Supergirl Suit Redesigns, by Grace Kooken (Earth Ambassador Suit @ top)
Y’all need to check out the original page for this right now. There are breakdown images of each suit, with glow-in-the-dark options and turnarounds. And there are some other fun suits, like a Sun Suit and a Tank-Buster Suit.
These are all so fun, and each has its own style and flair. And they’re situation-appropriate! They’re really a joy to look at. I love how the more typical suits she would wear day-to-day keep to her established color scheme, but the “special” suits dip into different colors, but not in a way that makes her unrecognizable. Except maybe the Earth Ambassador suit, because she’s not representing herself in that context, but it comes with the coolest cloak in the known universe, so I don’t even care.
Check out the artist’s gallery for more fun characters and clay work, if that’s your thing.
-Icy
practice, by Ningbo Jiang
This is one of many “practice” pieces from this artist, and damn! That’s some good frigging practice. ? This reminds me of Evie’s armor from that one Assassin’s Creed game, but less boring to look at from a distance. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Evie’s default costume, but to me personally, it only gets Good when you can look at all the stitching detail up close. Is this an unpopular opinion?)
I love the textures and layering going on, and I highly recommend checking out the full-size image. The thing that drew me to this is the elegant practicality of the design. That triangle of red accents in the center of her really pulls it together. The careful choice of which colors to saturate makes the design cohesive, I think. I just really like it, okay?
-Icy
In MGSV if you ogle Quiet, she “poses” for you suggestively. In Death
Stranding if you stare at Sam’s crotch, he punches you. The framing of
both of these are bad. One is framed as a reward, the other is framed as
“no homo!” despite the player’s action in both being the same. I don’t
care if you worship Kojima, we REALLY need to talk about the “male gaze”
perspective in his games, and stop giving him a pass because you love
his games.
On the one hand, I do appreciate that ogling a character who isn’t comfortable with it comes with consequences. On the other hand, I doubt there are consequences for ogling any of the ladies. I also agree with the “no-homo” and violence criticism. Are guys not allowed to say “hey, could you stop staring at my crotch? It’s making me uncomfortable”? Wincenworks, please confirm.
This really points out the big double standard in the last 2 games from Kojima, as well as most of the media we criticize on this blog: that men have agency and women are just objects meant for consumption, whether that’s for fan-service, being a plot device, or being a lamp. The two lady characters I know from the reveals from Death Stranding are named Mother and Fragile, so that’s…. not promising at all.
-Icy
Punching people in the face for looking at their crotch is generally frowned upon in society, as it is usually customary for the other party to demand you be removed from premises or charged, even in places which still have “gay panic” defenses on the books. (What I’m saying is this normalizes the absurd justifications cishet men use for real violence against real men-loving-men)
I’d also like to point out that while Kojima apologists are quick to blame Konami for everything from Quiet to climate change, the last time Kojima had near total creative control was Policenauts (where he famously even controlled the music queues via scripting rather than directions).
Policenauts is a game where nearly every female character’s breasts are an interactable item and the first appearance of Meryl from the Metal Gear Solid series, specifically so he could include a mini-game where she invites with her boobs if you score high enough at target practice.
Oh well, at least we’ll always have this helicopter ride.
– wincenworks
Okay, so Tumblr has permanently blocked the Mercenary Suit (which may or may not be available on the backup site… not that I would ever want to subvert our corporate overlords) so let me propose a different outfit from the same, empowering armor manufacturer: The Anti-Venom Suit!
Not only does it empower men with badassery, it stops us from being harmed by venom, poisons, toxins or Venom Snake (aka Keiffer Snake). I mean it doesn’t promise that explicitly, but it’s right there in the title! You can always trust what it’s in the title!
– wincenworks
Fixin’ Up Some Figurines, part 1
It’s been a while since we redid some figurines, so here we are! I decided to redesign a vampire lady made by Dark Sword Miniatures. This was a pretty fun and lighthearted one for me; I wanted to keep her Killer Abs uncovered, so I decided to make her into a gym instructor, getting that blood pumping in her students! …. Get it, cause she’s a vampire…. I’m hilarious, okay?!
It’s not armor, but I just decided to have some fun with this, considering how awkward the original is. So yeah, I just gave her a workout outfit that I’ve seen at my local gym. Here’s an example off the Internet.
I also gave her some muscles, and some dumbbells! I thought a ponytail would be more gym instructor-esque, but I was too lazy to redraw all the hair on her shoulders, so we got a… half pony. It’s fine. It’s not like she sweats… depending on which version of vampires you subscribe to.
Enjoy my terrible handwriting too!
-Icy
Wrestling with TERA’s anti-fashion Part 2
Yikes.
So I decided to challenge myself yet again by picking this number. Back in an older post on TERA, I talked about how some of the armor designs are good designs for runway fashion, and I think the high elves, which is what this lady is, embody that most of all. I think each race has their, like… fashion niche? Like the demons are all Victoria’s Secret angels, ironically. And we don’t talk about the children with animal ears.
(And because I needed to fill in all those little details, I didn’t have time to do the back of her :(. )
I started with the face as usual, because I honestly hate the original in this regard… Like, what is with this Stock 3D Model face?? I tried to make it less human-looking since, you know… she’s not a human. (I kind of ripped off Dragon Age 2 in this regard, I guess.)
And then I changed…. everything else, as usual. Poofy pants, a whole 3 layers of shirts, and shoes you can actually walk in, we’ve got the whole package. I tried to make the shirt patterns work together, but I think I was a little overzealous… I also ran out of ideas. Oh well.
Hopefully my redesign still looks more like actual cloth armor than that big empty void of skin.
-Icy