When Marvel's Spider-Man came out in 2018 it hit fans and critics hard, becoming a Game of the Year nominee at the Game Developer's Choice Awards and The Game Awards. One of its biggest selling points was the immense variety of different suits Peter Parker could wear while exploring the open-world of New York, and recently the almost-naked "Undies" Suit has garnered attention online.
It all began on February 20, 2020 when Twitter user Ryan Benno mused about the prospect of video game artists sitting in a meeting trying to figure out how a character's nipples should look. Former Insomniac artist Xavier Coelho-Kostolny, who worked on Spider-Man PS4, responded saying "it can be credibly stated that I am the only man alive who has sculpted Spider-Man's nipples for a video game." He even added the fun fact to his Twitter bio.
Not long after, Coelho-Kostolny spoke with Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson in an interview published today. Kotaku headlined the article with the struggle between making Spider-Man "hot, but not distracting," yet the artist also discusses some behind-the-scenes decisions about sculpting "perkier" nipples to add to a "beefcake" look on the Undies Suit despite the fact that most of his other outfits might have "detrimental" collision with cloth textures — which is saying a lot given Spider-Man continued to add extra suits after release.
A lot of the interview also focuses on the process by which Coelho-Kostolny created the model: First sculpting its nipples mirrored across Spider-Man's chest, and then adding variations when painting textures; all while trying to consciously give them "mass appeal." He told Kotaku that Marvel had no feedback on his half-naked model, and thus Undies Spider-Man became part of one of the best-selling video games of 2018.
On his website, Coelho-Kostolny lists the "Semi-Nude Suit" as one of his creations alongside the Secret War Suit, the Vintage Suit, the Punk Suit, and the Classic Suit. The variety of outfits in Spider-Man PS4 are part of its claim to fame, with some of them being seen in other media like Sony's Morbius trailer released this January.
Since working on Spider-Man, Coelho-Kostolny has moved on from Insomniac to work for the Visual Development and Experience company Magnopus. Insomniac was also purchased by Sony in the interim since the game's release, so given its success there's a good chance the world will get to have more time with Undies Spider-Man in a sequel sometime in the near future.
Spider-Man is available now, exclusively for the PS4.
Source: Kotaku, Xavier Coelho-Kostolny's website
