Captain America: Civil War was a massive success at both the box office and among critics for many reasons, and one of them was the built-in appeal of its lead characters. Both Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) had long established themselves as compelling, bankable heroes. But Civil War also faced the challenges of transitioning newer characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the larger group, like Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch.

The powerful twin sister of Quicksilver, who debuted as a villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, had the makers of Civil War working virtually from scratch to make her transition to hero status as seamless. This goes for other secondary characters as well, like The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Newly released concept art for Civil War shows that an early look for each character is largely similar to what ended up in the final cut.

Artist Christian Cordella released on his official website a slew of designs for Civil War that depicted, among others, concepts for Scarlet Witch and The Winter Soldier. The artwork shows a similar but slightly different design for both Scarlet Witch and the Winter Soldier’s costumes. It’s a different design for Scarlet Witch from other alternate concepts. There’s also designs for Captain America, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) in civilian clothes, as well as designs for the never-unthawed Soviet Super Soldiers. See the images in the gallery below.

[vn_gallery name=“Civil War Costume Art – Christian Cordella” id=“880378”]

Cordella has an impressively prolific resume as a costume concept artist going back to 2008. His website also features his designs for recent blockbusters like Star Trek: Beyond, Jurassic World, and The Jungle Book. He is slated to do costume concept art for the 2017 Marvel Cinematic Universe releases, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok.

The costume department did a remarkable job translating the artwork into real-life costume designs that seamlessly integrated Scarlet Witch into Captain America’s team of heroes. The Winter Soldier also got a fresh update to his appearance while also retaining his distinctive look from his titular turn in the second Captain America movie.

The updated looks for Scarlet Witch and The Winter Soldier for Captain America: Civil War ultimately did not change much from their original costumes, other than a few minor tweaks. But it just goes to show that Cordella’s work is highly valued among the producers of the MCU movies, as evidenced by his many upcoming roles in the art department. As far as costume design goes, the future of the MCU is certainly in good hands.

Source: Christian Cordella (via Comic Book)

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