Ophis (Dragon’s Dogma)
Ophis (Dragon’s Dogma)
Okay, I just have to include this blurb about her from the wiki because it made me laugh:
“The leader of the Westron Labrys band of lady bandits in the western part of the peninsula. She loves to fight, and hates men.”
Is that why she doesn’t wear a normal breastplate, cause it’s too man-like? Seeing the designs of other lady NPCs in the game, this looks like just another generic bad armor design rather than any attempt at characterization. It’s disappointing that they decided that she needed sleeves, but not the rest of the undershirt, which would have prevented the chafing that’s probably the reason she’s so grumpy.
My headcanon is that she’s killing men because they’re the ones wearing comfortable armor, and she just hasn’t looted a breastplate that fits her well enough yet.
-Icy
“I hate men, therefore I dress in a way that panders to them!” reminds me of Oglaf’s Glamazon Way strip.
Except Oglaf is a self-aware parody and makes a point about gendered double standards instead of playing them straight with no subversion.
~Ozzie
The Big Quiet Boss by AnubisDHL
I thought we featured this Quiet-fied Snake before, but it’s actually an amazing 3D artwork inspired by ZombieSandwich’s illustration!
Let’s admire how the lovingly painted Snake/Big Boss body turned into a lovingly 3D-rendered one:
Please show appreciation for both the artists!
~Ozzie
Ah, this not-so-old design, as I actually finalized it a few days ago, even though I started it back when we just started doing this whole livestreaming thing. So this is Shielder from Fate/Grand Order, whom we featured on the blog before. I took her “stage 2″ armor and tried to actually make it look more like armor and less like… whatever the heck that is in the original. I decided not to give her full plate because she does have that huge shield (now with wheels!).
One weird notable detail is that she seems to have these purple “racing stripes” on her arms and legs; what’s that about? I got rid of all that stuff and instead incorporated the purple as cloth detail. The poofy pants make a comeback, this time with a poofy-sleeved shirt to match! I decided to add some white to her color scheme, because just grey and purple was very boring once the bare skin stops being a color. Finally, I cut her bangs, just because her hair was annoying me. It also didn’t go with the rest of her design at all.
Overall, it’s probably not my best work, and I put in a lot more effort than I should have just redesigning various elements, but it’s definitely more believable as an armor than the original. Seriously, that crotch window… jeez.
-Icy
Can you believe we never bingo’ed the Final Form of the wizard from Diablo 3? Well, fret no more! Where do I even start; this looks like a chafing apocalypse, honestly. Not only is she going to freeze in the icy locations, she’s going to get bitten by some zombie and contract an infection. And that’s if the zombies are kind and don’t bite her right on the femoral artery, which is nicely framed for those zombies that crawl on the ground.
But who needs protection when you have a vaguely skull-like cod piece thing?
-Icy
Imagine all the armor she could wear if she just used the metal from her ridonculous headpiece for protecting her vital organs!
~Ozzie
WOOO I did a redesign of this hot monstrosity. The screen shots used in this post were provided by doctorsanity, who submitted them to bikiniarmorbattledamage
Look, I’ve been employed as a designer for two years now, and maybe that’s not that long; I’m at least sure I don’t have the same kind of industry experience that the designers in charge of this train wreck probably do, but I do know one thing:
Design that fails to communicate its intended message is bad design.
It is, in my opinion, the chore element that separates what we do from Fine Art – fine art is a personal expression. Someone can argue with the conclusions that you came to in fine art but ultimately, it’s your territory, your message, your composition, your voice, your story.
When you’re a hired designer, everything changes. It’s their story, their character, their message, their voice.
Putting aside the obvious pandering and intent to profit off of misogynistic ideals in female video game characters for just an instant, let’s talk about Charlotte.
Charlotte [evidently, from what I’ve admittedly heard through the grapevine; this game is not yet out in my country] uses a masquerade of charm and innocence to seduce men for their wealth. When I heard this, I was shocked, because from the moment I saw her outfit, she never looked like someone I could trust.
If she’s supposed to look demure, make her look demure, goddammit. You shouldn’t need a greenhorn like me to tell you these things. Learn to treat your female characters with more respect.
Awesome redesign accompanied by an awesome writeup, thank you, pixelcut!
One more thing I’d add about the difference between design (hired or not) and fine art, is that design is supposed to serve the same purpose for everyone who sees it. To communicate an intended message, as pixelcut puts it.
The problem with how Charlotte looks basically boils down to the whole issue our blog concerns: that a lot of female character designs, particularly female warrior costumes, do not tell us who we’re dealing with. Lingerie models, maybe, but not warriors, especially not if male characters of the same or similar class establish a completely different aesthetic.
~Ozzie
Speaking of communicating a character’s backstory and personality via original design, let’s again celebrate this awesome fanmade Charlotte fix that tells us all she would want us to know about her… instead of being just a straight-up bikini armor
~Ozzie