The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: cleavage
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Ah, Gloria… What in the Nine Hells is even going on.
Gloria here is from Devil May Cry 4, where she is a high-ranking soldier. Yes, you read that right. She even demonstrates her “acrobatic and combat skills” in the game, to even the horror of VergilNero*, the main character. Watch the video at your own risk, not in public if possible.
For those who don’t want to scar their eyes and brains, here’s instead a picture of what the back of her “outfit” looks like:
In case you thought that the front of her could not be outdone.
-Icy
* The series really needs to consider in giving male leads distinct appearances or unique personalities… or maybe just personalities at all.
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The Monster Hunter series has been a mixed bag when it comes to armor design, and as we’ve shown before, Monster Hunter World has proudly followed in that tradition. We’ve seen that they can do actual armor for both the men and women characters, so what the fresh hell is this? This is high level armor, too. This is what the male version looks like, by the way:
I guess I’m impressed that the characters can hand-mold monster carapaces into boob cups?
-Icy
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Red is for the High Inquisitor skin, Blue is additionals from the Celestial Empress skin
Having blocked out most of my memories of playing World of Warcraft (and I didn’t do raids), I didn’t remember Sally Whitemane, so boy was I surprised to learn she led a religious order!
I’m not sure how anybody took this character seriously as an authority figure of any kind. Her outfit looks like something out of a fetish lingerie catalog. The HotS design is almost exactly the same as her original WoW model, which really highlights how much effort Blizzard is putting into doing women better.
Not to mention, her first alternative skin is some kind of scissors accident, rather than, for example, her Horseman version? Yeah, she became one of WoW’s Four Horsemen (the only woman in the current lineup, of course).
I mean, give her some padding on her exposed stomach, and that would be a fine alternate skin! But she does have a lot of skull motifs all over, so maybe they thought it would be too similar-looking to Sonya’s Death Knight skins.
This is the sort of design that explains why people don’t treat the word “edgy” seriously anymore – artists who want their stuff to look “dark and edgy” literally throw as many sharp edges on their villains and antiheroes as possible, no matter how absurd that looks!
Just imagine all the protection she could get if she used metal from those arm and head spikes to form a practical breastplate!
~Ozzie
Why does this look like, instead of sending the publisher the actual intended cover art, they accidentally submitted a “how ridiculous can we make it” art piece done on a dare? And the publisher just went with it, because it’s Warhammer?
-Icy
h/t for finding us design to bingo: Gigahorsedeluxe
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Kanpani Girlfriends
When we discovered that Kanpani Girls is a perfect candidate for our Wall of Shame, we dug through their massive library of really badly designed waifus and picked some relatively easy fixes. Reading up their bios, our choice were two Holy Knight friends, Flavie and Marica, whose defining characteristic is being self conscious about being too short and too tall, respectively.
Liking the cute dynamic of them both helping overcome one another’s complexes, we decided our versions should be girlfriends.
Well, the obvious first thing to go was that single-breasted boob plate, which was a…. unique design, I guess? I instead changed it to a design I saw when looking up armor references for my OCs.
I gave her Elizabethan poofy pants because everyone should wear them, honestly. I decided to go for an overall brown and cream color scheme, but left in the red and added some blue to tie the colors in with Marica’s red and blue details, since they are girlfriends. The flame on her tabbard comes from her element in the game, which is fire. Her design is basically all large and medium-sized shapes, so I wanted to add something small. It’s hard to see, but I also gave her a cream-colored sleeve on her left arm. Finally, I adjusted the scarf shapes to look better, both around her neck and as it blows in the wind.
Even though the final redraw is fairly simple, it was definitely fun to work on. I ended up trying like 3 different pants shapes for her before I settled on these. Cell shading is definitely not my thing, though.
It was one of those designs that’s very close to working as a stylized girly armor, but doesn’t, because someone HAD to give her big ol’ cleavage and exposed thighs. So, my aim was to bring back its potential.
I’m quite happy with how the breastplate shape came out, with its high curve and slightly bigger tassets. First I intended to incorporate that leather cincher into it, but it just didn’t work. I also gave her semi-poofy pants with diagonal pattern similar the absurd shape of her original thigh-baring stockings.
