Aphrodite in Lingerie, How Original ?

When picking out a goddess out of the SMITE pantheon to redo this time, I decided I wanted to try to make a “sexy” design that doesn’t rely on the Victoria’s Secret catalog. So here we are.

I didn’t change her body proportions at all, I only took the “in bra cup” shape out of her boobs. I gave her a draping shirt that’s more similar to ancient Greek attire. Isn’t it weird that the male Greek gods are designed to look more inspired by ancient Greek styles…. hmmmmm.

I did not give her pants, due to the ancient Greek influences, but I decided to make something out of the fact that she floats (for whatever reason). I ended up giving her a weighted skirt that would drag behind her when she moves. I imagine she could use it to great effect to look sexy or intimidating.

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I left the belt in-place mostly because I didn’t have anything better to replace it with, but it’s definitely a bit much for the redesigned version. I think my shapes ended up being all over the place, but it’s still more interesting than the original. And I didn’t have to rely on lingerie for my design, what a shocker.

And last but not least, I changed her face to have more of an attitude and confidence.

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Being beautiful and sexy doesn’t mean only having a specific type of face.

-Icy

SMITE’s Freya Still Desperately Needs Pants

The original here is actually an updated version of Freya. As many characters in SMITE, she went through a few redesigns over time, with arguable quality of improvements (comparison source): 

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The redesign

This is the second character named Freya which I fixed, and this one also got a questionable update between getting bingo’d and redesigned on our platform. I swear it’s a total coincidence. 

SMITE’s standards are below the bottom, so of course while she no longer had gravity-defying metal pasties for a top, it’s still a skin-tight boobplate

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I didn’t go particularly wild with fixes this time. I liked the ornamentation and accessories well enough to leave them be, so the changes are limited to the shape of the breastplate and big blue gambeson under all of it. Thanks to it her pretty necklace suddenly popped out, since color theory is still a thing. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Blue because it matched her existing color scheme, including those tacky Pict-like tattoos, which are already a cliche on many Norse/Viking characters, for some reason. 

Not my most creative or labour-heavy redo, but I hope you guys like it!

~Ozzie

rainymeadows:

doodbog:

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Greek Gods, pinup style. 

(Follow-up to the Norse God pinup collection, Dat ÁsAlso on DeviantArt and Etsy)

@bikiniarmorbattledamage HAVE YOU SEEN THESE

Greco-Roman mythology follow-up to Norse Dat Ás is AMAZING! 

Pan/Faunus, Poseidon/Neptune and Dionysus/Bacchus have got to be my personal faves. They look so fun! 

You can almost forget that, according to myths, most of those gods aren’t very keen on consent when approaching women and men… 

Of course that leaves us with a quiet expectation for equivalent to Dat Asynja coming out sometime later, with goddesses doing some very epic anti-pinup 😉 

~Ozzie 

SMITE-ing Masculine Beauty! 

After League of Legends, where we fixed Jarvan and Azir, our next dude-sexyfying endeavor layed in the land of gods, double standards and shameless racism that is SMITE


Poseidon 

Not gonna lie, after all the effort I put into Arhian, I picked an easy male material to work of. I used this official Poseidon design found on Hi-Rez’s artist’s ArtStation as a base. His left pec, abs and obliques were lovingly rendered already, so I made it my task to show off more of his muscular godly body. No big changes about his physique were needed, the costume and Poseidon’s attitude is what called for some modification. 

What I landed on outfit-wise was, appropriately enough for the lord of the oceans, a mankini. Made out of metal and gemstones.
The idea (which, I believe, Icy or some stream watcher might have suggested) was pretty brilliant solution to showcase more bare flesh while keeping the water theme. 

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His weirdly low-hanging belt buckle became a decorative codpiece. Gemstones and decorative spikes accentuate the nipples.
Also I replaced strategic butt covering in his cape into a strategic butt display. Obviously, god of the sea has perfectly shaped and shiny bubble buttocks. 

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Last, small but crucial change was his expression. From an angry god who will kill you for looking at him wrong into a loving, kissable daddy.

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Soft Poseidon cares about you.

