27 Secrets And Details About Loki That Will Change The Way You Look At Him

Wen explained, "The goal was to set some boundaries or perimeters for design. This was based on some of my initial designs for Asgard. For you to know that you’ve pushed a design as far as it needs to go, you sometimes have to go until it breaks. This version reminded me of Dustin Hoffman, although it’s not based on any actual person at this point, since there were no actors in mind for the role this early in development."

"The meaning (of the lily) is often symbolic of sacrifice and is a resurrection motif. For me, I felt like something's going to be coming about for Loki. I knew this was a character that was going to be going through a large arc," said Wen.

"Odin's helmet has the wings and the horns, so each brother sort of got half of that," explained Wen.

"It was probably the largest helmet he would have to wear. I kept hearing that Tom hated to wear it," laughed Wen. "Materials were a lot thicker at the time, so it really made it hard for him to move. So I tried to rectify a lot of that for the next film," continued Wen.

"It's more intrusive; it comes out at you first. It's a little less about being regal, and a little bit more about, 'I'm going to come into your space,'" said Wen.

And the specific "layering" look to that design on the side is meant to show that Loki is a character with, literally, many layers. "He's not one dimensional; he's a layered character. I wanted to show layering in all of his stuff," said Francisco.

"It started with Kirby. That was iconic Marvel. He had such iconic, geometric, sometimes even crude (when necessary) shapes that he used. They were very bold, but they worked for the medium. So part of it was trying to find a way to translate that into a different medium," said Wen.

"A lot of people didn't even really know the Kirby designs anymore, so from that we had to do a lot of studying on variations of Loki that people might have seen more recently. You tried to see which ones were more accepted by the fans," said Wen.

Wen said he "learned more about the mythology" and tried to fit in as much mythology as possible during the development phase.

"It was a very good screenplay, but it wasn't as much comic-book Thor; there was a lot more mythology in it. It was a very different kind of Thor," said Wen.

"What I really loved about a lot of Norse runes and symbols is the interweaving shapes. Shapes go in and out, and then they come back around... A lot of those interlocking shapes feel like Loki," said Wen. 

"That design was carried through with Loki, Thor, Odin... I felt like it was something that really tied it together. You could even physically feel the tautness. If you just tightened one part of the costume, the whole thing would tighten like a knot," said Wen.

"I was just pushing the colors to be earthier, warmer tones. It's like Loki at that point has already experienced travel and loss," said Wen.

"That design, to me, was really sophisticated. I used the base of how it was built — like here's the T-shirt shape; here's the shoulder pads — but I took out one shoulder pad to make it unbalanced... I wanted to bring elements from Loki's memory of who he was (in Asgard)," said Francisco.

"He had this big necklace/center piece (in Dark World), and I kept that because I felt like that was almost like his 'mother's crest,' but I made it smaller. He still has a little bit of it, a little symbol of his mother," said Francisco.

"With Thor: Ragnarok, I was thinking, How do I design his inner turmoil? His mom died, his dad died, his sister's after him...so what does that feel like inside him? There's an unbalance in the whole costume design to kind of make the viewer feel like there's something a little off with him," said Francisco.

"It's kind of like a nice arc for him. In the beginning of the movie he's green, then he's blue, then he's green again...by the end of the movie, he finds who he is," said Francisco.

"He wants the Grandmaster to notice who he is, so he has to be very flashy," said Francisco.

Francisco explained, "When we design, I love trying to put in more story."