So if you want to wear some sculpted armor to the Ren Faire because you feel fabulous-looking in it, go forth and have fun! But if you’re drawing lady soldiers, or creating female characters who are depicted as actual warriors, please err on the side of reality when designing their armor. Science says your boob plates are killing the women you hoped they would protect. And none of us want that.
It’s Time to Retire “Boob Plate” Armor. Because It Would Kill You
It’s Time to Retire “Boob Plate” Armor. Because It Would Kill You
spinnywizards submitted:
Another ‘stop drawing boob plate’ article, via Penny Arcade
YES! This is perfect.
And my collection of articles on how boobplate is a major armor design flaw grows…
It shows what a prevalent problem boobplate is when its obvious badness needs to be iterared so often.
A very relevant quote from this article:
So if you want to wear some sculpted armor to the Ren Faire because you feel fabulous-looking in it, go forth and have fun! But if you’re drawing lady soldiers, or creating female characters who are depicted as actual warriors, please err on the side of reality when designing their armor.
Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits
An excellent breakdown of major problems with female fantasy armor and a few suggestions on how to make female warrior sexy/appealing without stripping her off protection.
Written from the perspective of actual armorer.
EDIT: For all math fans, the author also recommended his follow-up post that examines formula from the above image in detail.
edit 2: Updated the links
As if that wasn’t enough, twin-bulged breastplates ignore the anatomical makeup of the female breast itself. To make a long story short, the breast largely consists of fat and modified sweat glands (for the production of milk, that is), and hence it’s not nearly as solid as a comparable mass of muscle. So all but the largest breasts can be bound quite flat against the woman’s chest without occasioning too much discomfort. In turn, this means a fighting woman probably isn’t going to need a breastplate with a chest profile larger than one worn by a fighting man of a similar height and general body shape, and therefore it’s quite likely that the woman would simply fit into the man’s breastplate with the aid of some padding to make up the slack in the waist and shoulders.
Why female breastplates don’t need breast-bulges
(The article was deleted since. You can read its mirror copy on archive.com here.)
