Tag: reply

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Incidentally I have an issue of ‘La geste des chevaliers dragons’ in my reference pile, because the cityscapes and castles are fantastic, I just thought I should point out that the characters wearing very little armour tend to be savagely eviscerated for their stupidity, not that it isn’t incredibly fan servicy and ridiculous despite that, but at least there are no inexplicably impervious navels.

As Ami of eschergirls and lady-knight- (in her comment) noted, it seems like Ange intended their comic to be subversive of fantasy clichés (so female virgins slay dragons instead of being kidnapped by them), but the execution indulges in harmful narratives (like demonizing women’s sexuality).

I don’t really think that letting scantily-clad warriors die for drama justifies making them scantily-clad in the first place.

It may work in comedy, but La geste des chevaliers dragons (or at least the first issue, the only one I managed to read) never makes fun of those costumes, just assumes we’re supposed to accept them as a sign of female empowerment or some other misogynistic bullshit.

The only character that commented on Jaïna’s non-armor was framed as a sexist dude who’s jealous of dragon slayer’s status, so… yeah, the readers probably weren’t supposed to agree with him.

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I liked the woman in the picture, but I must ask, wouldn’t D-cups be as restricting on a woman who needs to fight? Even if it was shaped like the armor in the picture, the breasts would cut into her range of motion and I would think it would render archery to be rather difficult. Anyway, they are mostly fat cells and sword practice involves a lot of upper body exercise. Still fascinating concept and it answered my question I never knew I had about what armor for women should look like.

REFERENCING the post you’re referring to with a link or description is your friend!
“The picture” is usually not enough to tell what you’re commenting on in my askbox.

I can only assume you’re referring to this post, as it is the most recent one and mentions D-cups.
Though I feel like I’m not the person the question should be addressed to, as I reblogged it from new Repair-Her-Armor admin blog and considering the woman from the image has a tumblr account too; but I’ll try my best to answer.

I’m pretty sure Astro from ria-RHA was referring to D-cups solely in the context of sex-appeal, as the original question was about designing a female character who’s well-protected and attractive to (straight) men at the same time.

First of all, let us remember that women usually don’t decide how big their chests are. And women of all sizes (that includes breasts) are capable of impressive physical fits that would make them excellent fighters:

Second, it is true that big breasts may come in the way while in fight, but a well-designed armor paired with a decent underwear (sports bra) should flatten them enough without being uncomfortable. A well-trained sportswoman/female warrior would most likely know how to handle a fight without her own body causing inconvenience to her.

Also keep in mind that weight loss (caused, for example, by swordfight training) can, in some cases, reduce cup size.

image

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On game mods

Yesterday, a reader wrote a comment with a really great breakdown of how video game mods should be judged in a different context than official material from the game’s producers.
With their permission, I’m publishing the text here.

Ravel said:

In most games or comics, these designs of armor and these girls/women are specifically created to target a certain audience with the product they’ve been created for. If you take Scarlet Blade, for example, the models of all the female characters and their clothes have been designed to target a male demographic in order to SELL this game to them. Here, depictions of women have been used as bait, they have been objectified and they can be “owned”. The designs serve a monetary purpose: sell as much as possible of this product to a certain audience.

But mods are different. They have been created using tools the game and the software of Skyrim (in this case) provide, allowing freedom in creating new stuff. And some people decided to use these tools to flesh out some of their fantasies. They offer their work for free, without wanting to sell them to somebody specific or use them to their own benefit, they just make them available to whoever enjoys what they have created. Is it that different from people who publish their nude paintings on deviantart? As far as I see it, this mods could as well be paintings, certainly the brush isn’t to blame? And what about the amateur painter, is he a pervert because he decided to draw one of his sexual fantasies?

Yeah, it might be creepy and sad, in a way. But these are fantasies, created not to sell or to attract a certain group of people, but rather for the creators themselves. We all have dreams, erotic fantasies and wishes that we hide, just because we share them it doesn’t mean we exploit them or that we actively long for them to become reality, except as pixels, paintings or stories…?

I talked about the same issue earlier, but why not reiterate it in Ravel’s perfect wording?

Yes, mods, in contrary to official stuff, are not part of game’s marketing, audience targeting, and most of all, don’t bring profit to the game’s creators. We should always keep that in mind when commenting on fan-created content and judge it by its own merits (or faults).

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ria-rha:

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!

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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.

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problemspoof:

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

Could be a bit less boobplate-y, but pretty cool design nonetheless.

I’d be prepared to give the boobplate a pass here for once, for two reasons:

1) it appears to be lacking the sternum-snapping ridge on the inside. The front of the armour looks fairly flat, and the sculpted breasts appear to be mainly on the side. They wouldn’t be as much of a liability.

2) the depth of the breastplate is such that they probably aren’t form-fitting at all, and they’re simply sculpted on rather than actually containing her breasts, similar to the stylised musculature on the front of Roman officers’ breastplates.

As I said in a previous reply to similar comment, I suspect that the ornamental golden figure may create a weak point anyway (but I’m neither a smith nor a welder, so don’t take my word for it).
Also, if we take a closer look, there’s a hole between her breast boobplate and collar, and that hole just happens to be roughly where her sternum starts.

And you apparently haven’t seen a well–done boob bump on an armor if you’re defending how this looks.
Because however better than such death wish or this absurd, it’s still a pretty standard sphere-based booblate. And even if purely ornamental, it’s a design flaw anyway. Hell, assuming there’s padding unbeneath, such shaped mold may be a bit uncomfortable to put on.

It’s a very awesome character and costume design (badass knight woman of color, squee!) and a huge leap in right direction, but let us acknowledge that it’s not exactly perfect or practical in every way possible, alright?

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jinxedartwerks answered your post: Sorry for not updating often …

I wish I could think of something to submit. D= I think most people send things to either Repair-Her-Armor or Escher Girls now. =(

People have been submitting to Escher Girls forever, so it’s not like I’m jelaous XD

And Repair-Her-Armor has definitely easier to meet requirements for submission. “Find a broken outfit” and/or “Fix broken outfit”.

That reminds me… One of our submission options, in opposition to fixing the outfit, is breaking the character wearing it.
Anyone willing to draw a scantly-clad warrior woman actually getting chafed by chainmail bikini, freezing in cold weather or, you know, getting stabbed in her bare stomach?

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To the Anon who sent me an ask today

Your message was ignorant and cissexist through and through, so don’t expect me to publish it.

If you want me to answer you, I would do this privately IF YOU DID NOT USE ANONYMOUS FEATURE.

Also, I think I explained my problem with the noun ‘female’ (and/or male) as well as I could here, including the article’s comment section. If you read all of those and still don’t get it, we have nothing to discuss together, dear Anon.

This blog is a feminist-friendly space, but we’re not here to discuss sexist vocabulary, so I hope this is the last post not regarding female warrior outfits.

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hyratel:

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

Could be a bit less boobplate-y, but pretty cool design nonetheless.

pfffft. there’s plenty of room under there for proper padding. look how much it slopes out right at the shoulder level

Yeah, it’s the rare instance of female armor being properly layered beneath the top surface of metal.
But what I meant is that it still has the boob bumps, which create a weak point right where the sternum is. I doubt that the golden ornamentation in that place actually helps the case.

Boobplate is not only superfluous design-wise (because for most armored women breast-flattening with a sports bra, corset or sarashi is obligatory part of padding anyway), it can also kill the wearer.