Dressing the Watery Worlds of ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ and ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney)

“If you are asked to do a movie and they say there’s water, hang up,” jokes costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who had a steep learning curve for creating the underwater kingdom of Talokan. With the aquatic scenes filmed both on land and underwater, Carter often had to create multiple versions of the sea dwellers’ costumes. Occasionally, the outfits wouldn’t cooperate while wet, but visual effects supervisor Geoffrey Baumann told Carter “not to worry too much about the technicalities, but worry about the beauty of the costume itself.” Though the visual effects team could make changes in post, Carter and her team also used 3D printing, materials like silicone, and weights to make the costumes flow with ethereal grace.

For Namor’s feathered headdress, Carter made a second, rigid version to go underwater, which the VFX team animated for that beautiful underwater movement. One of the most challenging costumes to adapt was M’Baku’s, which is made of fur, leather, and a large grass skirt. Every day was a lesson, says Carter. “As much as you thought you knew about water, there was so much more to learn.”

Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios)

When James Cameron moved the central characters of his long-awaited sequel from the trees to the seas, it meant creating an entirely new look for the Metkayina reef-people clan. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott started in the real world, creating hundreds of looks for what would be entirely digital characters. “Every single costume that you see, every piece of jewelry, every bead in the hair, is all real,” says Scott. Because the Metkayina spend much of their time in the water, she and the VFX team studied how all the clothing would react underwater. They even put costumes on the actors over their performance capture suits, allowing them to feel what their characters were wearing. Says Scott, “It became really obvious to us that the real thing is better than anything you can fabricate.”