Tag: commentary

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isadora-the-explorer

replied to your photo

“Wait.. this is from the same game as this!? Dammit creepy marketing…”

I’m confused.. what is bad about this?
And in your other post about this you seemingly mock women/men who do work in Cabaret “I’m sure it’s just a co-incidence that all the others got actual occupations” like what.. are you even saying here.

Femme fatale != cabaret performer. Femme fatale is not an occupation. Femme fatale is a trope based in the fear that every beautiful and flirtatious woman is secretly planning to seduce you so that she can destroy you and take your stuff.  It is insulting to cabaret performers and female performers in general to reduce them all down to such a thing.

Cabaret Hostess, Showgirl, Cigarette Girl, Barmaid, Musician, Can-Can Dancer, Stand Up Comedian, Waitress, Lounge Singer, Magician’s Assistant, Stage Kitten, – these are all jobs linked to cabaret that a woman might have.  Standing on stage in a sexy outfit while one guy looks on is not any of these jobs or any other job.

Imagine they introduce the quartet like this:

“A beefcake bad boy, smouldering loner, charming show off and a cabaret hostess.”

Also imagine she’s dressed in similarly practical clothes instead of a fragile costume with high heels (x)

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Now ask yourself: Why did she have to have a “sexy” job in the first place? Seriously, why can’t she be say? A mechanic like Grace Wagner was?

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From the start of the 1920s to the end of the 1940s (The Golden Age of Burlesque) was a really interesting time for changes in roles for women in America and many other nations? Why would you want to only (badly) remember (and misrepresent) the showgirls?

I mean, look at the line up from the franchise that started the four survivors vs zombies games.  Look at Zoey (college student and horror movie junkie) and Rochelle (assistant tv producer and Depeche Mode fan):

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Video games and media in general need to get out of this habit of making sure they put in at least one “every man” character, then some additional options for men and limit the inclusion of women to “the sexy lady” with no further consideration. There is nothing wrong with sexy ladies or ladies who make a profession out of being sexy – there is a huge problem with creators choosing to represent women only as such regardless of suitability.

– wincenworks

Posted on

pixelcut:

WOOO I did a redesign of this hot monstrosity. The screen shots used in this post were provided by doctorsanity, who submitted them to bikiniarmorbattledamage

Look, I’ve been employed as a designer for two years now, and maybe that’s not that long; I’m at least sure I don’t have the same kind of industry experience that the designers in charge of this train wreck probably do, but I do know one thing: 

Design that fails to communicate its intended message is bad design. 

It is, in my opinion, the chore element that separates what we do from Fine Art – fine art is a personal expression. Someone can argue with the conclusions that you came to in fine art but ultimately, it’s your territory, your message, your composition, your voice, your story.

When you’re a hired designer, everything changes. It’s their story, their character, their message, their voice.

Putting aside the obvious pandering and intent to profit off of misogynistic ideals in female video game characters for just an instant, let’s talk about Charlotte.

Charlotte [evidently, from what I’ve admittedly heard through the grapevine; this game is not yet out in my country] uses a masquerade of charm and innocence to seduce men for their wealth. When I heard this, I was shocked, because from the moment I saw her outfit, she never looked like someone I could trust.

If she’s supposed to look demure, make her look demure, goddammit. You shouldn’t need a greenhorn like me to tell you these things. Learn to treat your female characters with more respect.

Awesome redesign accompanied by an awesome writeup, thank you, pixelcut!

One more thing I’d add about the difference between design (hired or not) and fine art, is that design is supposed to serve the same purpose for everyone who sees it. To communicate an intended message, as pixelcut puts it.

The problem with how Charlotte looks basically boils down to the whole issue our blog concerns: that a lot of female character designs, particularly female warrior costumes, do not tell us who we’re dealing with. Lingerie models, maybe, but not warriors, especially not if male characters of the same or similar class establish a completely different aesthetic.

~Ozzie

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ottolla:

Text post got me thinking. Now, I want a world, or whatever, where the female “bikini armor” really is as strong as normal. Protects with magic or something, I don’t much care. And pretty much every woman wears them. I mean, same protection, but loads less weight? Sign me up! And then over the bikini armor, you wear whatever you want. Cute sundress? Fully protected. Tee and jeans? Fully protected. Leather armor? Double protected? Idk. 

Just a verse full of ladies in bikinis with normal clothes on top, so you never know who is a secret badass. It’d be great.

That sounds like the only acceptable reason to excuse the existence of magical bikini armor.

It’s still laughable how a simple logical question like “if the bikini gives her total protection, why wouldn’t she wear it over or under more comfortable clothes?” is always handwaved. Usually with something akin to “but she needs to wear bikini and only bikini for the magic to work”, which translates to “fanservice is mandatory!”.
Dear writers, if you can’t explain that in another way than “cause that makes me (and my presumed audience) horny” (and believe me, you can’t), please stop pretending that your story is something else than dramatized softcore porn.

~Ozzie

Posted on

ottolla:

Text post got me thinking. Now, I want a world, or whatever, where the female “bikini armor” really is as strong as normal. Protects with magic or something, I don’t much care. And pretty much every woman wears them. I mean, same protection, but loads less weight? Sign me up! And then over the bikini armor, you wear whatever you want. Cute sundress? Fully protected. Tee and jeans? Fully protected. Leather armor? Double protected? Idk. 

Just a verse full of ladies in bikinis with normal clothes on top, so you never know who is a secret badass. It’d be great.

That sounds like the only acceptable reason to excuse the existence of magical bikini armor.

It’s still laughable how a simple logical question like “if the bikini gives her total protection, why wouldn’t she wear it over or under more comfortable clothes?” is always handwaved. Usually with something akin to “but she needs to wear bikini and only bikini for the magic to work”, which translates to “fanservice is mandatory!”.
Dear writers, if you can’t explain that in another way than “cause that makes me (and my presumed audience) horny” (and believe me, you can’t), please stop pretending that your story is something else than dramatized softcore porn.

~Ozzie

Posted on

slushpilehell:

slushpilehell:

Have you ever wondered how chain mail would feel against your skin on a cold winter’s day?

Duh. Who hasn’t?

Plenty of people haven’t. Particularly costume/character designers who think that chainmail is somewhere between latex and bodypaint in terms of thickness.

They’d probably get along with whoever wrote the quoted sentence and ended up in the slush pile.

~Ozzie

Given how often skin tight chainmail has made me cringe at that very thought, I am still amazed someone actually though this was a great way to pitch a book to anyone, let alone a literary agent.

– wincenworks

Posted on

slushpilehell:

slushpilehell:

Have you ever wondered how chain mail would feel against your skin on a cold winter’s day?

Duh. Who hasn’t?

Plenty of people haven’t. Particularly costume/character designers who think that chainmail is somewhere between latex and bodypaint in terms of thickness.

They’d probably get along with whoever wrote the quoted sentence and ended up in the slush pile.

~Ozzie

Given how often skin tight chainmail has made me cringe at that very thought, I am still amazed someone actually though this was a great way to pitch a book to anyone, let alone a literary agent.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Sexy is not bad. Stripping is not bad. Wearing sexy boots is not bad. You know what is bad? Pandering is. Being a lazy designer at the cost of catching a wider audience is.
A bounty hunter who runs over rugged terrain does not need stripper boots, she needs something with treads and function that can *gasp* still be sexy. I can picture a hybrid boot design that is feminine but rugged, functional but badass.
You know what conveys things like “boosters” and “power” and “high jump”? Springs, coils, energy cells, treads, jets… you don’t have to be literal but you also might want to show, not tell, what a prop does.

High-Jump Stripper Boots! by stephlaberis

Very important quote from this article regarding Samus’s high heels, but it applies to character and costume design in general.

~Ozzie

(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)

Worth bringing back that there’s nothing wrong with sexy in itself, but there’s a time and a place for everything.  When you’re trying to convey epic action and epic danger is not the time for epic sexy time clothes.

– wincenworks