Tag: costume design

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pressfirmlytoclose:

When Samus was in armor, guys respected her (and even said they wanted her armor). But girls didn’t give a damn. They still don’t give a damn about her in armor, whenever I see fanart of it, the artist is almost always a guy. But now that Nintendo is pushing her as a big-breasted latex model with a nice butt, fangirls are drawing her, saying they idolize her and want to be her (and saying they want her SHOES). Care to weigh in on what’s up with that?

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

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So… since I haven’t heard anything like this… I went and asked one of my gamer friends who happens to be a woman what she thought. Here’s how she started her response:

“Please provide sources, if you’re going to attempt to tar girls with the same brush that is clearly lubricated by entitled male gamer tears, then you must provide the burden of proof.”

From there the rage intensifies and it gets kinda nerdy, so I shall just share the highlights:

“You’re referencing art of ZERO SUIT Samus, which rose to popularity with Super Smash Bros, which has targeted a younger demographic.  It’s become commonplace to see Samus OUT of her suit rather than in it, despite it being an iconic image of Metroid. Back in itty bitty pixels, we saw as a bonus at the end of a game that Samus was a girl, thats it.”

“If they’d spent any time actually IN the gaming community of tumblr … then they’d be aware that the community ISN’T vocal in favour of Samus’ new look”

“She’s 6 foot 3 too, mind you, and weighs 90kg. The recent sexualisation/slimming of Samus is a move on NINTENDO’S part, not the gamer fangirl base.”

 So to make sure this wasn’t a one off, I asked another friend:

“Firstly, Dudebro McFedora, you have no basis to say that women don’t like Samus.  The odds are that you’ve probably never talked to a girl that’s played the games.”

From there the rage intensifies – so I will just share some of the highlights:

“I will say that I particularly want her shoes. They’re spark shooting death heels  to beat up people.  It’s wonderful; who wouldn’t want that?

They are not appropriate for SSB though BECAUSE THEY’RE FUCKING PUMPS.  You can’t run around in that shit!”

“Samus in her armor is fantastic because it creates this unique position where anyone can play her and entitled ‘macho boiz’ never think to say, “Oh shit I don’t want to play as the girl” or “Sweet, the girl character is fucking hot.””

“Samus Aran is my role model.”

Also, I seem to recall seeing amazing fan art by women:

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And amazing cosplays:

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This is not to say there aren’t female gamers who only discovered Samus when they announced her high heels of doom, female gamers who really want to cosplay Samus in heels because they’ll look cute and sexy or female gamers who like the Zero Suit better than the armors for other reasons.

I say this theoretically because I did look to try to find some of them, and between quick searches for them and searches to find choice examples of art and cosplays… I didn’t find a single woman who suggested that she only became interested in Samus due to the Jet Boot heels.

So if you have come across women who only got into Samus due to the high heels, it’s still quite ridiculous to decide those particular women are somehow representative of women or female gamers as a whole.  Particularly since the character first appeared in 1986 – so has had quite a while to grow a diverse fan base.

Trying to dismiss and/or erase huge numbers of female fans just so that you can try to pretend gender stereotypes are facts is pretty much the reason why the rage intensified. 

– wincenworks

Fan Artworks:

Cosplays

Bringing this old ask post back, because I couldn’t help but be reminded of it while browsing through other people’s reblogs of the Kitana/Jade redesign post. 

The “Girls didn’t give a shit about Samus before she became sexy and therefore cosplayable!” rhetoric makes just as much sense as “Women in Mortal Kombat are floss-bikini titninjas because it’s the female power fantasy and the cosplayers want that!”, which seems to be the go-to contrarian reaction to Brendan George’s slightly less misogynistic art direction in Mortal Kombat 11. 

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[image related to a Soul Calibur, not Mortal Kombat, character, but the “argument” is literally the same] 

Once again, all the props to @wincenworks​’ friends for how eloquently they described the nonsense of the asker’s (and, by proxy, all the other Dudebros McFedora’s) “logic”. 

TL;DR: People who obviously never spoke with any woman sure do feel the most eager to mansplain what women really want from female video game characters. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

~Ozzie 

notice: This is a reposting of this throwback, due to Tumblr queue being a total goober and initially publishing the Throwback Thursday post on Wednesday. 

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Argos – Clothing & uniforms, by Remy Paul

What’s this? Organizational uniforms that are not illogically altered for the women to be hot? The exploration suit even gives both the women and the men a slight heel, probably for that much-needed rocket boost. 

I am sad that the bridge crew lady gets tights instead of pants, and the artist is definitely hit-and-miss when it comes to their lady characters, but I still like these designs overall. The iron legion is, of course, my favorite. I just can’t say ‘no’ to a woman in combat boots and a gas mask.

