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.
It’s probably fair to say that women in fantasy RPGs are the industry’s most highly endangered species.
I mean, these are women who take on entire monster-infested dwarven mines wearing nothing but a bit of moulded plate metal over their chests and a chainmail g-string.
If it’s not disembowelling, it’s probably going to be some kind of really nasty infection from all that… chafing.
The Games of Chance: FEATURE – inequality in character design.
The Games of Chance: FEATURE – inequality in character design.
image by Redditor stareattheart
This is an all-around amazing article that on top of discussing the problem of sexist designs is sprinkled with great exemplifying images and quotes.
Very importantly, written from the male perspective and giving some insight on how would a man feel about representation of his gender if it was eqally sexualized and objectified as it is with women now.
Just ignore this one little line that uses word “feminism” (and “masculism”), the author didn’t really know the definition back then.
Scribblings or Something: Taking breastplates too literally…
Scribblings or Something: Taking breastplates too literally…
If the same thing was done with the man’s armour – say, the inclusion of a large, protruding armoured codpiece – most people would say ‘That looks ridiculous’. But for some reason this sort of silliness generally isn’t pointed out when women’s armour is sexualised.
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
After discussing the disturbing attitude towards female protagonists in video game industry Jimquisition once again tackles the topic of gender in games by commenting on controversy around Dragon’s Crown female character designs.
Sorry to post again about not-exactly-warrior-outfits, but it’s a very relevant case concerning strictly related areas (character design, women in popular culture).
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
