So I was looking for some silly RPGs to play to pass the time and I found Valiant Force, which is where this lovely piece of work comes from.
And a piece of work it is. It’s always a trip to see generic bikini armor that is at the same time exceptionally overdesigned. (Also I just want to note that her back leg is fully on the ground, heel and all, which means her legs are different lengths.)
So Valiant Force is another mobile action MMO where you collect the greatest “Heroes (capitalized) to have ever existed.” And just like all the other similar games we’ve featured here, the sexy girl aspect of it is completely irrelevant to gameplay. Or anything.
But that doesn’t stop the game’s website to feature this in its promotional art:
So much creativity on display here…! ༼ ಠل͟ಠ༽
-Icy
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One of the complete redesigns I did when we first started streaming: Morgana from League of Legends. I read her background blurb and got angry cause she has a lot of potential with a backstory involving familial strife, law vs. chaos as ideology, and resorting to dark powers to fight for what you believe in. But her design was…. just generic bra and skirt, and some evil makeup, I guess?? Ugh. So I basically started from scratch, which means this write-ups is gonna be just a little longer than the first.
More under the cut.
What Stayed In:
I kept the color scheme, for the most part, the belt part of her skirt, and her posture. Or rather… what I think her posture was supposed to be, cause she sure doesn’t look hunched over in the original, more like she’s got a sore shoulder.
So not much.
Initial Redesign Ideas:
I decided that Morgana should be more monstrous because of the dark magic she was using. I wanted to give her more colors than just purple and gold (LoL has a problem with 2-color costumes), so I went for a sickly green that would add to the “wrongness” of her design, as well as hint at multiple sources of corruption. They tried to make her look malnourished, I guess?? –
[Not even the splash artist was sure what was going on with her torso.]
–so I pushed it to the extreme in the redraw. I was also trying to maintain triangles as the main shape in the design.
Storytelling Elements and Later Additions:
So, Morgana has a sister in the game who fights against her, named Kayle.
I wanted to add elements of that old life to her appearance, so I changed her hair to blonde, like her sister’s. I also gave Morgana a tabbard similar to Kayle’s, with the same symbol on it, albeit old and worn-out. Forgotten, almost. The final change I did was adding the corrupted halo. The blurb on Morgana’s life sounds very obviously disapproving of her life choices, but I was more interested in making the sisters not so cut-and-dry good or evil. Kayle is very lawful, so she has to eliminate evil, at any cost. Morgana disagrees with that kind of ideology, and ends up resorting to making some bad deals in order to face her sister. Is either of them right? They both sound like they’re suffering in their respective positions. So I wanted Morgana to be a bit more sympathetic and interesting.
Final Thoughts:
You could call me out for giving her even less clothes than she had before, but I would argue that it makes sense in this context. Morgana’as power comes from dark, unnatural magic, unlike her sister’s armor and sword (Kayle’s equipment has a backstory of its own). I feel like she would have continued to give more and more of herself to gain more power, possibly even to the point where she can’t wear armor anymore.
But I didn’t give her a silly bikini and buttcrack-showing skirt and call it a day. The developers couldn’t even be bothered to give her any indications of her backstory. If they had at least given her some deformities or something, I probably wouldn’t have been so angry. At least something fun came out of it.
Pictured: Venator, leader of the elves, from the free Steam game Lost Lands: Mahjong. Not even mahjong solitaire games are safe from bikini armor. Tentative bingo, because while all signs point to that being a thong there’s no evidence either way, as this is the only angle ever shown. From this angle, no cleavage is actually visible, and there’s no indication of whether or her boots end in heels. I wasn’t sure whether or not the spirals on the boobs counted as nipple additions, considering how much they highlight the center of the breasts. I could have marked the upper right square, considering the one shot you get of a male elf has him in reasonable armor, but as he was several centuries old I magnanimously decided that after so much time, elvish fashion could have advanced for men.
Creepy Marketing Guy is getting his hands on mahjong now? Yikes. I’m not even sure what kind of audience this is aimed at… Who are they expecting to advertise to who wasn’t already going to play mahjong?
In
relation to the “Super Manga Matrix” book, I actually have a fairly
similar book called the “costume matrix” and well… It’s far more helpful
than what I’ve seen of the other book.
its
basically the same concept, take a “base” clothing style (school
uniform, military uniform, japanese clothes, gothic/formal, casual,
foreign cultures) and mix it with another base, or with a “motif”
(animal, elements, scifi/mecha, seasons, plants).
each section of
the book has one of the bases and combines it, usually showing at least
two designs (in terms of motifs though, there may be more than one
design but they would use something different i.e. having four school
uniform x animal examples but with four different specific animals) so
there’s a little more variety
It’s
mostly a reference book rather than a “how to draw” and even then they
have a little brainstorming game using web diagrams and word association
to make a design
It’s got absolutely no escher girl posing however they do have a few slightly questionable designs
the worst of the bunch being this girl
it
is combining Military clothing as a base (specifically armor) and a
dragon and they got this. Granted its far better than what I’ve seen of
most womens’ armor(even by the same author) but it is a disappointing
one compared to everything else
I guess what I’m trying to say is, here is the same concept, with better designers
That’s really cool! And it does seem very helpful for brainstorming, especially since they show you a variety of combinations and bases!
The dragon armor amuses me, but I do like how the dragon design wraps around her, even if it’s bikini armor x3
Thanks for sharing!
Sigh, even in a practical interesting book that helps with costume design there had to be a physics-denying bikini armor, huh?
Oh boy, it’s what I’ve been dreading when the Soul Calibur VI character releases started; another uninspired lingerie-esque outfit for Ivy!
[ x5 ]
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.
[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.
What is it with companies thinking that professional, Machiavellian female characters wear fetish outfits?