-Icy

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DC Supersexy Boys Part 2 – J’onn J’onzz

Even though J’onn the Martian is shirtless in Injustice (and other media), I still wanted to redraw him. I’ll admit that he was a childhood crush of mine, back when the animated Justice League was on TV. I was disappointed to see this version of him, which was clearly not designed to appeal to people who liked his soft-spoken nature. So I decided to fix this missed opportunity.

A lot of the changes were textural: I made his skin smoother in a lot of places (decided to go hairless for this one, since he’s a Martian and all), and I actually made his muscles less pronounced. J’onn is a lithe, agile man, after all.

Beyond that, the significant changes were his pants area, and his face. (And of course, the cleavage window that I decided to add last-minute.)

I took away his stifling pants (where are his booty shorts??) and gave him a semi-transparent loincloth, as I’m wont to do. I figured, for this More Mature J’onn, maybe he wants to know what it’s like to have hanging bits? That’s what being more “mature” and “realistic” means, right?

As for his face, I wanted to recapture that animated Justice League look. I got rid of his cartoony Scowl of Doom, and instead gave him smooth, pleasant features. I decided to give him a cute blush at the last minute, too. Even Martians blush.

I do hope that other J’onn fans enjoy this redesign as much as I enjoyed working on it.

-Icy

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Avi is the only main female character in Generic Looking JRPG Bonds of the Skies and there’s a noticeable difference between how she and her fully-armored male teammates’ costume look, hmmm… ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°). 

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Her shoes looks stylish and comfy, I’ll give her that. Other parts not only serve zero protection against weather and battle damage, they also look like they’d slip off from her body within minutes of moving around. 

And before dudebros start flooding us again with their arguments that this is neither armor, nor the worst thing we ever bingoed or that shield is all the protection she needs for combat – Please read whatever you’re furiously typing again, delete it and rethink your life choices. Double standards is double standards, plain and simple. 

~Ozzie 

h/t: our own Icy for suggesting this for a bingo 

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freakin-edikan:

judgmentfist:

queen-gaymer:

Idk who they hired but I’m LIVING for these improvements

they did actually say who they hired! brendan george, a character artist

@bikiniarmorbattledamage

A lot of readers tagged us under this. 

And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that the 2 ladies have some breast support now, but their breasts are still very clearly accented by their clothes for some reason. The designs are getting better, sure. It’s definitely an improvement from a Child’s-Small-size Halloween costume with shoestring (not even a better version than Ozzie’s Green Arrow), but we can do better. 

I do hope that Brendan George continues to work hard with his team toward getting that “more mature and respectful” aesthetic that he wants. He’s not all the way there yet, I think.

-Icy

Definitely looking forward to more positive changes to Mortal Kombat character designs in the future, but so far it’s merely a step or two ahead of writing checks they cannot cash for “Doing women better”. Especially when the bar was set that low. 

Because are we really supposed to celebrate an exchange of a giant boob window for a smaller boob window on Kitana? 

And can we please remember that zombie Jade was never as desexualized as dudebros insist she was? At least her living version completely got rid of gratuitous cleavage… she still wears pin-thin heels throughout all skins, tho >_> 

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Once again, I’d encourage our readers to not settle for the smallest, safest improvements in female (and/or otherwise marginalized) representation. I get it, we’re starved. But we have the right to ask for more. 

~Ozzie 

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So I’ve been spending time in the female armor tag

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

fuckyouplanetearth:

New rule for female armor: if you design female armor and you wouldnt be willing to cosplay it, you’re making a mistake.

I’d like to propose an expansion of rule:

If you’re a guy and you’d wear it because “it’d be funny” but you wouldn’t respect a female cosplayer who wore it: You are a mistake.

– wincenworks 

Another caveat to the rule, inspired by an article we linked in the past: if a costume is (near*) impossible to replicate or too uncomfortable to wear for cosplayers – it fails as a costume. 

~Ozzie

Honestly, if a cosplayer would need to use double-sided tape in order to maintain their decency while wearing your costume, maybe just… don’t.

-Icy

*”Near impossible” only because cosplayers are amazing and can somehow make even the most absurd shit work on human bodies somehow. But at what cost?

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SAO/GGO Figurine Redraws, Part 2: The Incest Fairy 

Continuing the fixing of Sword Art Online heroines with Alfheim arc’s notable addition to the harem party, Leafa.  

Why do I call her The Incest Fairy? Well… people even remotely familiar with SAO’s lore are aware that this character’s sexualized design is only worse in the context of her story >_> 
The interesting twist is that this girl who joins the main character in the game  turns out to be his adoptive sister/cousin, literally playing in the next room. The creepy twist is that she happens to have a massive crush on him. 

As the Anime Pope sayeth, DON’T FUCK YOUR SISTER! 

