you’re loved, you fool!

Okay. Putting on my costume designer hat for a second…

For Woodward & Bernstein, I combined a couple different looks from the movie to settle on two outfits that would contrast each other yet fit together perfectly. (The costume design in this movie is already incredible!!! I noticed they’d both wear stripes/grid checks when they were on the same page about something, particularly when they were approaching Bradlee with the story for the first time. So I incorporated patterns for both of them.) The color dynamic was already somewhat present, but I enhanced it slightly to be a quasi red/blue trope. The silhouettes are true to the movie, but also to their characters (Bernstein is more tailored because he’s more experienced & Bob less so. But also, Bob’s ill-fitting suit was just something I really liked from the movie.)

With Woodward and Bernstein’s suit pieces themselves, I wanted it to look like they belonged to the same ensemble (they share a byline, they share sources, they operate as a unit, but they do it differently!!) So Bob gets the tan suede jacket (it’s big, he’s swimming in it) and Bernstein gets the tan suede pants (tight and flattering) so it’s the same set just worn differently. Different effects. But they go together. Two parts of a whole. Blah blah you get it. I could talk about the costume/production design of ATPM for a VERYYY long time.

Also just for fun character design purposes (cause this is really more more of a general reference sheet compared to how I usually approach costume design renderings) I gave Carl a blue coffee cup to tie into Bob’s color palette, and then Bob is holding the red flag to tie into Carl’s color palette. These objects are also both super important to their approaches to getting information (Carl weaseling his way into getting coffee with the sources in their homes…Bob setting the red flag out to plan his clandestine meetings…)

Every other character’s outfit is just a replica from the movie. The only one I took liberty with was Felt. In the book, he’s always described as looking exhausted physically, so I figured his costume should match to a certain degree. His distinction shows in his demeanor and the substance of his words; he can still be uniquely powerful even if his top button is undone and his tie is missing. I did however put him in a double breasted herringbone suit and I kept the teal tint in the garments to keep that underground lighting feel, even though we’re seeing him out of the parking garage in this illustration.

Anyways, costuming real people is my favorite because you get such solid references and LIFE to go from!!! And these Woodward and Bernstein were very fun cause their personalities are Very Apparent in the book. And the film is such a good extension of it.

(This was originally supposed to be more cartoony, almost as if ATPM was animated. But I just ended up drawing everybody in my normal style, whatever that is!)