I recently featured some of Bryan’s depictions of female characters but more recently he released this excellent artwork of his “a Bard named slickback”
And I know what you’re thinking, he’s a bard… so of course. For that reason, I must stress that we must not let the myth that bards are always the empowered men of the party – or worse, that all bards are.
Don’t let those stereotypes prevent your male characters from expressing themselves as alluring, sexual beings. Play a promiscuous warrior tank, an asexual bard, or a very super gay cleric.
It’s your game and I think we can all agree, it’s well past time that it dropped tropes and got a little spicy.
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!
We’re also big fans of half-orc boys, but we have to agree they’re prettier when the smile more, and when they make sensible costume decisions like protecting their knees but relying upon their natural agility and the distraction factor for the purposes of defense.
Concept: A typical baggy robed male mage but his behind is exposed like a modern backless dress.
Can we get all the overheated wizards dress like that from now on? I wouldn’t need to dress Ezren down if he had party in the back like that!
~Ozzie
PS: Completely BTW, the wild mix of fandoms in the notes of this post is delightful. Everyone sees their best boys in him. ?
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Abfinder, Part 2: Meligaster
I obviously had to go for a charisma-based iconic character (so I could give them a Very Big Charisma) and my favorite class happens to be the mesmerist, so here we go: the iconic mesmerist, Meligaster. Mesmerists use manipulation to get their way, so it’s strange that the original design for Mel here is so prudish. So I decided to fix that.
I ended up getting rid of almost all of his clothes. I left the fancy chain so that he can hide his nipples and flash them strategically when interacting with people. I also made sure to give him a good amount of body hair, since he’s a halfling.
There are a lot of more subtle changes I did to empower him further, like giving him invisible high heels (the epitome of empowerment), adding to his facial hair, and making his eyes pop a bit.
I definitely had a lot of fun working on this, as a Pathfinder player who knows the lore. I’ll definitely be informing my fellow tabletop friends of this New and Improved Mel.
I usually keep the silhouette roughly the same for male characters, just uncovering as much of skin as possible, but this was a special case, cause male wizards tend to dress in tons of unsexy layers. I had no choice but to recreate his legs, arms and abs from scratch, without much indication of how ripped he should be.
No sleeves, no coat flaps, a crop top that reaches juuust above his male presenting nipples. Now that’s empowerment.
Hope you also liked the new stylish shoes I designed him from scratch.
Everyone knows that when fighters and barbarians go topless, it’s to display their physical strength, right? Clearly, when squishy magic user does the same, it’s a sign of magic power making up for their vulnerable bodies! At least that’s what we usually hear when a witch or a sorceress of some kind runs around in a bikini.
