There are many redeisions of this suit created by both offical artists and fans suit that look amazing, some trying to be faithful while adding little details to the suit while others giving it a redesign where it looks different but still clearly Batman Beyond. Many I like, none quite get it right.
The thing about the Batman Beyond Suit is that it was designed to be a 2D model and works best with as few details as possible.
Take this piece
This... looks creepy. It makes Terry look like a robot with dead white eyes and the lines on the suit are just distracting. I get what the artiest is going for but this honestly hurts the design and just doesn't work IMO.
A similar thing happens with this piece.
Not bad but again certain details drag this design down for me most notably, and this is going to sound weird, Terry's nose.
The nose is honestly just to goofy looking for me because it makes it look more that he's just wearing heavy makeup instead of a suit that you can take off and all I can think of is "God, it's going to take forever to get that stuff off."
This is where trying to remain loyal to the look while making it look more realistic hurts the design and that happens a lot with many of these version. Again I actually like most of these pieces but many that try to remain loyal to the idea of the design of the original give it a Uncanny Valley feel.
One of the best examples of this is in Arkham City where this suit is one of the options players have access to.
youtu.be/4i-LNlsr6MY
Once again, the addition of a visible nose really hurts the overall atheistic of the piece and something that is notable here that is often present in many fan versions is the inclusion of dots on the BB Suit. I've seen this a lot on many versions of this suit and it always bugs me. It's a little detail that isn't needed and hurts the look of the suit and I don't know why it's included.
These versions keep the suit relitively simple in design but add a number of small changes that hurt the look and I see these often in many versions of this suit. Again it enters into the Uncanny Valley and kinda stays there making the suit look like it doesn't belong in the world.
On the flip side we have the more realistic take.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cosplay/commen ... play_self/
While all these designs are great, the first one is from Arkham Knight which is something of a fan favorite, I also think they all kinda suck, at least in terms of of being the suit to life.
Interestingly one problem I have with them and this is a reoccurring thing is the lack of a proper nose and mouth. Now I know that sounds really hypocritical since I just said I had an issue with the nose on the other versions but hear me out.
The thing about Terry is he is a very expressive character which is a direct contrast to Bruce. Even when Bruce is more open emotionally he tends to be very stoic outside of his public appearances as Bruce Wayne and even then he tends to be pretty reserved. Terry is very expressive thus we should be able to see his expressions more often and these suits make that impossible. They would work fine for Jason or Bruce but are terrible for Terry.
That's why I say that the original suit was designed to be a 2D model, as this sort of design really only works in a 2D world. It's a fairly simply design, with the suit being mainly black with the only color on it being red with Terry's mouth being visible. This suit does not really work in a more realistic world as it either will enter the Uncanny Valley or will have to get rid of the elements that make it work for this character.
But then that leads to the question this entire post is really about.
As I've mentioned before I have an idea for a Batman Beyond Reboot and I want it to stand out as it's own unique thing while still paying respect to the original. Which is why I wouldn't want this show to be 2D because there's already a 2D series which would not make it stand out besides the style of the animation. And as I've made clear trying to go for a more realistic angle just doesn't work for this outfit, it has to have a more simplistic style, something that can allow it to be streamlined while still matching the world it exists in.
Fortunately there is such a style, one that's been around for a while now and has proven to work great with Superheroes, that being the 2D/3D Hybrid style currently called Painted CGI.
With Paint CG you can have more streamlined models in a 3D environment with 2D animation blended in. This is best shown in the Spider-Verse movies and Arcane the latter of which uses 2D for affects such as smoke, fire, lightning, explosives and sparks while also having backgrounds that are completely hand drawn meaning that the CGI comes mostly from the character models and some of the items they uses.
And to help with this atheistic the characters aren't quite as detailed as other CGI films or show and the same applies with Spider-Verse, where we have 2D characters interacting with 3D and despite coming from different realities all look like the exist in the same world.
Thus a Batman Beyond Suit could work better in this sort of style as you have the option to give Terry's suit a nose and mouth while still looking like a suit that is being worn and one that doesn't feel or look out of place. And with the option to NOT include little details that frankly don't add anything and are just distracting (for me at least) the suit can be more streamlined like the original. And most importantly it would allow Terry to be as expressive as possible which works for the character.
But what do you think, do you actually like the more detailed outfits and feel they don't enter into uncanny valley and that you would rather see that in a reboot?
Let me know.
