One of the first things I did when the FF became "mine" was sit myself down and work out a consistent look for Galactus' armor. Kirby had hardly ever drawn him the same way twice -- even panel to panel in the same story! -- and artists who had followed had tossed in their own interpretations (aided and abetted by colorists who could never quite seem to settle on a consistent pattern of coloration).Doing this, I discovered the armor was really a lot simpler than it seems at first blush. Paging from issue to issue, I found the elements that did seem to turn up every time, and built a more-or-less consistent "model" that I have used ever since --- "more-or-less" because I draw him from memory now, and small details, like the shape of his "sporan" for instance, will vary from time to time.
Basically, it goes like this:
•The helmet is a tapered cylinder, slightly more narrow at the bottom that at the top. His eyes are slightly more than a third of the way up from the bottom. His "mask" -- the piece directly around his eyes -- is a separate piece from the rest of the face, basically contoured like a wide, flattened W.
•To either side of the "mask" are tubes that angle in above the eye to make "eyebrows", and curve around his chin to meet in the middle. Behind this central meeting point there is a circular opening, with "grillwork" inside it. Above the nose, there is a short, angled length of tubing that connects the "eyebrows".
°Above the "eyebrows" is a wide, flat protrustion that reminds me of one of those eyeshades that accountants and card players wear.
•Above that is an opening that is shaped like a flattened triangle with rounded corners and a "tab" at bottom center.
•Above the "eyeshade" all this is "framed" with a :groove" that angles inward above the triangular opening, and meets at center in a semi-circular form a little like a crecent moon lying on its side.
•Above this, the top edge of the helmet is notched in what is again a roughly W shape, with vertical sides and an angled crossbeam that mimic the triangluar shapes below it.
•Nestled into this notch is what I sometimes call "Kermit the Frog" -- two circular forms with a rounded triangle rising above and between them.
•On the sides of his "face", outside all this detail, there are two circular forms, which tend to change size and shape, alligned with his mouth. •Out of these grow parallel tubes that rise to about the bridge of the nose and then curve in. A rectangular form "breaks" these about halfway up.
•With the "face" done, we look to the sides of the helmet. At roughly eye level two truncated cones poke out, tapering slightly with their ends cut off.
•Out of these grow the "hockey stick" of his antennae. These I have formalized into basically squares turned 45° onto one point. At the top, their inner edges line up with the sides of his helmet.
Now, that about the rest of him?
•There is a large circular form in the middle of his chest (without a big "G" inside it, please!), and two curving "shoulder pads" grow out from this.
•Below, a band circles his chest, and vertical strips depend from this, framing the roughly hexagonal decorations on his "belt".
•From two of these decorations angled strips reach down to support the "sporan" (that's what Scots wear on the front of their kilts)
•The lower lines of his own "kilt" grow out from the "sporan". A separate element crated the "front flap".
•His gloves are fairly simple -- just remember to notch the "cuff" on the outer edge.
•His boots have three fat tubes around his calves, with notched bars front and back holding them in place. Sometimes there is a notched pattern around the top of the sole.
•What can be seen of his torso and upper arms have parallel bands covering them, vertically on the torso, horizontally on the arms. The arms also have "tongues" that stretch down from the "shoulder pads" almost to his elbow, on the outside of the arm.
And I think that covers it!
