ravenhull submitted

One thing that’s always bugged me just as much, if not more, as battle bikini’s and boobplates is what I sometimes refer to a ‘spandex chainmaile’.

Now, I’ve been involved with a medieval recreation group (The Society for Creative Anachronism), and have handled and even worn maile myself.  And the simple fact is that chainmaile’s only function is to keep you from being cut. As I used to say at demos, it turns a sword strike into a baseball bat hit.  And even then, it’s almost useless against bludgeoning and piercing weapons  As a result, people who wear chain, both today and in history, augmented it with a heavy padded tunic, often with leather or metal plates in vital areas.

And that’s what bothers me looking at artists who think putting chainmaile on their subjects just means drawing links on skin (and there are plenty examples of pics of men in maile where you can make out their pecs and ‘six-pack’).  All that is going to do is add some useless weight to the wearer.

But, as we all know, realistic armor isn’t ‘sexy’…

You possibly found the scariest image of skin-tight ‘armor’ on the Internet. Chainmail boobsocks + metal-protruding nipples… the horror, the horror!

Great commentary! Thank you so much for sharing it (I bolded some parts for emphasis). ‘Spandex chainmail’ or skin-tigh metal of any kind is probably the most physics-defying trope concerning female armor.
The funniest thing about it is that actual spandex (or latex or any actually skin-hugging material) doesn’t act that way either… neither does a naked female body.