot of Asian influences, they wear a lot of patterns. If the story takes place in a poorer area, maybe the characters make their own clothes or the clothes are made locally. Also take into account if there is a scientific reason (ie. weather) for them to dress the way they do. In the show "Almost Human" their clothes aren't any different than what we wear today. The futuristic nature of the show is displayed in the technology.

Personal preference here, as a life-long sci-fi nerd and amateur costume designer, but stay away from the psychdelic design. Yes, artistic license was taken with shows like "Back to the Future" and "Quantum Leap" but looking back on the shows, the designs are silly. "Quantum Leap" takes place in the futuristic 1990s. Their "future" is bathed in neon colors and weird hairstyles. It looked weird to see a man in a rainbow colored zoot suit who was also supposed to be a Navy admiral. The two images never jived for me.

Aside from that, trust your gut and best of luck!

There's also series like Akira, Biomega, Akudama Drive, Appleseed, Ghost in The Shell, and Alita Battle Angel that have that kind of vibe.

Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of neat designs as well.

Also a quick search on Pinterest for cyberpunk design will yield a lot of results too.

Ah, sci fi anime could work as well. Especially considering that the main character of my comic is heavily modeled after manga characters like Astro Boy and Cyborg009 as well. Thanks for the tips. :slight_smile:

Use pinterest and look for "sci fi outfits" "cyberpunk outfits" "futuristic..." "futuristic character concept" and stuff like that. Many more good results than when you search for it with google.

I like to raid high concept fashion as well as alt fashion--I actually keep a few pinterests full of fashion stuff if you want to take a peek.


Ah, that's rad. I'll go check those boards out as well. :slight_smile:

For sci-fi character design, I like to pick a single non-organic shape to define each character and then build it into the outfits for the character. For example, a perfect circle is an inorganic shape (there's lots of circular things in nature, but they're usually not perfect). Place it into a character a few times (e.g. the front part of their bodice + shoulders) and you get something that looks pretty futuristic. That's the gist of it, but you can then go ham with details over top of the basic shape. If it's a main character, you can opt to never repeat that shape again on any other character (OR DO repeat it, if you want to symbolize an org that your protagonist belongs to).

I also own a boatload of Costuming or Art Of books - you can go get those out of your local library. Off the top of my head, Art of Wreck-it Ralph has a ton of character designs, as does Art of Mass Effect, and there's a beautiful photo book from Star Wars called "dressing the galaxy" for more organic/sci-fantasy shapes.

Search "techwear". I find that style has a lot of really cool "sci-fi" looking clothing.

Neat. Never heard of that style before. Thanks for the tip. :slight_smile:

I've been using existing characters who already have defined senses of style, so I haven't gone out of my way to make anybody's outfit overly futuristic, with the exception of my Elven lady and her space suit.

Just like us, people living in the future will want their clothes to be somewhat practical and comfortable, in addition to looking good. So I'm less focused on making things 'futuristic' and more on what kinds of fashions would be popular among certain species. I draw a lot from various real-world cultures and eras of fashion for clothing ideas.

A combination of historical styles, adapted with some futuristic looking features, is often my jam where sci-fi outfits are concerned.

Concept art for Sci-Fi video games is often great for ideas because you can see all the scrapped ones too and how the character designers evolved and picked out their favourites. Also see if you can find the influences when looking at character designs.

For example, Mass Effect was heavily influenced by 80s Sci-Fi movies:

But when the series got more mainstream, a lot of the designs got more blocky and influenced by more modern sci-fi games and movies:

So you can see this move from these rounded organic shapes and bright colours on a plasticky finish to these more metallic edges and chunky angles with a slight bevel that feel more modern and influenced by Japanese mecha and current military tech.

Other Sci-fi and Science-Fantasy games I like for design like this are:

Overwatch, because the game wanted to be bold, colourful, exaggerated and all about making the characters cool heroes you want to play with big personalities and a variety of cultures:

and Star Ocean 4, which... I never actually got around to playing actually but I've always thought the designs were really cool at achieving a very clear goal: VERY recognisable JRPG Fantasy character archetypes but with a Sci-Fi look. The shapes and silhouettes and even colours immediately tell you like "this is the young heroic knight errant guy", "this is the cute archer heroine".

You can see how the basic designs are inspired most by Fantasy, but then the chunky shapes and use of cut-ins with that half-hexagon shape and things give a sci-fi feel. Overwatch has a similar approach like "this guy is a medieval knight" "This guy is a cowboy", "This lady is a fighter pilot", "This robot is a Buddhist monk". Sci-Fi and Fantasy designs are often more based on history, current and past culture and present fashion trends to build on the audience's existing cultural knowledge, so you'll often see a character who is serious and neat wear an outfit where the shape evokes a sharply cut modern business suit, but they just add some sci-fi flourishes like instead of buttons it fastens differently, and the shapes have cut-outs and maybe it has some pointy shoulderpads. The audience will recognise that "this is sci-fi but it's a serious businessperson with money".

When I was a costume designer the trick was to start with a real human time period that there was a lot of research about. I'd pick a time period with a lot of material, probably something in our human past, and then use it as a starting point to innovate. For example, take ancient egyptian and warp it into your idea of scifi. As long as all your designs start in ancient egyptian lines, cuts, rules, your world will make sense. You could take ancient egypt and change one thing about design, for example, the colors, and as long as your costumes were rooted in the same place, they would look like they belonged together.
If you're interested in a costume design book, I'd recommend:

You could do sci fi from British Regency. Sci Fi from 1920s Paris. As long as all your costumes start in the same "place."

Star Trek would be my go-to source for sci-fi costuming, preferably the '60s version. Also maybe '70s-'80s-era Doctor Who.

Ah, neat. Thanks again for the in depth advice and resources. Those concept art galleries are definitely something I'll look into more when designing my characters. :slight_smile:

@jkb4753

Oh, neat! I'll have to check that book out as well sometime too. :slight_smile:

Yeah! It's more fun to design your own stuff from scratch rather than knock off another series' design. No shade to anybody. But at a certain point scifi conventions feel exhausted. Give me something exciting and weird any day. Id take fifth element over star trek, but that's just me.