~Ozzie


Vulcan

I wasn’t lucky enough to find a high-rez picture of Vulcan, but I decided to do the hot volcano-dwelling smithing god anyway. I removed most of his clothes, leaving only hotpants (for the hot god ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) and a little bit of apron. It’s not like he needs protection from the furnace, he’s a god, after all. I gave him more of a wrestler body, since he’s a smith, as well as a nipple-framing suspender. But just the one.

I also made his prosthetic rounder, to match his soft, round body.

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As for his face, I gave him a big, soft beard, a shy pout, and a long, smooth undercut suggested by someone during the stream (sorry I can’t remember who!). And the final touch was, of course, the curly hair on his chest and leg.

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Now Vulcan is truly warm and welcoming. 

-Icy

Hel Hath No Fury

From one Hel to another, this week. This particular one is from SMITE, which is a game that lets you play as various deities from different pantheons. This was their interpretation of Hel, who they split into 2 forms instead of keeping to the original mythology, where she was a person who had 2 different-looking halves. Ok, fine. But could they not have made her just a generic white woman? Twice? 

So that was my main beef with the original, besides the nonsensical clothes: the lack of any connection to her Norse roots, and her original myth. To briefly describe her game mechanics, which I was also considering while redesigning her: White Bread is a healer/support, and the Jelly Sandwich is a debuffer and does some over-time damage. The player’s able to switch back and forth between them.

In that vein, I decided to make Vanilla Wafer and Blueberry Tart into Old Woman Healer and Undead Monstrosity, respectively.

[Warning: There’s a close-up of her corpse face below the Read More!]


I was sent some lovely reference pictures of traditional Norse clothing, which I used to build the warm, functional clothing for the Old Lady half. I went with a color scheme that would evoke the frosty conditions of Niflheim, the place where her domain was located.

She floats in the game, so I was able to get away with impractically-long skirts.

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I also made her a woman of color, because why not? Honestly, the sheer Whiteness of the original just had to change.

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The scarf is her dog, Garmr. Since this is her healing half, the dog is nonthreatening (even though I used a wolf scarf for reference, shh).

For her debuffing half, I just took the idea of the fact that in the original myth, half her body looked like a corpse, and went all out with it. And like a corpse, she’s got no tits, cause fatty tissue is the first to go in the decomposing process.

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Since she floats, she didn’t need the legs, and the dog becomes an angry knife inspired by traditional Norse knives. In-game, it would be mostly the animated knife that would attack. Over-time damage can be flavored as bleeding from a bite, stuff like that.

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So that’s my Hel. I had a lot of fun working on her, especially because we don’t get to work with older ladies a lot, and I got to use a lot of cool references.

Ozzie just gave me the idea of giving each version one eye, since the corpse has 2 and the old lady doesn’t, which would have been a cool idea.

Now if only SMITE would remove their depictions of Hindu dieties, but that’s a rant for another day.

-Icy

Art by Andy Park (top), and Ryan Meinerding (bottom)

These are just 2 of the various Valkyrie concept designs that were drawn up for the movie Thor: Ragnarok, and instead they went with a very bland, ugly, and boobtastic design. Even if the producers were worried that the color palette was too close to Hela’s, you can still take the armor itself and adjust the colors a bit. Just… what a shame we didn’t get to see this Valkyrie on the big screen. Hopefully, future movies will give her the kickass design she deserves.

-Icy

h/t: @grossujin

New SMITE skins

Nais submitted:  

So, I was watching the Smite 4.21 patch notes, and I was really impressed by the quality of the skins. 

Nemesis’ new skin actually looks like half decent armor, minus the high heels. 

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Discordia looked cute and mage-y. 

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And then there was this. 

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This is “Exterminator Kali”, who is supposed to have a “superhero feel”. She looks like one of those flag girls from car races. Had me going there for a minute with the improvement, Smite… 

Ok, that Nemesis skin looks surprisingly interesting and not particularly sexualized in SMITE’s very low standards, especially compared to her default design. It’s not perfect, of course – you mentioned high heels, but there’s also spandex chainmail on her legs and skin-tight material around waist… Though this is probably the closest they ever got to practical female breastplate. 

