How Many Suits Does One Hero Need?

How many costumes does one super hero need? In the movie, Xam and Power Dog have one costume each. Throughout the movie the costumes will get really torn up. Seeing how I don’t want to rip up the costumes as I’m filming (you never know when you’re going to need to do re-shoots) I can’t just rip the costumes up with no regard for the future. So, similar to a big budget movie , my little movie is going to require multiple costumes for each hero.

In a Hollywood movie, there are fleets of designers that do nothing for weeks on end but design and create costumes for the movie. I am not that lucky. I’ve never really sewn before sitting down to create this project, so I pretty much had to learn on the fly. That’s not a problem since I’m going to be ripping and shredding some of the costumes. That gives me some leeway as to the quality of each costume.

Xam has three costumes. I designed the patterns myself so each costume varies slightly from the other as I was making tweaks and improvements with each new costume. The big thing was to make sure that each costume looked exactly the same on film. In their current states, they all look the same. Throughout the film, Xam’s costume will get shredded and torn. Three costumes will be needed to achieve the varying degrees of degradation while still leaving me with the ability to do re-shoots.

Power Dog has only two costumes. Due to his indestructibility, his suits don’t really take a whole lot of damage. It pretty much takes a near nuclear explosion to hurt Power Dog. When you see his suit shredding, you know he’s taking a serious beating. I’m sure as I finish the story I will have to reevaluate how much punishment Power Dog will actually receive. Perhaps then I will determine he will need an extra costume. At this point I hope not. I’m getting pretty tired of sewing the same suits over and over again.

For the purpose of the movie, Willow the cat makes the duo’s costumes. In reality, it is me, and I’m not a world class tailor by any stretch of the imagination. Still, it has been fun at times and I’ve been able to learn something of what it takes to sew. This has given me a new appreciation for people that do this for a living. It’s hard work and I really won’t know if it was worth the effort until I finish this project. Not being under any deadlines, I have no idea when that time will come. Until then, I just have to assume that it will be totally worth the effort.

Where are the masks?

Alright, as some have noticed, Xam and Power Dog aren't wearing the masks seen on the cover of the comic book. I’d love to go into some great explanation as to why they won’t be wearing them in the movie, but the truth is actually pretty lame. They don’t like wearing them! Actors! What can I say? They are a fickle bunch.

I know the first rule of directing is to direct, and not be pushed around by the actors, but I truly believe some battles just aren’t worth fighting. The actors already don't like wearing the costumes, but they understand the importance the costumes have to their characters.

I’ll also let you in on a little secret. The actors pretty much told me that they really can’t tell one another apart just by looking. They really need to sniff certain undisclosed places to get a real feel of who someone is so no real animal superhero would be caught wearing the things. That being said, I agreed to bend on the mask issue.

Now, if I find out they were abusing a commonly misunderstood perception we humans have in order to gain the upper hand then there will be serious consequences. Until then, I’ve decided to let the audience see their cute little faces and not hide them underneath the masks.

Meet Xam!

This is Max (aka: Xam). A meteor gave him the power of super speed and the ability to generate electricity from the friction caused by that speed, making it look like he can shoot lightning bolts from his paws. Max was a cocky, loud mouth before he got his powers. Since getting them he hasn’t slowed down. The big difference in Max after receiving his powers is that he realized he doesn’t have to put up with the abuse life dishes out to him and his friends in the alley. Now whenever an obstacle presents itself, he, along with Power Dog and Willow, has the strength to resist and to fight for the oppressed and all the other creatures that are too weak and too small to fight for themselves.

Meet T-Boom!

This is Thomas (aka: T-Boom). He is a kid that lives near the alley where Max and Gibson reside. Before he got his powers he loved spending his afternoons tormenting the animals, tying cans to their tails and chasing after them, until it got dark and he had to go home. The night of the meteor shower he saw the meteor rocketing toward the alley and ran as fast as he could to watch the devastation it would surely cause. As a result, the meteor gave him the power to blow things up with his mind and to create and control fire. Now he truly has the power to torment the animals in the alley, with his two most favorite targets being Xam and Power Dog.

Character Logos!

In the spirit of doing at least one post every day, I thought I’d show you all the character logos.

The first logo is, of course, Xam’s. I know Xam hasn’t been introduced yet so for those who don’t know him, he is an orange and white cat. His coloration pretty much dictated his colors be green with an orange accent. The trouble with coming up with his logo was trying to capture his superhero identity along with something that indicates speed. Lightning bolts in the shape of an “X” might seem like a no brainer, and in truth it probably is, but for some reason it took me quite a while to come up with a pattern I like. Try it. It’s not easy coming up with an “X” made out of lightning bolts. You gotta tweak it a lot to make it look like both.

Next is the Power Dog logo. As you can see from Gibson’s post below, he is a tan dog with black spots. These colors pretty much meant I could use just about any color I wanted and red, to me, screams strength. I chose black because the shape of the logo comes from the typical cartoon rendering of a heavy weight. You know, the ones that bugs bunny uses that say “1 Ton” on the side or something like that. It also looks like the basic shape of a dog tag and that made it even more proper.

The last logo is the logo for T-Boom. T-Boom is the human antagonist of Xam and Power Dog. He has the power to blow things up using only his mind. All in all, a very cool power but not something that brings immediate logo images to mind. The first thing I thought of was using a word logo but that looked underwhelming and, quite frankly, I couldn’t picture it on the front of a t-shirt. So, instead of spelling “boom” I used the image of an explosion and placed it on top of the “T”. Throw it on a black background (black for evil) and mix in the colors of the orange from Xam’s logo and the red from Power Dog’s logo and you’ve got the logo of the Discrepant Duo’s arch enemy!

The Original Xam and Power Dog Movie Trailer!

Sorry for the lack of updates. Willow the cat is still working on the Xam costume. As you can imagine, it is rather difficult taking the measurements of a cat that can run faster than the speed of sound. So, in order to appease you, the fans, I have decided to post the original Xam and Power Dog movie teaser. Now, don’t get too excited about this as due to budget constraints and an actors strike, we had to let go of the actor who would have been playing the main villain and will be bringing in a human who will work for considerably less money. That pretty much changed the entire storyline and because of that, this trailer will in no way, shape or form represents the movie that is being made.

Still, it can be fun to see what might have been so here it is…

Meet Willow!

This is Willow (aka: Willow). A meteorite gave her the powers of extreme intelligence and telekinesis, to include the creation of force fields. She is the brains behind Xam and Power Dog and without her they would simply be a cocky speedster and a cowardly power house. Willow, although mostly a behind the scenes hero, is a valuable member of the team and is also the creator of the duo’s superhero identities.

Meet Power Dog!

This is Gibson (aka: Power Dog). A meteorite gave him the powers of strength, near invulnerability and the ability to jump such great distances it appears as though he is flying. Despite these powers, he is a ginormous wuss. When evil is afoot, Gibson would prefer to be as far away from it as possible. Still, he has a tremendous sense of right and wrong and that is what inevitably drives him to don the Power Dog costume (which was made by Willow the cat).