A few thoughts on boobplate:
I understand that it’s a dealbreaker for some of you, with good reason.
I don’t personally agree, historical authenticity is not really what I, at least, am looking for here – and frankly, no offense to you loveable armor nerds out there, I tend to think a lot of it is bullshit, too. Arguing about the most practical efficiency at all times is not really a sound observation of human nature, folks.
Roman legionnaires were running around in articulated armor long before Joel Schumacher was stickin’ nipples on the batsuit, and that’s hardly the short of it, I’ll just jerk a thumb over at unatheblade’s post here.
Historical authenticity isn’t at stake here. Empowerment and fantastical believability is, and that’s going to be subjective as hell. For me (and for, I presume, a large majority of artists), identifiability is still going to be important, which is why a lot of these women probably aren’t going to be wearing helmets. It’s simply going to be harder to think “wow, this chick is badass, I could be her” if every picture is just some big unisex walking tank.
I like to think we can all come together on agreeing that a certain amount of popular armor design is pretty eye-rolly and I’m just interested in looking around for interesting and engaging designs that challenge that.
This blog – at least for me – is about appreciation. There’s room for implied critique, but I’m actually not interested in that being a focus. But I’ve left photo-replies on for this post, so go for it, discuss away.
You make a lot of good points, but it often just look so silly to me. I’m not saying boobplates can’t be used in an interesting and engaging way, I’m just saying that they usually aren’t. Its more about someone going,”well what the point of have a female character if I can’t see her boobies.” ( I’m probably being really cinical so feel to prove me wrong.) I also feel like there are more interesting ways to differentiate between sexes than just putting boobs on something. Also, you underestimate, “big unisex walking tanks.” Those kind of designs can be really cool.
Anyway, I definitely agree that creativity shouldn’t have to be sacrificed for authenticity.
I mainly agree with this comment here. I’ve seen boobplates that work and ones that really don’t (unfortunately the majority are the ones that don’t). I like the ones that aren’t detailed down to, like, the nipple (cause that just seems insincere, like one wants to have their cake and eat it too), if it doesn’t seem like they’re being overtly focused to the detriment of the rest of the armor then that’s fine. I also tend to be okay with the one single bump that curves around the chest (like that knight templar picture from Magic )
I guess, for me, it’s all about the degree.