Dicordia could use a longer skirt, but her design at least has some personality, something nonexistent among other goddesses in this game.
As a side note, her lore starts as a coherent story (Eris flees Troy after successfully spreading chaos of war there, reinvents herself as Dicordia) and quickly spirals into something that spits into face of everyone even remotely familiar with Greco-Roman myths and history (she makes a character who is neither the ancestor of Romulus nor

and

Remus the original founder of Rome instead of the twins). 
Sometimes I feel this game exists only to troll mythology nerds with blatant disregard for everything that makes those stories and characters special.

Speaking of which, can we ALL, as the humanity, please stop sexualizing the Hindu goddess Kali FOREVER? 
What’s video games’ problem with her? There was a super-porny version (NSFW link!) in Rise of the Incarnates (the game doesn’t seem to exist anymore). Overwatch also felt justified in turning this powerful female deity of a living religion into a “sexy” skin for Symmetra, because the character is Indian.

We referenced SMITE’s disgusting treatment of Kali in this 2015 post about exotification and it’s as topical now as it was then:

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Other than sporting four arms and blue flesh, that “Exterminator” skin doesn’t even have anything to do with Kali’s default SMITE design. And what’s “superhero” about it, too? The biggest connection I can think of is that she looks like an ultrasexualized Guardians of the Galaxy reject.

~Ozzie 

edit: A reader informed us that SMITE Wiki misspells the character’s name in Discordia’s lore: the article says Aeneus, an unrelated Greek mythology character, rather than Aeneas, the protagonist of Virgil’s Aeneid, bridge between Greek and Roman myths and ancestor of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome.

Since last time we bingoed a dark evil shmexy lady in strange head gear and since Thor: Ragnarok movie came out lately, how about we bingo Marvel’s Hela, another villainess with a penchant for silly hats? 

She had a lot of exquisitely ridiculous costumes throughout time (green is usually her color, corresponding with Loki’s), so I decided to take jab at by far the most WTFiest design, from the Ultimate Marvel continuity. 

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Now that is an “evil is sexy” trope in full swing! Looks like literal BDSM outfit, only done by someone who never saw real BDSM gear (so E.L. James’s visual artist counterpart?).
Art by our “favorite” Frank Cho (first and third image) and  David Finch (second image), so the comparison wasn’t really far off.

I’m always upset by Hel(a) being just another smooth-skinned Barbie in Marvel stories, considering how interesting is her appearance as told by Norse myths she originates from.
Half of her body is supposed to be that of a corpse, which disturbed Asgardians enough to give her reign over Hel (or Helheim), the land of those who died inglorious deaths, where other gods won’t have to interact with her. 

Just look how myth-accurate Hel is depicted in Dat Asynja calendar by artist

TheEndOfGrey,

which we promoted before:

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Other interesting Norse myth artwork I’d personally recommend is that of Hellanim. Here are their pieces related to Hel and her family: [x] [x]

Sadly, Marvel’s still BY FAR much more iconic and original take on the death goddess than SMITE’s, which just made her alternate between two generic “sexy” chick appearances. I mean, Marvel one at least has that weird hat going on.

~Ozzie 

edit: Added comic artists’ names, h/t: @filipfatalattractionrblog

There’s been some excitement over Valkyrie’s full armor for Thor Ragnarok… but frankly I’m disappointed for the most part. 

Even Tessa’s Thompson’s badass attitude can’t fix the weirdness of this design. Top plate even has a literal hole between the breasts. It shows the layer of armor beneath instead of bare skin, but it’s still a weakening and blow-directing point on the chest. And even though relatively flat, the breastplate overall brings plenty of attention to the boobs with the shapes and colors (could it be any less subtle than painting the titties gold?).

I’m starting to think that the other, vacuum-sealed chest Valkyrie costume was some sort of “See? We can do worse!” decoy, so that the audience’s expectations are lowered enough to accept just a slightly less insulting boobplate as an improvement.

And that’s a shame, because with a better chest piece (and without the wedge heels) this could have been a cool, believable female warrior costume (even if more on the aesthetic than practical side). 

Seems to me like boob ornamentation always gets in the way of Valkyrie looking truly great, no matter which iteration of the character it is.

~Ozzie

Is it just me or does she look like she’s a party member in Mass Effect? I mean…

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She does not look like she belongs at all… Is she maybe Space Valkyrie from the Future??

-Icy

h/t: @olofahere

more of Marvel’s Valkyrie on BABD