@duskyashe here is my Raven (eldritch Nightwing) design from Encryptid/Calling All The Monsters! Drawn in sketchbook & colored on the computer. Feat. colored sketch and concept of how it looks in the dark. Very long details below the cut.
Firstly, the pose and drawing style used on the left is inspired by Lilo & Stitch, because of the description "He held his ready stance for a count of eight, then started relaxing parts of his body opposite how one would normally relax their body, starting with his legs and working his way up to his shoulders." which reminded me of how character weight was drawn in the movie opposite of how it usually is, keeping the weight rooted low with gravity and pulled towards the ends of the limbs.
The coloration concept is based off of animals that have direction-dependent color, the most famous of which is the blue morpho butterfly, but one which most people have probably also seen is the super black bird of paradise. So the idea of how that works in the wild is that tilting movements or seeing it at the right angle causes a disorienting flash of color, which I hoped to use here for Raven!Nightwing's eldritch illusion.
His fingerstripes aren't strictly straight but more inspired by tree bark/veins/cirque du soleil costumes, where lines that curve across limbs make the poses look more twisted and fantastical rather than emphasizing the actual direction of the limb, which is what the straighter lines in most hero costumes are supposed to do.
His wingsuit structure as described is a snap-out style that he holds the ends of when he flies, which I've augmented with small electromagnets to seal the airspace between his arms and the wings, which can turn on and off with a current. The structure itself is similar to the draco lizard in nature, where the draco lizard has modified rib bones that hinge at the top of its wings and fold back down to its sides when not in use. The edges on the wingsuit have a soft tattered texture that helps silence the wings like owls' feathers, as well as obscure the outline a little.
I wanted to avoid showing human skin, so I used a full face mask and repurposed the Nightwing V into an abstract suggestion of a beak. His real eyes can either be disguised with colored lenses that match the stripe or can be white, but there are also decoy eyes scattered in different spots on the suit that have cameras. At first it was just the two on the sides of the head to increase peripheral vision, but I thought it would be super cool if Raven could just see in a bunch of directions and into small spaces like Emily Eyefinger just because he has several small working cameras in different locations on his body. Ravens and eldritch beings are both associated with eyes so it works? ^u^
Regarding the wing coloration, this was the last addition to the design. I considered eyespots, just as I considered larger wings, but I really wanted to avoid the design getting mistaken for Mothman from a distance. The premise of the AU relies on the power of belief, so people need to recognize Raven on sight and also believe he's an eldritch being, so I went with one big solid eye that no one expects just opening out of the darkness when you’ve done something wrong. Yikes. Raven knows where you sleep.
