battleteacake:

from-titan:

i’ve been meaning to do this post for YEARS and i finally managed to dig out all these sketches and put them together.

the sexual dimorphism in WoW has always been sad especially considering blizz had such good ideas at the start but the furious fan feedback always made them redesign these fascinating and monstrous females of the races into much more humanlike. i also remember the uproar of thin male blood elves and the homophobic and sexist slurs that followed which made them beef up the male model considerably.

i tried my best to give a go at redesigning them to make their body types, postures and facial features more aligned.

dwarf, undead, goblin and gnome models on the other hand are great, 5/5.

bonus, give male belves thongs too:

@bikiniarmorbattledamage

Suspicious dimorphism, probably moreso than double standard in costume design, remains one of big factors in furthering notion that female characters are inherently completely different from the male ones… but not from each other, even among different species

And of course then fans pretend that’s just how things are, as if those weren’t fictional worlds with arbitrary rules.

We don’t know what’s happening at Blizzard, but it’s always sad to see them actively try to do female characters better, but then deciding to go back. Should whiny dudebro fans or the Creepy Marketing Guy be blamed, we’ll probably never learn. Nevertheless it’s a shame that it happens.

~Ozzie

So, last time we shared a poster from the upcoming Warcraft movie – there was a concern among people that we were being unfair because the sexy-orc lady was a half-orc so the comparison wasn’t necessary fair.

Glossing over that the poster itself made no effort to convey this, or the politics of , we now have a poster of a full blooded orc woman, Draka.  For reference, this is Draka:

So it seems they decided facially she was perfect, but somehow her outfit wasn’t quite ridiculous enough and needed some more random gaps of skin, less pauldron and what looks like a dog collar.

And well, as for the humans… it seems pretty clear that in the World of Warcraft, the men go to war and the women… wear fancy dresses?

– wincenworks

Blizzard “progress”

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

Liliana submitted:

So, remember when a Blizzard VP was acknowledging how dumb bikini armours were and promised progress in the future? Fantastic. Now a new patch for Diablo III is coming out soon and they’re going to include new sets of armours.

Diablo is known for its ridiculous outfits, but hey Blizzard is starting to get it, and so the new wizard outfit will no doubt be…

Sigh.

Nevermind.

Oh Blizzard… I want to be disappointed in you but it’s so hard when you continually recognize the issues with your products and manage to make your attempts to improve into even bigger jokes.

-wincenworks

More on World of Warcraft | More on Diablo | More on Overwatch

Probably a good time to bring this back since, well we’re still having people assuring us that Blizzard – a company with literally billions of dollars and armies of talent people… is really trying!  Just look at them trying so hard with Overwatch!  Examples include going from this:

image

To this:

image

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination – trying. There is no classroom in the world where this would be considered a passing grade improvement despite the claims of caring by lead.  (If you missed the outrage by… people claiming others are outraged, there’s a great summary here.)

Yes, it is scary for companies to change up imagery when working with an established brand – but making the actual changes is the only way that it still perpetuates all the problems.  Ultimately, all they’re doing is well…

image

The only way they’re going to fix things is to really take an actual whole new direction with it – and they probably won’t get that right the first time either.  

Lara Croft was still wearing a spaghetti strap top to show off her boobs in Tomb Raider (2013) but the overall shift was enough they were able to make big improvements in the next game (mostly) and stay away from backsliding. Gauntlet’s Valkyrie has gone from bikini babe to certified badass.

Neither of these games improved by trying to get credit for minimalist changes and writing nice quotes about how their game is for everyone.  They did by actually digging into what was wrong and looking at ways to avoid doing that.

If you’re a big brand who announce you’re trying to do things better, and the headline combined with a press pack image is an instant joke… you’re not doing better and nobody should credit you for it. At all.

– wincenworks

Blizzard “progress”

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

Liliana submitted:

So, remember when a Blizzard VP was acknowledging how dumb bikini armours were and promised progress in the future? Fantastic. Now a new patch for Diablo III is coming out soon and they’re going to include new sets of armours.

Diablo is known for its ridiculous outfits, but hey Blizzard is starting to get it, and so the new wizard outfit will no doubt be…

Sigh.

Nevermind.

Oh Blizzard… I want to be disappointed in you but it’s so hard when you continually recognize the issues with your products and manage to make your attempts to improve into even bigger jokes.

-wincenworks

More on World of Warcraft | More on Diablo | More on Overwatch

Probably a good time to bring this back since, well we’re still having people assuring us that Blizzard – a company with literally billions of dollars and armies of talent people… is really trying!  Just look at them trying so hard with Overwatch!  Examples include going from this:

image

To this:

image

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination – trying. There is no classroom in the world where this would be considered a passing grade improvement despite the claims of caring by lead.  (If you missed the outrage by… people claiming others are outraged, there’s a great summary here.)

Yes, it is scary for companies to change up imagery when working with an established brand – but making the actual changes is the only way that it still perpetuates all the problems.  Ultimately, all they’re doing is well…

image

The only way they’re going to fix things is to really take an actual whole new direction with it – and they probably won’t get that right the first time either.  

Lara Croft was still wearing a spaghetti strap top to show off her boobs in Tomb Raider (2013) but the overall shift was enough they were able to make big improvements in the next game (mostly) and stay away from backsliding. Gauntlet’s Valkyrie has gone from bikini babe to certified badass.

Neither of these games improved by trying to get credit for minimalist changes and writing nice quotes about how their game is for everyone.  They did by actually digging into what was wrong and looking at ways to avoid doing that.

If you’re a big brand who announce you’re trying to do things better, and the headline combined with a press pack image is an instant joke… you’re not doing better and nobody should credit you for it. At all.

– wincenworks

World of Warcraft (the Movie)

image

clearlyiwaswrong submitted:

I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.

And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised. 

image

Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.

Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.

@nicholaskole took notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:

image

Also reminds me strongly of @krudman’s take on sexual dimorphism in character design.

image

We assure you, WoW the Movie, designing big badass orc women (and/or sexualized orc men) isn’t that hard! We have a couple examples in our orc tag.

~Ozzie

edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc.  While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.

World of Warcraft (the Movie)

image

clearlyiwaswrong submitted:

I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.

And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised. 

image

Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.

Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.

@nicholaskole took notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:

image

Also reminds me strongly of @krudman’s take on sexual dimorphism in character design.

image

We assure you, WoW the Movie, designing big badass orc women (and/or sexualized orc men) isn’t that hard! We have a couple examples in our orc tag.

~Ozzie

edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc.  While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.