ask – Page 7 – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

August 18, 2014

I’m a lady-type person with a large rack (Around european cup size 75j-80j). At this size binding doesn’t really work (at least for me – sports bras don’t really do enough either) What kind of armor you reckon would work best for a large bust?

I don’t have a lot of experience in building armor myself, but I reached out to a friend who’s been into extremely enthusiastic for several decades and happens to be a woman. Her recommendation is a globose breastplate with padding for additional support. Something like these:

(Joan of Arc by Albert Lynch (x) and Knightess by TypeSprite (x))

It is possible that one made off a peg suit you, but more likely that you would need one custom made. Regardless you’d be going to a smooth deflective curve such as in the illustrations above. Plate armor like this is actually quite roomy in order to allow movement, so there’ll be plenty of room to add supportive padding.

Globose breastplates are held on with a harness, so with firm padding should be able to restrain even the mightiest bosom. Similar armoring techniques were often used when making custom suits for rotund nobles, Henry VIII of England armors show a gradually increasing girth throughout his life.

(Photo by Chuck, King Henry VIII’s armor in the Tower of London’s Royal Armouries.)

– wincenworks

August 16, 2014

Hey, I was thinking about female armors and whatnot and the I found a good question people should ask themselves before designing them which is: would Brienne of Tarth wear it? And if the answer is no, they should just do it again.

Personally I am always reluctant to recommend any character as definitive judge of armor. Brienne is certainly awesome and the representation of her by Gwendoline Christie has been amazing, but not without some questionable armoring decisions:

Really I think the bigger factor involved should be, “How will this make people look at the my character? What will they see?”

Brienne is but one of many possibilities, and part of what’s fueled the bikini armor trope is that creators got lazy and decided there’s just one type of heroine. A sexy one, with long legs, tight clothes and big boobs.

So rather than simply replacing her with a big butch one, we should be looking at exploring all the different kinds of badassery we can have. History of is full of badass women, many of whom used weapons and armor entirely different to Brienne of Tarth. Fiction should also be filled with similar diversity – hence Bikini Armor Battle Damage approves of many armors that Brienne probably wouldn’t.

Women of different cultures, different time periods and with different access to materials or facing different types of opponents. From the pages of history, for example:

This is before we account for things like different levels of suspension of disbelief, fantasy elements, etc.

Female warriors should be as diverse in culture, personality and appearance as male. Which is one reason why we love dogbomber’s Let’s Draw Lady Knights Character Generator.

– wincenworks

August 9, 2014April 23, 2018

July 20, 2014

Kevlar doesn’t protect as well when not having good material (basically flesh) beneath it, isn’t it bad bringing up kevlar vests when that is one of the few armors that actually should be fitted not only for women but if costs would allow it, for every person that used them?

I assume you’re referring to our tribute post to the inventor of Kevlar, Stephanie Kwolek, but no – I don’t think Kevlar vests are inherently biased against women. Certainly no more than chainmail.

It doesn’t matter what kind of armor you intend to wear – the better fitted it is to you the better it will protect you and the more efficient you will be in it.

The only way it won’t apply is if you happen to have the exact same measurements at the mannequin used in production (which doesn’t apply in the cases of things like field plate – which are always custom made). As with so many things in life, being rich is a definite advantage when it comes to armor of any sort or time period.

Guidelines for police and other parties that regularly use bullet vests recommend that the wearer not change their body mass by more than ten percent after being fitted for their vest. That means bulking up, no slimming down or putting on fat.

Many women are quite comfortable wearing even covert Kevlar armor intended for men because it just happens to fit comfortably. Many men cannot fit comfortably into a standard vest because they are not “standard” shape and size (I’m one of them).

The only difference with “female” vests is allowing space for breasts, primarily for covert body armor (that is either concealed under clothes, make to look street clothes or easily concealed with a jacket). While there is less variety in stores entry level concealed vests for women cost the same as entry level concealed vests for men.

(More information about fitting a vest here, more information on the specific alternations different companies are doing to sell armor to women here)

And again, the actual reason for different shaped armor here is not about effectiveness of stopping bullets but rather about comfort while maintaining a silhouette in order to conceal the presence of the armor -by making the wearer meet society’s expectations and fit into their regular clothes.

Actual military grade armor is not just Kevlar, but also additional features such as ceramic plates. That’s why you won’t see any boob bulges on the anti-ballistic armor worn by real female soldiers (who wear the same tactical vests as the male soldiers).

Needless to say that the people who train for very specific tasks and tend to have low amounts of body fat (and so are unlikely to be busty).

There is really no reason to think of Kevlar as an inherently problematic armor for women. There’s nothing special about the way if functions, it’s simply an awesome material for making fabric for armor out of and has been the core of modern anti-ballistic armor for decades.