Another thing was to make her shoes at least a tiny bit flatter and more planted on ground, considering the original artist drew her as if she was floating in air rather than supporting her own weight on her feet. High heels not only are universally stupid footwear for a knight, but Marica is supposed to dislike being tall! Why would she wear shoes that add to her height?
Finishing touches were to establish her better as the girlish one of the couple (big part of her and Flavie’s actual bios) by making her red ribbon/bow motif more significant, especially with hair bow that nicely contrasts with her blue locks (inspired largely by the ending of one of my favorite anime). Also last minute change: decorative piece on her halberd is now red too, to tie everything together.
Bonus point that red accents connect her to Flavie 🙂
If I were to do it today, I’d also turn her skirt and collar into the same graphite color as her armor joints and dark part of her pants, so that they wouldn’t blend into her blue hair. All in all, not my best or most complex rework (I also had big trouble with cel shading style, obviously), but I think it goes to show how small changes can make a difference between gratuitous sexualization and cute girlishness.
~Ozzie
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So, Darksiders III is coming out in November and of course we’re getting the promo videos and Fury looks… well the kindest thing that can be said is that she looks better than the comic indicated she would.
When I first watched that trailer, what struck me most is how SERIOUSLY it takes itself, while having a heroine who looks just. that. silly.
And gamer dudebros apparently think that THIS is “SJW pandering”, REALLY? Being encased in skin-tight metal, including a boobplate so ridiculous and badly designed it doesn’t even warrant breast support of a basic bra?
So now, in salty dudebro terms, both this and this is a “politically correct” armor “too unfeminine and no longer recognizable as a woman”:
~Ozzie
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This design comes from a game about Norse mythology. I challenge you, our readers, to take a guess at which character from Norse mythology this is. I’ll wait.
Did you say Hel, who is the villain of the game Viking: Battle for Asgard? If you did, you must have read our post about Foldable HumanDan Olson looking into So Bad They’re Good games from a few months back. Because that awfully specific answer is indeed correct…. unfortunately.
I can’t even comprehend what the art direction was for this concept. What in the Hel (ha) is this? I was only able to find this single promo picture where the full glory of this design is shown, which I can only assume is because if she stands in any other way, that belt bra will slip off.
But let’s also not forget Freya, who also makes an appearance in the game!
-Icy
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Gotta love the “creativity” of web ads presenting just another grizzled military dude as an equivalent to a generic pretty girl with long flowing hair, cleavage and belly out. Totally legit and “equal” soldier designs! Especially for a game that apparently takes place during WW2?
Um, is that supposed to be some sort of parallel universe? Because other than USSR imagery slapped on like an afterthought, even the guy doesn’t look anything close to a soldier from the 1940s…
~Ozzie
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So Lady Kagami was the main antagonist of Tenchu 2… which was supposed to be an epic battle between ninja clans and rulers in Feudal Japan but somehow ended up with this as the major villain.
How seriously can you expect to take people take this kind of villain when facing off against a protagonist like this:
For those rushing to type that it’s an old game and doesn’t matter – it’s worth remembering what the final installment in core series was. Design aspects like this left unaddressed can kill otherwise unique and engaging properties.
– wincenworks
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Ironically, despite this armor being the first “screenshot” image on Conan Exiles’ Steam page – I can’t find any evidence that it is or has ever actually been in the game. The reason why is not particularly clear. After all, this is “heavy armor”:
The part that is most amazing about it is that the lower half is covered in pants that seem far beyond the heavy armor but then have a nightmarish boobplate that seems to have been designed with zero considerations for protection.
It gets chafing nightmare because it seems that after adding a layer of padding under the metal… they decided that a bare steel chain strap will be fine.
This is doubly a shame because not only does a certain marketing strategy seem to impeding them giving a solid representation of the game but they’re also missing the opportunity to show the real empowerment in the game:
– wincenworks
Update: Apparently it is possible to recreate the outfit, but requires mixing and matching bits, @p75369 created the female version here and… well I’m sure you’ll be shocked the male version is different.
