hyrule warriors – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

March 25, 2020February 19, 2022

**Hyrule Warriors – A Link to the Pants, Part 2**

Well, this one was definitely a journey. I’ve wanted to redesign this unfortunate “armor” ever since it was posted on this blog. Those who joined us while we worked on these pieces will know how much I struggled with certain aspects of this, and how much I hate the original. I had to change something about almost every element in this. I’m just so glad it’s done and I can move on with my life.

The first things I knew I wanted to do are the breastplate and pants. Then I gave her the sleeves to match her “skirt.” That was the easy part.

After that I didn’t know what to do about her midriff, so I focused on her hair and face. I put her hair up so it doesn’t get in the way, and I just took some of her makeup away. I do this a lot, and it’s not because I hate makeup; it’s to show that you can have lady characters look good and cool and strong without giving them false eyelashes and a contour to rival Kim Kardashian. Also because women are always expected by society to wear makeup (but not look like it, that’s important), and screw that, so….

After that, the last thing to do was get rid of that idiotic corset. I had no real ideas, so I just extended her tabbard and gave her a belt to hold her tassets. It’s kind of a hack job, but I had no better ideas, and I had spent way too much time trying to come up with something. I wanted to just keep the plate armor and not add chainmail or anything… so here we are.

I still feel like I could have done better, but at least I don’t feel my blood boiling when I look at my redesign, as opposed to the original. Now I can believe that this is a woman that actually goes out into combat, while maintaining her regal air.

-Icy

March 22, 2020February 19, 2022

Remembered when I said under my redesign of Linkle’s in-game costume that it could have been bingo-worthy worse, based on the old concept art? Well, I meant it.

I’d say Hyrule Warriors developers should be ashamed of having this sort of artwork going public, with all the tackyness of “female Link” having boobplate, bared belly and panties on top of trousers, but judging by their Zelda costume concepts, “tacky” is their status quo and shame is alien to them.

~Ozzie

March 18, 2020February 19, 2022

**Hyrule Warriors – A Link to the Pants, Part 1**

Hyrule Warriors has been on our radar for some time, so we finally decided to try making its female characters live up to the game’s name.
Basically only Impa is anywhere close to consistent with how male warriors are depicted, while other ladies at best look like they’re on a runway rather than battlefield, and at worse are Cia the Boobplate Witch.

Linkle

First planned either as female version of Link or his sister, Linke apparently ended up as a separate character who just happens to be very similar to him… And also to many other green archer ladies, especially the Elf from Dragon’s Crown.

Reminder that, based on concept art released before inclusion of the character in the game, it could have always been much worse than just cute and vaguely derivative. Bingo-worthy worse [image source]:

Her final costume is quite fashionable, just not very functional when directly compared to how Link presents in this game, wearing layers of armor, including chainmail under his green tunic.

While all she gets is short poofy sleeves and the fetishy “absolute territory” of bared flesh between a her skirt/shorts and thigh-high boots.

So, of course, my aim with her redesign was to give her some layers and basic armor while retaining her individual fashion sense.

Now her poofy white blouse is gambeson padding that she wears chainmail over, much like Link does. And the poofy sleeves are bigger, cause why not?

Speaking of sleeves, she also gets some additional orange undershirt that matches her skirt. And her gloves got a lot longer, to cover her forearms from harm.
Sorry for the botched shading on chainmail, I copied it from Link, but didn’t have time to re-shade properly… or to layer it in a way that makes sense ?

Finally, poofy pants, to match the sleeves, and to properly protect her legs. Covered with some more layering of chainmal and longer skirt. And the boots have functional knee-high length now.

All in all, with the amount of edits this went through, I’m not unhappy with the results. Hope you guys like it too!

~Ozzie

h/t for post title: @filipfatalattractionrblog

November 14, 2015April 23, 2018

November 14, 2015March 6, 2019

It didn’t take long for people to point out that Linkle looks distinctly like Elf from Dragon’s Crown, only with crossbows and some small style changes:

But personally my bigger issue is why does Linkle need thigh high boots, ridiculous dual crossbows (good luck reloading) and to look so adorable when Link looks like this:

I mean it’s Hyrule Warriors – the core gameplay is literally smashing armies and bosses in a war across Hyrule. So there should less this:

More this:

– wincenworks

More on Hyrule Warriors

September 20, 2015April 23, 2018

September 20, 2015March 16, 2019

peaches submitted:

I decided to take a look at the rest of the armor in hyrule warriors. I love the game to pieces, so these may be a little bit biased. The first one is my favorite, obviously, Impa. Looking at her design critically, she has several flaws, but her armor is surprisingly practical (at least, for this game). Some definite improvements can be made on the torso (hello, single, literal boobplate, and bare skin galore), but it seems to match what many male fighters in her genre wear. My main problem with this, and the source of my anger, is a) heels? Why? and b) How come she can’t be bothered to wear a shirt underneath, when a very, very similar character in design and personality, Volga, is so heavily decked out?

His armor is nowhere near practical (especially with all of those sharp edges, ow), but at least he’s wearing some sort of clothing underneath and has actual protection for his vitals.

Either way, neither of them has anything on Zelda, and none of the aforementioned characters are even close to the monstrosity that is Cia’s armor.

Speaking of Cia, Lana, another title-exclusive character thus far, can score a pretty good number of x’s on the card herself.

Note- I added an extra “how does it attach”? Because you cannot convince me that that cape, with the huge, heavy metal piece on the shoulder, will sit politely during combat. Also, it’s not surprising that her costume is less revealing, as Cia disappointingly falls into a vat of cliches- “evil is sexy”, “villainesses want heroes”, etc.

This is a great illustration of the trend of double standards when it comes to unrealistic and impractical designs.

Men get ridiculous costume designs to make them look scary, or powerful, or super intelligent, etc.

Women get them to fit them onto some sliding scale from “sexy” to “ridiculously over the top sexy”.

– wincenworks