Like every armor of every era, modern armor is designed around the expectations of the market – as women are becoming a larger part of that market, it is adjusting accordingly.

– wincenworks

July 19, 2014

Question: Is it possible to have armor that only serves as aesthetic quality versus functional quality only serve as that? Such as ceremonial armor or ancestral armor.

Of course. A lot of the armor that is on display in museums and owned by private collectors (and hence shown in books) was purely ornate and never intended to be worn into battle. After all, not setting foot on a battlefield does help improve the chances of your armor not being destroyed.

Prior to firearms, crossbows and other innovations making heavy armor redundant, it was commonplace for rich leaders who didn’t actually set foot on the battlefield to decorate their armor. Roman Emperors in particular seemed fond of looking absolutely fabulous in armor.

Even after heavy armor disappeared off the battlefield, many well-to-do had purely ornate suits made to try to capture the image of great heroes of years gone by. (This, and jousting armor intended only for sporting events, is part of where we get the myths of knights going to war in outfits they could barely move, let along fight in)

Ancestral armor was not really a thing in most places because generally a memorable suit of armor was part of an individual’s identity. A noble’s armor were also unlikely to fit their heirs – outside of Disney movies few families have identical measurements from generation to generation. Finally there was the issue that armor adapted as weapons did – wearing the previous generation’s armor exposed you to the current generation’s weapons.

The armor above was made for Sigismund II Augustus, the then King of Poland (who it seems probably never set foot on a battlefield) – and was one of twenty private armors owned by him at the time of his death. It would not have been unusual for a noble wearing such as suit in a parade to accessorize with a sash and/or long cape.

The important part about purely ornate armor is that it looks like armor – just with decorations that go beyond being practical. They still reflect the core armor values of the era but they’re just over decorated*, questionable accessorized and may have reductions made to facilitate their non-combat use (such as no gauntlets or arm protection if it’s for wearing to dinners and parties).

– wincenworks

* I say “over decorated” because there are some surprisingly heavily decorated suits of armor intended for real battles.

July 15, 2014

Hi there! So I’ve been researching female armors lately, and I’d like your help to clarify something if possible. Is the classical woebegone “boobplate” totally unfeasible/impractical in reality, or is it just unnecessary but still functional? What I’m having in mind here isn’t the ice-cream-scoops one with a cleavage but rather one solid steel piece over the chest, like a B-cup armor instead of the A-cup unisex one. Thank you!

There’s been a lot of discussion on how functional boobplate is (barring the most extreme cases of dangerous cleavage), the biggest consensus seems to be that creating breastplate that fits the form of boobs adds unnecessary work for the armorer and no noticeable benefits to the wearer (but lots of potential problems).

As for “unisex” armor being A-cup… it’s really not true. Most of standard combat-ready breastplates include a lot of place for chests of most sizes, especially because there’s lots of padding required unbeneath, which may act as additional binding to the breasts.

For more details, go into boobplate tag, especially posts tagged also as acticle.

~Ozzie

July 2, 2014

So, have you people heard about Shovel Knight? There’s this character named Shield Knight and seems people are getting quite a surprise when they find out Shield Knight is a woman. The whole non-sexualized. full body armor with only the face exposed may have confused them. The game doesn’t tell you she was a lover or friend, only that Shield Knight was Shovel Knight’s adventuring companion.

When I first read this ask, I kicked myself because I saw this game for sale on Steam and didn’t even think about buying it because well…

So I decided to look into it and specifically who was Shield Knight?

G L O R I O U S !

This is how you female armor!

The first few articles I found were mostly written before much was known other than she was going to be in the game. But according to the original Kickstarter:

So while it appears that Shield Knight does have an awesome outfit on par with Shovel Knight’s… being female means she still must exist primarily as a “beloved” damsel to be rescued by the hero.

– wincenworks

I’m really puzzled how would someone confuse Shield Knight for a man.
Her design is an A+ example of how to make armor look feminine without compromising its protective purpose.

Still, seems like the game makers’ idea was “as long as we make the damsel in distress character wear appropriate warrior gear instead of princess gown then we get our feminist cookie!”… I don’t have enough palms to facepalm accordingly.

~Ozzie

June 22, 2014

Hey there! I’m a woman planning on cosplaying some Monster Hunter Armor next year. I am going to go with the Barioth Blademaster armor. Is it wrong of me to be planning the male version of the armor I like? I picked one with my favorite aspects of the two different blademaster female sets, as well as the fact it has more coverage. I know women cosplay as male characters all the time but I’ve never actually seen a woman cosplaying male armor that isn’t associated with a specific character.

