Vayla and Joan for @nightpiercer
I do love me some ladies that are dressed and ready to kick ass. Destiny (and its sequel) is a game that’s been pretty good about their armors remaining functional when a woman wears them. The class distinction here is also very clear with the designs, even if Joan didn’t have a bow out. These women are clearly armored for different purposes.
When the game first came out, I personally found their armors functional but boring from a design standpoint, but it seems they’ve been coming out with some Fun Things lately. We might talk about those sometime. ?
-Icy
Fixing Some Grim Designs ?, Part 1
Well, it was inevitable that we’d tackle Zenescope in a livestream, considering the kinds of terrifying art that they pump out. And I’m not even talking about their Terror comics.
I decided to fix this cover from Grimm Fairy Tales, since I promised to y’all that I was going to redraw this gal. And I discovered what her name is! It’s Skye, and this is her… combat outfit? Her mom had a similar swimsuit, maybe she stole it off her corpse. Is that spoilers?
I basically ended up doing my usual: give the poor woman a breastplate and comfortable clothes, except I noticed that her bent leg looks weird. There aren’t a lot of comic heroes with physical disabilities that I know of, and I thought, why can’t we have a fairy tale about a disabled woman kicking ass?
I actually liked her face in this one, so all I gave her were thicker brows and a few battle scars. I also tried to make her at least a bit distinct from her mother by giving her some red hair.
Overall, I was going for a warrior who was plunged into the fighting life after her mom died, but maybe she still also wants a life of her own. I don’t know what the actual character motivations are, if they even exist.
Maybe I should have given her a different skirt shape…
-Icy
Supergirl Suit Redesigns, by Grace Kooken (Earth Ambassador Suit @ top)
Y’all need to check out the original page for this right now. There are breakdown images of each suit, with glow-in-the-dark options and turnarounds. And there are some other fun suits, like a Sun Suit and a Tank-Buster Suit.
These are all so fun, and each has its own style and flair. And they’re situation-appropriate! They’re really a joy to look at. I love how the more typical suits she would wear day-to-day keep to her established color scheme, but the “special” suits dip into different colors, but not in a way that makes her unrecognizable. Except maybe the Earth Ambassador suit, because she’s not representing herself in that context, but it comes with the coolest cloak in the known universe, so I don’t even care.
Check out the artist’s gallery for more fun characters and clay work, if that’s your thing.
-Icy
Gotham Girls RPG redesign for fun 🙂 They actually make a very well-balanced team! I was originally going to do them all as knights but then saw Mindy Lee’s Poison Ivy Druid and got inspired. www.instagram.com/kelseyeng32
I love seeing women in fantasy worlds with practical and pretty outfits that fit their personalities
@bikiniarmorbattledamage I suppose you would be interested in this
Oh, we are very interested. ? I love how every gal has her own distinct style, and their armor/clothes are actually… appropriate… for their roles???? There are so many subtle details on each of the ladies, and y’all know how much I love those. I particularly like the fresh take on Harley, because just the “jester” look, separate from Harley, has kind of become boring and same-y over the years, but this version is different and fun and cool. That hat + pigtails idea is Gold.
I would play the crap out of this RPG if it existed, though there’s no healer… Would Ivy begrudgingly hand out healing potions?
-Icy
practice, by Ningbo Jiang
This is one of many “practice” pieces from this artist, and damn! That’s some good frigging practice. ? This reminds me of Evie’s armor from that one Assassin’s Creed game, but less boring to look at from a distance. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Evie’s default costume, but to me personally, it only gets Good when you can look at all the stitching detail up close. Is this an unpopular opinion?)
I love the textures and layering going on, and I highly recommend checking out the full-size image. The thing that drew me to this is the elegant practicality of the design. That triangle of red accents in the center of her really pulls it together. The careful choice of which colors to saturate makes the design cohesive, I think. I just really like it, okay?
-Icy
Shard Mortal Trespasser
@the-midnight-doe submitted (and Ozzie bingo’d):
Here’s a good example of how “fully armored” doesn’t mean a thing if said armor is still sexualized: this is Shard, Sideshow Collectible’s original character from their ongoing series “Court of the Dead”. The series already has plenty of questionable designs, but Shard here really stands out due to her backstory: she’s a mortal knight Templar that somehow wound up in the Underworld, whose inhabitants then made her armor for her. Highlights include the absolutely bizarre crotch plate (hard to tell if it’s a thong as the cape blocks the back view,) the insignia on her chest that just winds up looking like a literal “stab here” sign, and interesting footwear. It’s a shame, too, because her backstory sounds really interesting and the Court of the Dead series has some pretty beautiful dolls, but also has a metal bony groping hands bra because reasons.
Oh goodie, Sideshow Toys figures, we meet again! ? And this time you guys don’t even have the excuse of adapting someone else’s sexist design – it’s your own all original creation!
Obviously the bingo score isn’t very high, and I stretched definition of “male equivalent” to “all male-presenting characters in the series”. However, while not bikini-shaped or skimpy, impossibly skin-tight armor is still a staple of BABD content.
The fact that metal gives no additional girth to any part of her body made me confident in marking off the “No padding, just bare skin.” square, despite no bare skin at display.
And no, the “fine bone filaments of this protective encasement were woven around her form by the osteomancers and artisans of the dead” Thermian argument doesn’t excuse the sexualized design one bit.
Saddest part is that this is what she looked like in her backstory:
This is so much more interesting in every way: costume, posing, expression, even painting detail. Textbook positive example. What a downgrade!
Thank you for the submission, @the-midnight-doe! Hope you don’t mind me bolding part I found most telling about Shard’s problem.
Considering how other female Court of the Dead characters look, we’re likely to revisit the property, with bingos and/or redesigns, later.
~Ozzie