So, there’s a lot of emphasis on Leafa’s ample cleavage here, with the creepy anime waifu hand gesture which I hate. I redrew her hand completely. 
Then I reworked her weird impractical cincher into something combined with a leather vest, to contain her breasts with something more than just the white top (which I made less boobsocky). Keep in mind her breasts aren’t smaller now, they’re just held together by actual clothes. 

I also decided to give her a bit less generic anime facial features, with a more prominent nose, chin and eyebrows. Also subtly changed her eyes’ expression and added some detail to the shading on her face and hair, so that it’s all more interesting and not as weirdly 2-dimensional on a 3D figurine. 

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Or course, her waist was tiny and her limbs stick-like, so I gave them some heft. The most head-scratching part of her costume were the tights that somehow just… disconnect in the middle of the thigh, then continue below like nothing happened. I made them whole, then added thin green stripes, to match the one stripe on each of her arms. Also, since there was little to no contrast between where the tights end and the boot begins, I recolored the upper part of the boots into golden rings, matching ones on her wrist. Now her legs and arms don’t look like designed separately. 

I also noticed what seems like a minor case of Imperial Walker Hip, or at the very least that her right leg is disjointed from her pelvis. Did the best I could to fix it with limited time and liquify tool at my disposal. It’s not ideal, but at least I also took that opportunity to not make her crotch visible from the cut in front of her skirt. I would probably repaint the whole pelvis section if I had to do it today, because even with some painting over the current results are kinda awkward. 

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I have no idea what those white… pillows she was standing on were, but they looked so weird and suspiciously boob-shaped (a thing really hard to not think about when looking at this figure), so I decided to erase them the best that I could with my Photoshop stamp tool skills. 

Overall, not the most creative or technically proficient of my work, but hopefully she ended up as something with more balanced design than just “DID YOU NOTICE I HAVE A CHEST?”, which seemed to be the principle of the original.

~Ozzie 

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SAO/GGO Figurine Redraws, Part 1: “Bulletproof Armor”

This one was Ozzie’s idea, as she’s heard a lot about Sword Art Online and then got me in on those videos. I decided to stay in the franchise but go to a different fictional MMO. This is Sinon from the in-anime game Gun Gale Online, which is about characters with guns running around doing… stuff. 

I was doing some Googling trying to find the online store where I first found this thing and am now regretting I didn’t go for this picture instead:

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Just kidding, I don’t regret it at all. This is a totally Serious Action Anime, not about girl butts at all.

Anyway, I’m stalling because my redesign is pretty boring, I think. Most of my time was spent trying to fix her posture. Is this another casual, confident pose? Oh sorry, the description says she “marches along the battlefield.”

Apparently she is supposed to be wearing “bulletproof armor” in the original?????????? Where is it??????? So I gave her actual coverage that would allow her to lay on the ground and snipe without getting dirt and sand inside her clothes (also known as a Yikes). Honestly, I was so distracted by her pose that I couldn’t really think of any cool design elements to give her. I even kept the stupid boob-supporting buttons on her shirt.

Maybe one day I’ll go back to this and do it some justice. At least now I can believe she’s actually a sniper wearing bulletproof armor.

-Icy

PS – God, I forgot what the back of her looked like…. enjoy!

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mistfather:

anna-nicholl:

vagabond-art:

unpopular opinion: harley quinn is better with clothes

made w @chokit-pyrus on paintshop pro 9 and paintshop pro X8

Also unpopular opinion: she looks more badass that way.

Further unpopular opinion: it just makes sense for her to wear more than a bikini. Gotham is fucking cold and she’s a graduated psychiatrist and psychologist, not someone immune to cold. Plus, body armor and potential for concealable weapons.

I especially appreciate the reinforcement of the diamond motif and red/black color scheme that got changed to red (sometimes pink?!)/blue for no reason over the years.

We touched upon this before, but the big problem with most contemporary depictions of Harley Quinn is that her designs convey anything but her Harlequin/jester theme. 

It’s not just that she dresses skimpy for no other reason than very transparent “fanservice” (as we established, she was plenty sexy and sexual even while fully dressed in her original costume), but that when it’s stripped of colors and prior knowledge of the character, no-one seeing this design for the first time would know what her deal is. 

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Who is that? Some randomly underdressed biker chick? Why is she wearing a cropped leather jacket directly over drafty lingerie? Where are her pants? Is there a reason for her girlish pigtails? Hell if I know! ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

Good character design, including costume and make-up, should work context-free. The only thing thing we’re told by this sort of Harley design is “she sexy”. 

~Ozzie 

See also: This article summarizing Harley’s design changes since Arkham games introduced the non-jester look. Just remember that every time the word “unique” comes up, it should be read as “awful”.