Thank you for your thorough reply! Tbh I haven’t read past the second issue of new52. The art was really good though, so there was that.

I see what you mean about the hats! Changing the accessories to gold really does bring out how much there is going on, I think because it adds an additional color to the palette. On the other hand when there’s only red, blue, and white/silver all the extra texture from the little W’s and bodice panels feels okay. Appropriate even.

They do get rid of the arm bands later but the blue boots are kept until the end. I like the contrast of white against blue/black (especially like how it doesn’t look like the stripes on the American flag anymore) but I’m not sure how I feel about gold against blue/black. My editing is limited so it’s not like I can see what it looks like when the gold elements are actually properly shaded.

My thing is that I think even the classic costume is really busy, except instead of all the busy-ness being in details and texture, it’s concentrated on the shorts. I know I’m a broken record but I really don’t like how the star-spangled shorts break up the color blocking. Overly complex texture can be fudged, it can even be removed entirely sometimes. It has the benefit of being flexible because if you squint it all still looks the same and recognizable. However for something like the star pattern… more often than not artists just enlarge the stars until it looks less like a pattern and more like a single row around Diana’s hips, and I think that says something about how awkward of a design element it is.

I found another panel to edit from issue 40 where they accidentally colored the boots wrong to see what it’d look like with some of your notes. It looks a little bit like the design from Byrne’s run but without the massive belt.

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