image – Page 3 – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

July 4, 2021February 19, 2022

No More Heroes is a series which is generally hailed as being sharp satire on many aspects of the action genre… the one area where it seems to simply lean in hard to reproduction without commentary is female character design. This is from the trailer to promote the upcoming third game.

Which is baffling, because the series very much recognizes the general disconnect between wanting to be a super extra, and also wanting to be able to make no effort (see Travis, the guy in the middle). I feel the need to warn you that reading this paragraph may cause you psychic damage, I know it did to me…

Meanwhile when it comes to imagery and costumes for female characters… the series is full of, well, this….

Because I mean… this is an area of popular media is ripe for satire. Really ripe. So ripe. Over ripe. Riper than balls.

– wincenworks

July 2, 2021February 19, 2022

armoreddragon:

The paladin is a noble warrior. His blessed armor protects him from harm, and his holy vows help him resist the temptations of sin. Those who receive his aid in battle are assured of victory, but those who meet him afterwards consider themselves the truly lucky.

I made this suit of armor for the Magic Meat March challenge (delayed to May this year), which is about putting men into the sorts of costumes that fantasy women get drawn in. Check out other people’s stuff over @magicmeatmarch!

In place of a standard breastplate, this one is built in the form of a corset, providing protection and support while shaping and accentuating your profile. The pauldrons connect to the codpiece with a harness arrangement of straps, tying them together into one cohesive piece, supporting the necessaries and accentuating the assets. The greaves stand on their own.

I made everything by hand–cut, burnished, tooled, shaped, dyed, painted, sealed, and riveted together. The corset-breastplate and codpiece I designed from scratch–you can see a progression of the corset design here. The pauldrons (shoulders) and greaves (shins) I built from patterns by Prince Armory, partly because of time constraints, and partly because I wanted to see how other designers dealt with those pieces. (The greaves I was really impressed by, the pauldrons restrict movement more than I’d like, which was a problem I hadn’t been able to solve previously either.)

This is the most ambitious armor project I’ve tackled so far, both in scope and design, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out! I’m looking forward to making a few more pieces to go with this set in the coming months.

Now that is how you convert some folks to THE FAITH!

Look at his empowerment, gaze upon his confidence and ask yourself – is there anything extra layers could add that isn’t surpassed by the ability and distraction bonuses?

No. No there is not.

I do not know what faith this bold man represents, but I understand it is a powerful one!

– wincenworks

June 26, 2021February 19, 2022

So, as you or may not have seen the hilarity of brodudes shitting themselves in anger that the new iteration of Lola Bunny which is going to appear in ~~Ready Player~~Space Jam was designed to be family friendly and appeal to young girls, rather than be a recreation of porny fan art of the character. (They literally claimed a fan art by a smut artist was the “original”) (VICE article here)

This magnificent tweet by InspectorNerd highlights why what we talk about on Bikini Armor Battle Damage is an important and often overlooked aspect of design for female characters (never male characters) and also another brief point I want to cover first.

Every now and again we do get people spamming us with out of context links to quotes from large busted women who, generally speaking, enjoy been seen as attractive but are sick of being reduced down to their bust size. They supply these as though it is absolute proof that the male gaze is perfect, and if you critique the design of fictional characters – you’re attacking these real women.

Even if that fictional character is a rabbit.

Lola’s sexiness in the original Space Jam (a phrase I never wanted to type) was primarily because the first thing we learn about her when she’s introduced, is that Bugs (who is naked) wants to bang her.

However, she is distinctly wearing a “hot girl” outfit rather than a “sports girl” outfit that is a strange mix of sports bra and crop top.

It turns out in real life, female basketball players wear… almost exactly the same thing as male players do.

This is because they are focused on playing the sport, not trying to look sexy for the crowd. And as covered before, when they do seem to be posing its generally so they can obtain sponsorship from creepy marketing guys who don’t really care about the sport, just fapping off and collecting pay for repeating their catch phrase.

Thus creating the perception that women’s sports are not as “serious” as men’s sports, even when female teams outperform their male colleagues.

