The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: fantasy
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Actual Barbarian Women (NSFW)
Seeing as how many “barbarian” ladies grace our blog, we thought we had a great opportunity to see the kinds of barbarian women we actually wanted to see; by drawing them ourselves! Here are our takes on 2 barbarian characters that appeared on BABD before: Belladonna and Arhian. It’s a shame we couldn’t redesign their names, honestly.
Belladonna
So the first thing that had to change was Bella’s boring, impassive face. I wanted her to be formidable, and I decided to play up the dramatic lighting that the cover artist tried to do, in a half-assed way. I removed her makeup and tried to make her look intimidating and experienced, overall, with the obligatory battle scars. I decided to play with the scars a bit, and so ended up giving her a slightly-disfiguring lip scar. Also, messy hair!
As for the rest of her, first thing was to get rid of her awful top. Her clothes in general seemed too manufactured-looking, so I ended up making her kilt into a more ripped and imperfect-looking garment.
I then gave her more muscle and an overall larger frame, and changed the way she was holding the axe, because her original hold on it looks like a nail polish ad pose. The thing doesn’t even look like it’s heavy in the original! Now it has blood on it, too, which was to add to the intimidation factor.
Her face in the background was like a 2-min afterthought I did at the very end cause it looked so goddamn boring. Overall, I’m very happy with the changes I did to her face and attire, though my rendering wasn’t as good as I wish it were now. I should have given her some body scars, too, but at least she has more stage presence on her own cover than none at all.
-Icy
Arhian
I decided to leave most of her skimpy costume as is, just getting rid of the physically impossible bra – Barbarians either go topless or wear something comfortable, not… this thing!
Her platinum, almost white hair inspired me to turn Arhian into a significantly older character. And in the Barbarian warrior’s life, with age come scars. Lots and lots of scars. Most prominent one is the big burn scar tissue on her left breast, which I referenced from real life. Perhaps a “gift” from a dragon?
Then there’s the giant stitch scar above her breasts and some cuts here and there, especially her face. Speaking of which, I made it my priority to give her unique facial features instead of the generic conventionally beautiful supermodel mug.
It’s by far my most satisfying face redo. I drastically changed the shape to be more squat and angular, with strong jawline. He original nose was a disproportionately small vestigial organ, so I have her a schnooze she can breathe through, and also made it broken, to match the scarred aesthetic. Then completed the look by getting rid of her makeup, undoing the obviously tweezed eyebrows, adding wrinkles and scars. I also changed her expression from vacant, vaguely “sultry” stare into a scowl of a veteran warrior.
As for her body, I just made it visibly more muscular, with prominent abs and thigh muscles. Her breasts are bigger in my version, as I wanted to present what time and gravity (and some scorching burns) actually do to the breast tissue. Nipples not only do exist, but they tend to point downwards the bigger the breast is! Also, boob stretch marks are a thing! Who knew?
All in all, I’m quite proud of that redesign. Hope you guys like it too!
-Ozzie
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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.
So… the Fate series started with a frankly amazing female character, Saber* but since then they’ve… well they haven’t been really respecting the concept that they started with. This one however… well it looks like they decided they need to go back closer to the original look while still trying to find ways to pointlessly sexualize her.
From episode 2 onward of the latest series the opening credits of Fate: Last Encore are just ninety seconds of this version of Saber hacking up literal shadow opponents in a shadow maze in a manner to flaunt her T & A.
Kind of disappointing for a series that is supposed to be about all manner of mythical heroes, now seem
– wincenworks
* Yes, we are aware this is technically not the same character due to Fate’s obsession with alternative universes, and the universe in Last Encore being very alternative… but putting “identically named variants on a broad character concept” doesn’t parse as well.
can we take a second to ponder on the fact that a kids movie did lady armor better than the entire film and comic industry
guess who i’m talking about
did you guess? Well you’re fucking WRONG because it’s Susan goddamn Pevensie
They gave her light armor, appropriate for a small archer:chainmail, an arm brace, chest plate, and a light skirt she can easily run around murderizing dudes in the face in
her hair is also only loose in the promo pictures because Susan is fucking busy not dying because her hair was flying into her eyeballs so she braids that shit back
her mail shirt is also loose enough that it doesn’t impede her arm movements it’s almost like she’s dressed for a fight wow
I like the pinks and purples under her bitchin as hell leather armor here, because you don’t have to be masculine to shoot someone in the goddamn face
Everyone, including the actress who played her, agrees that Susan was the most boring of the Pevensie siblings, yet the filmmakers had enough respect for the character to dress her in practical light armor. And didn’t have to bend over backwards to slap on “feminine features” (read: giant boobplate) to make sure no-one confuses her gender.
Would other female characters in life action get non-exploitative clothes if they were also played by underage girls?
~Ozzie
PS: Props for archer costume with puce as its primary color instead of green!
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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”:
I love the tasteful arrangement of the loin cloth, the way it rises and falls – teasing the audience not just with the glory of the crotch window – but also allowing us to imagine how his buttocks might be exposed.
Okay… so the bright side of this is her backstory (ie a fantasy adaption of the legend of Elizabeth Bathory) does not specify that she is in fact undead… so it’s possible she’s just terrible looking and not yet one sexualized corpse. Not likely though, based off the intro animation.
I’m honestly at a loss about how someone decided that the best way to communicate ruthless, soul stealing necromancer was… underboob.
Though I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to consider it in the nightmares this is going to give me. You’re welcome.
So far the most requested armor fix – Female Corrin in her Nohr Noble armor!
Not gonna lie, I’m not sure why they keep designing those chafing hazards. That honestly bothers me more than the huge boob windows by now.
What a lovely fix! I realize that not a lot had to be changed from the original, but I really like the top of the breastplate, the longer sleeves and the chainmail. There are a lot of strange holes in the armor in the original, so it’s nice to see them gone. And I actually like that the pauldron was made smaller, just because it looks so out-of-place in the original. One thing I would personally change is add a gold accent to the bottom edge of her breastplate. Overall, I think this is a great armor fix.
According to lore, the character does have to be barefoot, but the excuse that it’s because she turns into a dragon is Not Good. I’m not mad about it, in any case. She can still wear socks.
