Queen Studios Captain Marvel - Behind The Bust

Behind the Bust follows the stories behind the 1:1 life-size busts we make at Queen Studios. With each post we aim to give you a peek behind the curtain, and insight into the creative process from the concept to the final result. In this post we’ll focus on the story behind the Queen Studios 1:1 Captain Marvel bust.

CONCEPT 

The Inspiration Behind The Captain Marvel Bust

In 2019, Marvel released their first superhero movie featuring a female character as the lead. Unlike other characters, we didn’t have a large frame of reference for other collectibles, or a series of movies to make a collectible bust. But as soon as we saw the trailer, we knew we had to try. The movie had all the hallmarks of a great movie. It had a killer origin story, a battle between good and evil, and a journey of self-discovery. Throw that in with some 90’s nostalgia and we were sold.

Choosing the pose

At the concept stage, we’re trying to figure out who the character is and how we think the bust should look. For Captain Marvel, we wanted the first impressions of the bust to match the first impressions of the character we get to know and love in the movie. Captain Marvel is bold, she is brave, and she has some incredibly awesome powers. All of this was on display in one of the final scenes in the movie, and this is what we've been trying to capture in this bust.

Once we settled on the concept, we can get started on the fun part, and create the bust! 

CREATING THE BUST

Every collectible comes with a unique set of challenges, and Captain Marvel was no exception. Captain Marvel’s suit has a leather matte look, and design similar to Captain America’s. The suit favours functionality over style, but seems to have both. As the body of the bust is made of polystone, it can often appear glossy and shiny when painted, which is very differen’t to the look we were going for. After a lot of trial and error, our artists found that using different types of varnish around the body of the suit would give it the leather look we needed which is more akin to the suit we see worn by Brie Lawson.

SPECIAL FEATURES

In the scene in which we took inspiration for this bust, Captain Marvel is suspended outside the earth’s atmosphere in “Binary Mode”. In “Binary Mode”, Captain Danvers is able to harness the power of her cosmic energy which causes her hair and eyes to shine as well as give her incredible power. For the bust, we’ve captured this by adding internal lighting for the eyes and hair. In our first version of the bust, the hair was a big challenge. It had to look blond when not lit, but also transparent enough to allow the light to shine through when the lights are turned on. After multiple attempts, we found a unique way to paint the hair so that it looks good on display in either way.

THE FINAL 1:1 CAPTAIN MARVEL BUST

With every bust we put all of our effort into making them unique collectibles worthy of your collection. Although new to the MCU, we’re sure Captain Marvel will go on to inspire the next generation of movie lovers and comic book fans, and we hope this bust, and the story behind it can share in some of this too!

Thanks for reading!

GET THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES