Last Friday, former Insomniac artist Xavier Coelho-Kostolny revealed in a now-viral tweet that he was the only man alive to have sculpted Spider-Man’s nipples for a video game.
Now, in a set of interviews based off of that revelation, Coelho-Kostolny has detailed the process behind his artistry – which also extends to Spider-Man’s butt and bulge.
Marvel’s Spider-Man’s nipples can of course be seen when wearing the game’s unlockable “Undies” outfit, which presented its own unique challenge to developer Insomniac. Peter Parker – like Mario – is very rarely seen in the buff. And he is also owned by Marvel, which is typically protective over its legendary library of characters.
“The most important thing is making sure his nipples weren’t distracting,” Coelho-Kostolny told Kotaku. “As a character artist, I have to consider how certain details will read when you finally see them in the game, so having unusually dark nipples, for example, would make people focus on them instead of the overall effect of Spidey being mostly naked.”
Coelho-Kostolny used the scene in Tobey Magire’s first Spider-Man movie where he wakes up topless in bed as reference “for colour and placement”. But Parker’s nips are not identical, he continued, to avoid the feeling of a “seam running down the middle of the model”.