Tag: high heels

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Wonder Woman and the Regime of Missed Opportunities 

I took Regime Wonder Woman from Injustice as my second stream fix project, because this concept art reeked of wasted potential.
And because as a big fan of the Cliff Chiang design I’d love to also prove that Diana can be done well while showing quite a lot of skin and doing a homage to Greco-Roman armor that fits her origin. 

There were elements to this costume which deserved to stay – the helmet, pauldrons and belt joined with tassets. Boobplate with giant cleavage, high heels and unarmored crotch had to go.
But first I gave Wondy a torso that can fit an adult woman’s internal organs. Funny how making her waist the right size all of sudden made her toned abs so much more apparent, even though they’ve always been there. 

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I remodeled her chestpiece into a half-breastplate that actually contains the boobs while retaining some of their shape. Did my best to not emulate the look of cleavage or draw the eye to where it would have been. 

Got rid of the absurd high heels and edgelordy spikes from her shoes. Then duplicated some straps from the tassets to the front, as there was never a reason to put her crotch on display.

Final touches was giving Diana a tiny bit more distinct facial features: wider jaw and lips, aquiline nose. Minimal change, but hopefully for the better.

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If there’s something I’d change if I had more time to work on that, it would be probably making her boots look less modern (and adding more gold accents to them) and drawing her right palm on top of her hip, which the original artists clearly was too lazy to do.

This was the first, but we keep coming back to redesigning Injustice regularly during our streams, because of how shamelessly “edgy” its sexualized female characters are.
And because its in-game color palettes are the ugliest ever! This piece is based on an official concept artwork, so the colors are quite brilliant, but once rendered into the actual game, everything gets murky and desaturated to the point of blending with dark backgrounds. 

~Ozzie

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@aromanticpirate submitted:

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.

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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.

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But that doesn’t stop the game’s website to feature this in its promotional art:

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So much creativity on display here…! ༼ ಠل͟ಠ༽

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-Icy

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darkstar112:

marzipanandminutiae:

brinigi:

overlypolitebisexual:

overlypolitebisexual:

“why can’t female heroes kick arse in heels” because it’s not practical and will literally snap your damn ankle you can scream weaponised femininity all you want but first off, you need to admit that they’re not an almighty symbol of empowerment, and secondly that if you do a job with a lot of physical activity in heels you’re risking your own safety. all these women fighting in heels on tv are going to end up seriously injuring themselves. 

weaponised femininity is a concept made up in an attempt to get us to embrace the industries created to hold us back/profit from our insecurities so that we can continue to fit into the male expectation of what a woman should be and not question why we are forced to spend thousands on our appearance every year

just a small anecdote. I had a friend who worked in theater; she was the stage manager and an actress came to her in tears one day because the director absolutely refused to let her do a choreographed fight scene in less than 3 inch heels because “they’re platforms so you’ll be okay.” My friend, who is a woman’s size 10, brought her own heels in the next day and DEMANDED the director put them on and try the choreography before the actress did it. He finally agreed to change it, without putting the heels on.

so like I know you might think of “all those women on tv fighting in heels” as fictional woman who WOULD hurt themselves in real life, but its fiction so its okay…except those women are portrayed by real actresses who are actually fighting in actual heels, being directed by dudes who have never worn a pair of heels in their lives, alongside men who aren’t expected to constantly wear things that make their stunts 2x more dangerous than they have to be. Just a thought.

Men take “let’s see feminine women being badass” to mean “let’s see women impractically focused on their appearance in combat situations.“

Also, as a side note, the things we consider “masculine” usually are just the things that are practical and comfortable for a situation. Usually when when we say a female character is “feminine, but able to kick ass”, specifically in reference to costume design, we actually mean “there are some very impractical elements in this design (read: wonder woman and valkyrie), but her boobs aren’t on full display and she’s not wearing stilettos”. The idea that practical and appropriate clothing for dangerous or physically demanding situations is inherently masculine really has to go, because it is all kinds of fucked up.

Some really neat commentary on the absurdity of high heels as battle footwear, on the pretense that “weaponized femininity” excuses them and on the double standard that is their source. 

It’s always morbidly fascinating to observe the implication that some things in character and costume design (flowy hair, skimpy clothes,

uncomfortable

shoes etc.) are assumed to be inherently feminine, therefore mandatory for women in fiction, no matter the context. 
And that female characters who don’t comply to them to some degree are automatically “tomboys” or “rebels” or cheaply-achieved “good” female representation.

