Avatar: The Way of Water is a monumental project that required a lot of work in many different areas, including costume design. While costumes might not be the first thing that catches the eye among the dizzying array of strange plants, alien creatures, and sci-fi tech in the film, it’s still a crucial aspect of the world of Pandora. The costume designer for Avatar: The Way of Water, Deborah Lynn Scott, spoke with Variety on the process, which took hundreds of hours for even a single costume:

While 3D printing may be cheaper and faster than making something by hand, many times, it pays off to craft the real thing, according to Scott. It’s something she learned while serving as the costume designer for the original Avatar over a decade ago:

“We followed a lot of the template of the first movie and took it to a higher and more complicated standard. With the Na’vi world, I think on average it took around 200 hours per garment. That was without the research time before that to decide if it was going to be a real shell, a 3D-printed shell or a laminate shell. We kept returning to the natural world and the natural shells because those are the ones that really give life. We found that all this magic of 3D printing, which we did in some cases to augment, wasn’t as good as what was real, handcrafted, sculpted by hand and individual bespoke pieces.”

“The thing we learned from the first film was the value of physically creating every piece of ornamentation and costume, just so you can see how it flows and how it wears. Because the costumes are so detailed, it’s like a texture map unto itself. Whereas, if it’s just a drawing, you’re never going to get the complexity that we wanted.”

Costumes for The Way of Water Were Specifically Designed to Go Underwater

     20th Century Studios

Many of the scenes from The Way of Water were literally filmed underwater, presenting many challenges. Scott describes how this affected costume design:

Cooler colors don’t ‘pop’ underwater as much as they do on dry land, which producer and director James Cameron says affected their color choice:

“There was a lot of water testing. We did it in Wellington, New Zealand, and all over the city. We had to look at hair simulation and how curly or braided hair would look as it went from dry to wet to dry with the drips coming off. A lot of it was experimenting and researching different fibers to see what would happen. We also wanted the costumes to have the right buoyancy, so we learned a lot about color going deep in the water. Everything became extremely blue.”

Avatar: The Way of Water is currently showing in theaters as of Dec. 16. It is directed, produced, and written by James Cameron and stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, and Stephen Lang. 20th Century Studios distributes the film, available now.

“I think that’s what put us on the warmer end of the spectrum for Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and the Reef people. Even though gray, greens and teals were beautiful on their skin, the bright yellows and reds played well underwater, where you start to lose those colors rapidly and they would pop out against the reef.”