After providing the voice of Tony Stark's A.I. personal assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. since 2008's Iron Man, Paul Bettany was finally given an on-screen role, transforming into the new character Vision in this summer's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Fans won't need to wait long to see him in action again, since he is next appearing in Marvel's first Phase Three adventure Captain America: Civil War. While we wait for that to hit theaters, Make-Up Artist Magazine has debuted new behind-the-scenes photos from Avengers: Age of Ultron that showcase the process of creating Vision's elaborate costume.
Jeremy Woodhead and Nik Williams from Animated Extras were responsible for creating the costume, which provided plenty of challenges. Jeremy Woodhead reveals that one of their first issues was deciding what shade of red this new Avenger should be. Here's what he had to say about the unique color they ended up going with for Vision.
"The red color was actually the hardest thing to figure out, because we didn't want him to be a bright scarlet, which would look slightly absurd, so we ended up with a color that's hard to describe. In some light, it looked pink and in others, red; it was like a red cabbage or beetroot color, a purple-pinky red. It was a light-dependent thing, which necessitated a mix of colors and layers, so depending on the light, it would either pick up the red or pink."
Jeremy Woodhead says that they originally came up with a full-body suit, but that concept was scratched. Nik Williams added that they actually "sculpted" the makeup over a 3D scan of Paul Bettany's head. Here's what Jeremy Woodhead about the decisions they had to make when creating the costume.
"We did an early concept for a full-body suit, but it was decided that production would go with a costume with a muscle suit underneath rather than a full-body prosthetic, while we just concentrated on the head and arms. We originally tested facial prosthetics as well, but Paul has delicate features, so any prosthetics on top would take away from them, so we just ended up with a prosthetic forehead, back-of-head and neck, leaving the face free, which I painted to match the prosthetic. I also put on the tracking markers so the visual effects people could add digital sculpting to those areas in post-production."
It isn't known at this time if this costume will be altered for Captain America: Civil War, which is currently in production and set for release on May 4, 2016. While we wait for more details on that highly-anticipated superhero movie, check out these behind-the-scenes photos of Vision below. Are you impressed with how this costume turned out?