~Ozzie

related: This very long explanation of why high heels + combat =/= success | Why stuntwomen are in more danger than men

h/t: @filipfatalattractionrblog 

Posted on

darkstar112:

marzipanandminutiae:

brinigi:

overlypolitebisexual:

overlypolitebisexual:

“why can’t female heroes kick arse in heels” because it’s not practical and will literally snap your damn ankle you can scream weaponised femininity all you want but first off, you need to admit that they’re not an almighty symbol of empowerment, and secondly that if you do a job with a lot of physical activity in heels you’re risking your own safety. all these women fighting in heels on tv are going to end up seriously injuring themselves. 

weaponised femininity is a concept made up in an attempt to get us to embrace the industries created to hold us back/profit from our insecurities so that we can continue to fit into the male expectation of what a woman should be and not question why we are forced to spend thousands on our appearance every year

just a small anecdote. I had a friend who worked in theater; she was the stage manager and an actress came to her in tears one day because the director absolutely refused to let her do a choreographed fight scene in less than 3 inch heels because “they’re platforms so you’ll be okay.” My friend, who is a woman’s size 10, brought her own heels in the next day and DEMANDED the director put them on and try the choreography before the actress did it. He finally agreed to change it, without putting the heels on.

so like I know you might think of “all those women on tv fighting in heels” as fictional woman who WOULD hurt themselves in real life, but its fiction so its okay…except those women are portrayed by real actresses who are actually fighting in actual heels, being directed by dudes who have never worn a pair of heels in their lives, alongside men who aren’t expected to constantly wear things that make their stunts 2x more dangerous than they have to be. Just a thought.

Men take “let’s see feminine women being badass” to mean “let’s see women impractically focused on their appearance in combat situations.“

Also, as a side note, the things we consider “masculine” usually are just the things that are practical and comfortable for a situation. Usually when when we say a female character is “feminine, but able to kick ass”, specifically in reference to costume design, we actually mean “there are some very impractical elements in this design (read: wonder woman and valkyrie), but her boobs aren’t on full display and she’s not wearing stilettos”. The idea that practical and appropriate clothing for dangerous or physically demanding situations is inherently masculine really has to go, because it is all kinds of fucked up.

Some really neat commentary on the absurdity of high heels as battle footwear, on the pretense that “weaponized femininity” excuses them and on the double standard that is their source. 

It’s always morbidly fascinating to observe the implication that some things in character and costume design (flowy hair, skimpy clothes,

uncomfortable

shoes etc.) are assumed to be inherently feminine, therefore mandatory for women in fiction, no matter the context. 
And that female characters who don’t comply to them to some degree are automatically “tomboys” or “rebels” or cheaply-achieved “good” female representation.

~Ozzie

related: This very long explanation of why high heels + combat =/= success | Why stuntwomen are in more danger than men

h/t: @filipfatalattractionrblog 

Posted on

Ah, this not-so-old design, as I actually finalized it a few days ago, even though I started it back when we just started doing this whole livestreaming thing. So this is Shielder from Fate/Grand Order, whom we featured on the blog before. I took her “stage 2″ armor and tried to actually make it look more like armor and less like… whatever the heck that is in the original. I decided not to give her full plate because she does have that huge shield (now with wheels!).

One weird notable detail is that she seems to have these purple “racing stripes” on her arms and legs; what’s that about? I got rid of all that stuff and instead incorporated the purple as cloth detail. The poofy pants make a comeback, this time with a poofy-sleeved shirt to match! I decided to add some white to her color scheme, because just grey and purple was very boring once the bare skin stops being a color. Finally, I cut her bangs, just because her hair was annoying me. It also didn’t go with the rest of her design at all.

Overall, it’s probably not my best work, and I put in a lot more effort than I should have just redesigning various elements, but it’s definitely more believable as an armor than the original. Seriously, that crotch window… jeez.

-Icy

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We don’t have a title for this new segment yet, but as Ozzie and I have been doing livestreams for a while now (thanks to everyone who chimes in, whether you’re active in chat or not!), we wanted to show our redesigns on the blog. I started out doing streams solo, so this and the next few posts will be just on my process.

One of the first redraws I did on stream was Caitlyn from League of Legends. I read her backstory blurb, and she’s apparently a sheriff, though she doesn’t have a badge or… wear a uniform? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Guess she’s too Strong and Independent™ for that. My redesign was basically to give her actual clothes an officer of the law in a technology-based steampunk city might wear (and a badge!). This was also the stream that started the Poofy Pants tradition of BABD streams.

Poofy Pants: For Any Occasion ~

For people interested in seeing more redraws, check out our redraw and redesign tags, which is mostly filled with fan submissions at the moment, and the Repair Her Armor blog, though it has been on hiatus for a while.

-Icy