Female Armor Rhetoric BINGO (PDF) by OzzieScribbler (again, yours truly)
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I only have one bone to pick with this bingo card, and that’s the “male barbarians also fight naked” part. Part of any fictional world are the many smaller cultures and areas that make it up. If a harsh (hot/humid/insert condition that would make being completely clothed impractical) environment has people living there, and the guys are walking around in loin cloths or just enough clothing to be considered decent, then I don’t think its such a bad thing for women to either. It’s when we have guys walking around comfortably in full plate (well, as comfortable as one could be in it I guess) while women are in the whole chainmail bikini thing that I feel we should cry foul. This is just my opinion of course, but consistency is important. Other than that one block, the rest of this is spot on.
Not to be rude, but…
guys are walking around in loin cloths or just enough clothing to be considered decent, then I don’t think its such a bad thing for women to either.
That’s the thing: barbarian women usually DO NOT walk around in loincloths. They wear fur or metal bikinis (scalemail seems to be the standard). If Red Sonja was dressed like Conan, there would be no problem. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE
[Please give the artist much deserved love!]
Edit: Added deviantArt link to the piece, in case you guys didn’t follow the link above the picture!
anomenon submitted:
Heroic nudity is great, but for it to work, you need to give the figure a body someone can fear in battle. Quite honestly, there’s a very wide range of muscular female body types, just as long as it looks like the girl can lift her weapon and use it effectively it should be good.
Nothing against super-model thinness except that the front-lines of an ancient battle field seems to be the wrong place for it. An archer may be a little more appropriate though…
Thank you for submission! Great art 🙂
I would go and say that supermodel-thin women are not necessary all unable to hold heavy weapons, but their body type is definitely over-represented in popular media compared to any other, including various athletic female bodies.
It is a fact that muscle mass develops in different ways, depending on the type of physical activities the person engages in, thus female athletes can look as different as such:
(from left to right: bodybuilder, two weightlifters and two rhytmic gymnasts)
Sadly, as far as male warrior bodies are represented in many different ways (some more, some less believable), female ones usually are defaulted to generic thin figure with bust size as the only variation (if there’s even variation to speak of). And the rare exceptions tend to be… problematic.
Thank you again, anomenon, for bringing that issue up.
