Ryan Meinerding Explains Why Thor Looks More Spaceman Than Viking

Fans have complained about the designs of the superhero movie Thor costumes for since the first pics and Ryan Meinerding explains why the costumes look so high tech.

The concept art book Thor: The Art of Thor the Movie is being released about the movie this week and Marvel has an interview with one of the Visual Development Supervisor Ryan Meinerding and a couple of pics from the book.

On the designs being less "Nordic" than the traditional comic book "Thor" costumes
The design direction that Charlie and I each started from was trying to take some sense from the iconic costumes, and then applying some sense of Norse things to them. Not in a traditional sense, but so that there's overlapping and weaving and trying to find something that felt like, but was not as readily identifiable as, Norse. I think Charlie [Wen] was the one who really found that balance with the Thor costume, and once he found that, it really [was a matter of] overlapping and changing angles with metal around the disks or whatever we needed to be on the chest plates, and finding different ways of doing that with all the different characters.

On fitting the costumes in with the past and upcoming Marvel films
There’s definitely a sense of trying to make all of these characters come together for “Avengers,” [but] I think first and foremost all of these movies have to stand on their own. I think that the tones need to be similar enough to be in the Marvel Universe, but I think we were really conscious of designing the costume for “Avengers” to come together a little bit more, as opposed to back when you’re working on the Thor movie you’re just trying to make the best movie you can.

In the end we’re people executing the ideas or the design direction that we get from Marvel and the directors. So when you look at the direction that was coming in, I think the reason they chose not to do the more traditional Viking thing was probably because it would be harder to see a Viking standing next to Iron Man than it would a man in a more high tech looking chest plate. There are some really base level conceptual directions that we are given that are probably aimed towards those ends.

There is a lot of good information about his work on Thor as well as Iron Man, so head over to Marvel.com to read the rest of the interview.

Synopsis: Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the epic adventure "Thor" spans the Marvel Universe from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is The Mighty Thor (Chris Helmsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Here's a partial list of the artists involved:

Production Designer
Bo Welch

Concept Artists
Charles Wen
James Carson
Vance Kovacs
Ron Mendell
Raj Rihal
Craig Shoji
Tully Summers
Simon Webber
Daphne Yap

Set Designers
Tex Kadonaga
Kevin Loo
Jeff Markwith
Anne Porter
Andrew Reeder
Rich Romig
Marco Rubeo

Storyboard Artist
Timothy Burgard

Darrin Denlinger
Thomas A. Nelson
Joel Venti
Via ComicBookMovie

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