killerlolita asked:How exactly does covering up a character show that sexy outfits aren’t empowering exactly? That and how does dressing up male characters in sexy outfits making a point?It’d be easy to ask the inverse: how does dressing up female characters in revealing outfits make them empowered?To answer this question we’re going to do an exercise that anyone familiar with the internet can participate in. First: imagine an adorable kitten (if you’re having trouble, Google images is rife with them… like I said: internet). Now, imagine that adorable kitten wielding a weapon (oh hey Google). Are these cats now empowered? Or has the situation gone from visually appealing to funny?That’s what most female character design does: creates a juxtaposition of eye candy that thinks just because it’s started wielding weapons and calling itself tough, suddenly it’s empowered. It isn’t. It’s a cat with a lightsaber.As for how dressing up a male character in clothes usually reserved for their female counterparts makes a point, well, mostly it helps show how ridiculous these outfits (and also the way the women are generally posed) are. We’re so used to seeing our female characters looking (and acting) this way, that it often doesn’t register. It helps get people asking why it’s okay for a woman to go into battle like this, but it’s funny when a man does.-Staci
PREACH!
On some redesigned female armor I see plackart designed as V-shaped (for example gingerhaze’s purple-white-pink platemail, recently featured at BABD). It looks better aesthetically but on historical armor I saw plackart designed as upside-down V-shaped (for example look at wikipedia article about plackart). I wonder if straight V-shaped plackart which I see a lot in fictional armor has same functionality as a historical prototype.
Frankly, I have no idea about significance of V-shape in regards of realistic plate armor (all I learned about armor design was through running this blog). Seems like your question is more suited for an armorer, like Ryan ‘Jabberwock’ who wrote this article.
What’s significant in the post you’re referring to is this bit gingerhaze wrote (some parts bolded for emphasis):
Would this actually work in real life as real armor? Probably not? But I’m not sure that’s the most important thing to focus on, unless you’re making a gritty, realistic, historically-accurate work. For fantasy? COOLNESS is what counts. I’m all for seeing non-sexualized, diverse ladytypes with functional armor, as long as the coolness factor doesn’t get lost!
In fiction, believability based on realism is much more important than sticking to straight-up realism. As simonjadis says in a reply I reblogged some time ago:
A naturalistic story tells a story that is completely plausible in our world. No wizards, no dragons, no secret vampires, no alien invasions. Telling a realistic story is telling a story that is logical and consistent and makes sense (even if the setting is in a fictional world or in a reality very different from our own).
And that’s one of the basic things BABD aims for: promoting female warriors who dress in believable and protective manner, not necessarily realistic/naturalistic.
We criticize bikini armors, boobplates etc. not specifically because they’re historically inaccurate (which they are, but so are dragons and orcs). We criticize them because they’re inconsistent with how most fictional settings work.
any tips for designing clothing?
function over form for the most part, unless its super decorative. then I’d check out several clothing tags and do a shit ton of research on wikipedia about different terms and why certain clothes are done in certain ways!