There absolutely nothing wrong with wearing a the version that you like best and/or feel most comfortable in regardless of your gender.

Fev is an awesome female cosplayer and prop maker who we’ve featured on Bikini Armor Battle Damage wearing their cosplay of the male version of Nordic Carved Armor from Skyrim.

The 501st Legion has female storm troopers who wear generic (assumed male) costumes, and some members recently made a custom suit for a little girl who was being bullied over her love of Star Wars:

Cosplaying is about two things:

Making/wearing something you want to wear
Having fun

That is not to say there aren’t some definite no-nos (blackface, cosplaying inherently offensive characters, cosplaying something raunchy at a family event, etc), but I can absolutely nothing wrong with wearing a non-character specific costume intended for a gender other than your own.

– wincenworks

June 19, 2014

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?

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:

And amazing cosplays:

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

June 16, 2014

Hey I want to genuinely ask why don’t you make your own story/game with the design of how you want females to be represented? I know what you have to say about it in your Rhetroic Bingo but there are ways to get around that; Like making a webcomic of said story to gain fans then make a kickstarter for a game or book I mean it worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series, Or you could gather a group of like minded individuals to collaborate on a game/movie/comic.

Actually we’re both working on our own projects (they’re at a stage of completion where we’re comfortable sharing, and neither are the like minded people we’re working with (so there will be no further details forthcoming at this time).

Also, believe it or not: Some of the people involved in related blogs actually work in industries such as video games.

Saying that it “worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series” is as absurd, it’s like suggesting that someone’s who broke should just become a millionaire by building a web site like Google (it worked for Larry Page and Sergey Brin!)

Homestuck is a particularly bad example because it:

Didn’t really challenge the status quo at all, it was just a new absurdist comic that wanted to tell a story and entertain
Has a large and very enthusiastic fanbase, but has more or less no influence outside of that fanbase. It’s very successful for a web comic, but that success doesn’t mean it’s influential in the grand scheme of things (or even in web comics)
Employs an economical style that works fine for the stories in Homestuck but is not necessarily even faintly compatible with other styles and stories.

Making a production that showcases women in sensible armor would pretty much require a higher standard of visual quality than something that’s intended to look like a scribble done in MS Paint. So even with a web comic at a lot of hours in image creation.

More accessible and larger markets (which means more competition) products like animated features/movies/etc require even more effort and expertise. Video games would require more skills and time again.

That’s not to say things like Kickstarter and Steam’s Greenlit aren’t fantastic and making the market more accessible but it’s insulting to creators of these products to downplay the work involved and pretend just anyone can do it (particularly with their other responsibilities and how much work is involved).

Even if Ozzie and I did somehow stumble across the time, money and connections to make a modest game (since video games are currently the biggest market) – say on par with Gone Home, here’s what we could look forward to:

Sales would be a small fraction of those by mainstream publishers – even a lambasted product like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning gets more sales (and hence market influence) than a critically acclaimed indy production
If the game doesn’t do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash saying that it’s proof that the public doesn’t want well armored heroines
If the game does do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash from people claiming that it’s only got sales due to political reasons and not because of the game (for more information, read the reviews on Gone Home’s Steam Store page – for extra laughs compare them to the reviews on The Stanley Parable a game that employs almost identical mechanics but doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of the world around them per se)
While it may provide some influence in mainstream gaming, it is likely that the industry would in general mostly overlook. Lots of people want to copy Minecraft – but almost nobody talks about its gender ambiguity.

I mean we already have big names in industry like David Gaider promoting the importance of inclusion, Mark Rubin – the executive producer of Call of Duty (the iconic game of brodudes) recently announced they’ll be including female playable characters to recognize the female fanbase they already have around the same time that Ubisoft announced that making female characters in their next Assassin’s Creed game would be too much work.

The idea that an independent production is somehow going to overpower the influence of the mainstream media is, frankly, ridiculous (unless you’re Batman). None of that is to say there aren’t things like games or artworks out there that are made for political reasons or with such goals – but they’re made by people who want to make the things.

History has already shown that if you make a web comic just because you want to make lots of money off it – you’re going to be disappointed. Likewise if you make a web comic, animation or game just because you want the world to change their perceptions of other people. Usually even political projects are less about expecting to change people, and more about the need to express something important.

So to summarize the main points:

1. Not everyone who is critical of a market should be expected to produce for that market. Every modern marketplace needs more customers than suppliers so it makes sense to leave the production up to people with the motivation and skills to do so.

2. If 50% of the population can see themselves well represented by going to, say, a game store, but the other 50% have to spend years building a game for themselves – that is not equality.

Criticism in the marketplace is important, it leads to more pressure on the experts to make better products and refine their priorities.

– wincenworks