And how do we feel about?

– wincenworks

April 12, 2021February 19, 2022

galacticjonah:

“And I shall return to my homeland, through fire and waves. I shall return to the mountain.“

An OC painting, finally!! Dhin is a very meaningful character to me, so I’m excited that I had some free time to do her justice.

Dhin was blessed by the Elusive Sun, a deity that reaches out to those who go through hardship. She longs to return to the North and her home, to reunite with her family. On her way she’s joined by a merry bard who steals her heart (tho she wouldn’t tell him that…)

Fantastic blend of fantasy and practicality. I really like the purposeful design of the armor – it gives a feeling for how the character would move on the battlefield.

I also really like the fluting that looks both decorative, and like it’d enhance the ability of the plates to take a solid hit.

– wincenworks

April 10, 2021February 19, 2022

Okay, I think it’s been long enough we can assume people have stopped tag searching for this and thus can contribute to the discussion without getting extra hate brigades. Also the show has rightfully jettisoned Gina Carano for being a reactionary menace.

Obviously the issue of why boobplate is (with very few exceptions) always bad has been covered extensively on this blog already, so I’m not going to go into that other than this scene was massively disappointing because for the first season – Mandalorian really committed to the whole warrior cult thing and had an amazing female character in amazing armor.

(This is why we never just “relax” after a positive example, way too many properties do this kind of back sliding as soon as they are proved successful and execs invite a certain type of devil into the decision making process)

What I wanted to talk about specifically is a rhetoric tactic I noticed with ~~shitbags~~brodudes actively looking to undermine the message by selectively signal boosting women who frequently get left out of these conversations.

I am talking specifically about women who have large breasts and:

Are sick of being treated as hypersexual because of their bodies
Are sick of having to pay extra or buy alternatives to clothes they want because companies don’t cater for their “desirable” shape
Are sick of, at events like LARPs, paintballs, kayaking etc, being given gear made for smaller chested women and having their complaints about it being uncomfortable or impractical for them go unheard, ignored or ridiculed

Because the reality is that as much as capitalism commodifies and exploits women with hefty busts, capitalist society never misses an opportunity to make women feel shitty for their bodies.

Now I said “selectively” above because I noticed that among the group I looked over there was a distinct trend of “liking” posts yelling at Anita, and not liking posts calling for people not to automatically sexualize big boobs – and a lot of liking more misogynistic posts that were very insulting to women in general.

All of this is to say that when we have these conversations, it is important to remember that the goal is to have representation and inclusion in all kinds of fantasies for all kinds of people – and assholes will never hesitate to try to play people against each other in order to try to keep a bigger their overly privileged position.

– wincenworks

February 22, 2021February 19, 2022

thecollectibles:

Bloodborne board game – official art by

Adrián Prado

Can we all appreciate how entirely gender-neutral all of those costume designs are?

~ Ozzie

Perhaps one of the biggest keys to the success of Bloodborne and Dark Souls is the incredible focus they have on the goals of their games.

It really shows what you can accomplish.

And it really shows that ridiculous female armor is not something enhances fantasy horror or cosmic horror.

Who knew!?

– wincenworks

February 21, 2021February 19, 2022

The line up currently... as per Overwatch standard there are multiple body types for men and one thin, conventionally attractive one for women. Something something sexy back, a hood without a cape is certainly a decision The most important thing when aiming a bow is to show off as much leg as possible

Hello Diablo my old friend.

They recently announced the latest class, the rogue, with a bizarre trailer and an even more bizarre costume as the iconic look which seems to try to hedge in a few ideas in bizarre contradiction.

An Assassin’s Creed style hood without any cape attached
Two part thigh highs that are cloth from the top of the calf up

But of course, they have most of the classics as well.

A Xena style combat corset with pauldrons and bracers, but no pants or helmet
Extremely high profile, attention grabbing outfit for someone who supposedly pick pockets and moves unseen
Combat style is sexy dancing with knives

Also, while she does look ambiguously brown in the final videos and character model… it seems pretty clearly this was a last minute decision based off the concept art.