Captain America: Brave New World (2022) - Falcon Helmet Concepts

This was my take on Falcon's helmet for Captain America: Brave New World. I was trying to capture the feel of the comic book helmet while bringing it into the live action world. I was looking for subtle references to raptor beaks and heads, as well as military and jet pilot helmets to keep it realistic. I started out with quick painted thumbnails in Photoshop, followed by a series of more detailed front view paintings exploring color breakup, visor and beak details, conscious of the risk of evoking Gatchaman.

Final step once a direction was chosen was sculpting the helmet in ZBrush. The final model was submitted and approved, I'm not sure why it was subsequently replaced by another design in the final film, but that's not an uncommon occurrence on these projects.