Fire Emblem: Pantsening, Part 2

I seriously needed Icy’s last post to remind me where that character comes from! With all those anime-style underclad game heroines I can not tell anymore the difference between That Popular jRPG Which Panders to Perverts More With Every New Game, That Harem Thing With Undressed “Defeated” Sprites and That Sexy Flower Warrior Girl Hentai. Turns out it was the first one. ¯_(ツ)_/¯


So the character I worked with is Cherche, the wyvern rider. You can totally tell that this lady mounts a big scaly monster by the all the protection her legs get against the chafing, right? 

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And then there’s the very practical bare back. 

It’s one of those very frustrating designs which you can tell were referenced from some real armor and had some interesting shape language incorporated, then at some point someone just went “FUCK IT, WE NEED TO SEE SOME SKIN!” and cut out a huge chunk of fabric in a few vital places. 

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It’s a shame, because while I doubt the practicality of her perforated pauldrons and tassets, they’re very interesting visually and make her costume stand out so much better than the shmexy back and thigh cutouts do. 

So, of course, my main goal was to get rid of those holes and make it look like a full set of armor. While the pants demanded only to patch those holes with the color of the fabric, I figured that doing the same for the back would be boooring. So I decided to add a tabard, which would also be a splash of color this grey-navy design so desperately needs. I went for rosy pinkish color similar to her hair and lined with golden detailing based on the design on her axe. I’m quite proud of how it came out.

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The shape of the tabard also helped to mask  the @eschergirls anatomy and not to make this picture all about her butt.

Smaller, but still relevant change was turning her weird batwing gorget (?) into a full helmet (with grilling similar to that on her shoulders and hips). It’s not supposed to be realistic of fully protective, but counts for something.
She, as an axe wielder, should really know that a lacy kerchief won’t protect her cranium from getting split open. 

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~Ozzie

@vertiga submitted:

I saw this magazine in tesco and stared at it for a good minute just going ??? This is the cover image they chose for a magazine about the *essential* things for fantasy artists to learn, and doesn’t that just say it all?

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We featured this magazine on the blog before, but it never got bingo’ed! Now that’s been rectified.

This design honestly looks like when you’re drawing the figure to figure out pose and what not, and end up putting way too much detail into it that you like. And then you feel bad for having to put clothes on top of your hard work, so you just kinda… stick some liquid metal to the essential areas, add some small decorative pieces, and call it good.

“Create better characters” indeed.

But worry not, everyone, their standards for the actual in-magazine content is the same:

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She’s supposed to be a ranger.

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-Icy

More Bad Drawing Guides on BABD

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Sooooo….. this is a thing.

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This the Demonic skin for Aurelia, an angel character in Heroes of the Storm. She normally looks like this:

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So of course when she becomes a demon (or almost, according to the backstory blurb), she wears an S&M outfit, cause that’s what demons are about? Where’s my S&M Azmodan skin, then, Blizzard?? 

The closest a male equivalent outfit gets is the Demonic Imperius skin, where he shows off his abs but unfortunately doesn’t wear a leather harness.

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At least he wears hot pants, but at the same time, he gets, like, a legitimate chest piece. Auriel is getting a nip slip the second she casts anything, assuming angels have nipples. Imperius also has an actual demonic appearance about him, whereas Auriel is just a Hot Chick with red wings. The fact that none of the angels have faces only makes it worse with her design.

Ugh. It’s such a shame, they could have made her actually scary-looking, but we can’t have that. After all, even an alien insect queen has to have a hot skin.

-Icy

This design comes from a game about Norse mythology. I challenge you, our readers, to take a guess at which character from Norse mythology this is. I’ll wait.

Did you say Hel, who is the villain of the game Viking: Battle for Asgard? If you did, you must have read our post about Foldable Human Dan Olson looking into So Bad They’re Good games from a few months back. Because that awfully specific answer is indeed correct…. unfortunately.

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I can’t even comprehend what the art direction was for this concept. What in the Hel (ha) is this? I was only able to find this single promo picture where the full glory of this design is shown, which I can only assume is because if she stands in any other way, that belt bra will slip off. 

But let’s also not forget Freya, who also makes an appearance in the game!

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-Icy

[Pictured above: A fighter with a “Machiavellian philosophy and appearance.”]

Oh boy, it’s what I’ve been dreading when the Soul Calibur VI character releases started; another uninspired lingerie-esque outfit for Ivy

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[ x5 ]

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It’s so aggressively boring that the details they added, like the lace on her stockings and the cords around her sides, somehow make it even less interesting. She looks like she’s cosplaying herself. They also seem to have removed the snake motifs she had previously, and replaced them with… uhh, generic skulls, I guess? Cause that’s intimidating and not overdone at all.

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[Ivy, thinking “What, you thought this was going to be a good design? Ha!” with a knowing smile]

I guess I’ll give the devs credit for giving her a boob window while also showing off about 70% of her breasts (the lace doesn’t count as covering). That’s some next-level dedication.

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What is it with companies thinking that professional, Machiavellian female characters wear fetish outfits?

-Icy

This week on Blizzard Does Women Better, Watch as they introduce a new hero to their free MOBA Heroes of the Storm via sexy demon skins for the ladies! How Original™!

The three lucky ladies are Jaina, Zagara and Sonya (from left to right):

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(Though, don’t be fooled by that awesome concept art of Sonya, her in-game model is of smaller frame and has no defined muscles.)

So let’s take these in order, shall we?

Jaina is an ice wizard (basically) whose regular outfit just looks really stupid, besides not making any sense. Her demon skin replaces her 70s pants with booty shorts, and while she does gain “armor,” it’s in the laziest possible way. [x]

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Her design brings to mind the Draenor, rather than demons. It’s so generic, I don’t even have anything to say… And what’s with the colors?

As for Zagara, you may notice that she is not even a person. She’s the “Broodmother of the Swarm,” an “ant queen” type of creature; she doesn’t even have a face, despite that strange exoskeleton boobplate. The maw in the front of her bug abdomen spews various things in combat. So of course her demon skin makes her Hot Bug Lady. [x]

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I mean, we know she has weird bug arms and huge bubbling pustules on her insect-like abdomen, but look at those titties! This is the second Zagara skin that gives her a sexy face, but why include her in this particular promotion at all, for the release of a lich character from WoW? Do they think their zerg-birthing monster needs more sexy lady skins to even out the fact that she’s a bug? ಠ_ಠ

Finally, we have Sonya, the lady barbarian from Diablo III. Her demon skin still reveals about as much as her regular, although for some reason she has platform shoes now? This is called the Death Knight. Much spooky. [x]

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Also, the design screams “we didn’t know how to make her demonic.” There is a skull on every piece of armor she’s wearing, and her weapons! This is even more baffling when you realize that this skin came out concurrently with the Deathbringer skin: 

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It’s the exact same skin (save for the weapons), except no spooky scary helmet, and actual padding under her armor… so why?? Why did they take the padding away from the Death Knight skin? I thought they were just doing the typical fantasy barbarian thing, where they sort of wear kind-of clothes, but apparently not!

Doing women better, though.

-Icy