Tron: Ascension (2015) - Ares Costume Design

Tron: Ascension was Joe Kosinski's direct sequel to Tron: Legacy. Unfortunately the failure of Disney's Tomorrowland coupled with their purchases of Marvel and Lucasfilm marked a death nell for the project, as Disney decided their money was better spent on a more proven franchise. Resurrected a decade later as Tron: Ares, albeit without the original leads, it nevertheless kept Jared Leto in the Ares role, as well as the iconic Tri-Disk I designed for this earlier production, kept effectively intact.
The original costumes I designed working directly with Joe Kosinski and production designer Darren Gilford, as there wasn't a Costume Designer attached by the time the show went down. Joe wanted the Dillinger costumes to reflect a more real-world interpretation of the Tron aesthetic, with toned-down lighting as they were intended for practical military use in the real world where signaling your location like a beacon wouldn't be the most wise design choice. I came up with a multi-material approach, layering compression mesh over hard shell armor elements and molded rubber. The convertible top-inspired hood with a hard shell top gives him a distinctive silhouette that evokes the original Sark. This final version evolved from a more samurai-inspired look that was a little too fetishistic for Joe. Finally, Joe wanted Jared to have luminous sub-cutaneous tattoos based on Syd Mead's iconic circuitry from Tron's back in the original 1982 movie.