New concept art reveals the original design for Namor (played by Tenoch Huerta Mejía), the leader of the undersea territory of Talokan, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The images show various designs of iconic character from the Marvel comics, who first made his live-action appearance in the MCU with Black Panther, swimming through the ocean.
Marvel Studios visual development artist Anthony Francisco shared a look at several of the original designs for Namor on his Instagram account. Alongside the images, the artist – who also made the designs for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s Baby Groot and Loki‘s title character, shared that his “warrior look” for Namor was the one eventually used for the highly-anticipated movie, which is currently in theaters. The “warrior look” included the large traditional necklace sported by the character. Some of the other images in his post revealed the character flying over the surface of the water while leading his marine army.
Francisco expressed his enthusiasm for the design when he commented, “I am grateful that #RyanCoogler chose my design for warrior look. These designs were then sent to costume designer [Ruth Carter] who, together with her team, did an amazing job materialized the costume you see on the big screen! It looked awesome!”
The artist went on to describe some of his inspiration for the design, citing documentaries that he watched about the Mayans, the Olmecs and the Aztecs as well as research he conducted about “ancient indigenous people of the north, south Americas as well as in Asia.” Francisco continued, “The history of Mexico , the colonization of a people and the erasing of their language was some of the sad parts of my research that made this journey a bit emotional to me because I also come from a country colonized by Spain. I hope this insight to my design process is interesting to you.” After revealing the concept art for Namor, Francisco posted even more images featuring designs for help design Okoye (played by Danai Gurira) and the rest of the elite group of female warriors called the Dora Milaje.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continues to perform well in the box office, making over $675 million worldwide as of this Sunday. In addition to Huerta and Guriraa, the popular sequel stars Letitia Wright as Shuri, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams/Ironheart, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Michaela Coel as Aneka, Angela Bassett as Queen Mother Ramonda, Mabel Cadena as Namora, Alex Livinalli as Attuma and Martin Freeman as Everett Ross.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still in theaters. Check out the concept art below: