You know, I seriously wish that 3D clothing designers would stop making “fantasy” outfits with ridiculous high heeled boots. I can’t count the number of really cool female fantasy costumes I’ve NOT put on my 3D model wish list because of that. If they’d at least have a second, low-heeled boot with the set, I’d be more willing to shell out for it. But having to dig through my archives to find bits and pieces to make up for the lack in proper foot wear really annoys me. And what the hell is up with making female armor with her vitals and major artery bearing tender bits exposed? I always have to do some second skin textures or layer something under to keep female armored characters from looking just stupid. I’m sorry, I like to make female warrior characters who can kick your ass in their spiffy protective armor and don’t have to rely on the cheesy “titties set to stun” method you assume they must be using in so much fantasy art. :-p
maybe if more women and poc played video games, they would be just as popular. it’s not wanting to see more if there are hardly any in the first place.
Wario is not really sure what it is that you’re trying to say, but it sounds like you’re arguing “Women and people of color don’t play video games, why should there be more women and poc characters in gaming?”
A Neilsen survey found African American people spend more time playing video games than whites do.
Not that it should even matter that much if women and people of color make up 1% or 99% of gamers. Representation needs to happen anyways, and it needs to be positive, or else we end up with horrible regressive stereotypes.
Regarding the upsettingly common “argument” that video games get a free pass for their sexist/racist designs, because allegedly not enough women/PoC play them.
Always good to have those statistics linked as a handy resource/reference.
Remember that animated parody of bikini armor I reblogged some time ago?
Turns out it was a pilot to short-lived series on Mondo Media that made fun of some sexist fantasy tropes (like jiggle physics here).
Here’s the second episode that comments on what I call Skimpy High Level where the strength upgrade somehow downgrades the amount of material used on character’s outfit.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Maybe it’s because you’re taking the same strategy you would in designing characters for comics or video games and applying it to real people, except fictional characters are a representation of how you choose to see people or wish them to be portrayed, whereas real people get to do their own choosing, because nothing is more sexist than denying someone the right to choose, regardless of what that choice may be.
anomenon submitted:
Heroic nudity is great, but for it to work, you need to give the figure a body someone can fear in battle. Quite honestly, there’s a very wide range of muscular female body types, just as long as it looks like the girl can lift her weapon and use it effectively it should be good.
Nothing against super-model thinness except that the front-lines of an ancient battle field seems to be the wrong place for it. An archer may be a little more appropriate though…
Thank you for submission! Great art 🙂
I would go and say that supermodel-thin women are not necessary all unable to hold heavy weapons, but their body type is definitely over-represented in popular media compared to any other, including various athletic female bodies.
It is a fact that muscle mass develops in different ways, depending on the type of physical activities the person engages in, thus female athletes can look as different as such:
(from left to right: bodybuilder, two weightlifters and two rhytmic gymnasts)
Sadly, as far as male warrior bodies are represented in many different ways (some more, some less believable), female ones usually are defaulted to generic thin figure with bust size as the only variation (if there’s even variation to speak of). And the rare exceptions tend to be… problematic.
Thank you again, anomenon, for bringing that issue up.
Incidentally I have an issue of ‘La geste des chevaliers dragons’ in my reference pile, because the cityscapes and castles are fantastic, I just thought I should point out that the characters wearing very little armour tend to be savagely eviscerated for their stupidity, not that it isn’t incredibly fan servicy and ridiculous despite that, but at least there are no inexplicably impervious navels.
As Ami of eschergirls and lady-knight- (in her comment) noted, it seems like Ange intended their comic to be subversive of fantasy clichés (so female virgins slay dragons instead of being kidnapped by them), but the execution indulges in harmful narratives (like demonizing women’s sexuality).
I don’t really think that letting scantily-clad warriors die for drama justifies making them scantily-clad in the first place.
It may work in comedy, but La geste des chevaliers dragons (or at least the first issue, the only one I managed to read) never makes fun of those costumes, just assumes we’re supposed to accept them as a sign of female empowerment or some other misogynistic bullshit.
The only character that commented on Jaïna’s non-armor was framed as a sexist dude who’s jealous of dragon slayer’s status, so… yeah, the readers probably weren’t supposed to agree with him.
