Femme Armor Sacrifices Safety for Sex Appeal

[MasterOfWorlds]

"Ow, it's pinching!" XD

"Oh, right in the shiny part!" XD

In all seriousness though, while I'm a fan of seeing attractive women in outfits that compliment their figure, armor is not one of them. I'm also a very practicle person, and am a firm believer in the concept of armor actually protecting the vital areas.

Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be other areas where they can show how sexy female characters can be, but there should be places for that sort of thing.

 

[Jandau]

Also, WoW gets a lot of unfair flack for this. It crops up in covers and artwork a lot more than in the actual game. Only a very small handful of items actually work like that (although people do tend to seek them out).

Also, to be fair, in WoW it works both ways. My (male) Orc Shaman spent more than a few levels wearing furry hotpants. The mental image is seared into my brain to this day...

 

[Scarim Coral]

Ha it's so true! Even to this day we still see some female characters wearing less armour compare to male so I still think this video is relevent. Also it's a proven fact that skimpy clothing is not very pratical at all (Rooster Teeth Immersion) I mean name another show that made the same gag?

 

[Jordi]

While I don't mind watching that actress in that outfit, I do kind of wish that female armor would make more sense than it does now. And it can in fact be both nice/sexy and somewhat functional looking. Check out Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights:

She's still a bit unprotected below the neck, but I think they could have easily added some leather or chainmail there without it looking much worse.

 

[socialmenace42]

It's amazing that this has been true since the dawn of fantasy games. apparently we're all twelve...

 

[JMeganSnow]

You know, I think there may be an alternate explanation for why the chainmail bikini is such a cliche--it's the same reason why most superheros wear one-piece skintight spandex suits. They are EASY TO DRAW. Plus, you have to draw the character's anatomy anyway to get their body positioning right. Why would you want to erase all of that to cover it with real clothes?

Heck, a lot of artists in this business seem to have trouble just making female models that look decent. Forget about covering up those models with actual clothes that ALSO must look decent. Not to mention the difficulty involved in making said clothes move properly, not clip, etc.

And your female models HAVE to look good. Apparently, with men you can get away with some sort of generic build and still look decent, but people's ideas for what women ought to look like fall into a MUCH narrower spectrum (which can be totally different for each person), and they go INSANE over the issue.

End result: the devs get tired, apply some colored shellac to their model, and call it a day.

 

[Wild_Marker]

RIGHT IN THE SHINY PARTS!!

How about Saskia from the witcher 2? She goes full "Joan of Arc" and manages to look good AND bad-ass

 

[Twad]

It's amazing that this has been true since the dawn of fantasy games. apparently we're all twelve...

.. and im pretty sure they all think we all play the games with one hand.


On topic; Im all for practical value before style/rule of cool. Im way more likely to take a character seriously if thier gear appear "serious".
Plus imho a female character doesnt need to show curves (at all) to be an interesting, coherent character.

 

[Clewin]

With armor it comes down to protection vs mobility, which is why Roman and Greek soldiers didn't have armored mid-rifts (so they could bend at the middle), wore slatted leather or cloth skirts, and had little arm or leg armor (maybe bracers and/or greaves).

Really full body armor didn't appear until the mid-to-late Medieval period, and full heavy armor was generally too bulky for anything but tournaments (even knights preferred more mobile armor in combat). The only time you'd see full armor was a mix of plate and chain, and only rich knights would have that. Most soldiers fought with little or no armor at all, so in reality, a chainmail bikini would offer more protection than basically nothing and most warriors should be dressed in cloth with maybe a leather jacket.

Also having worn heavy plate (tournament plate), I'd bet on the girl in the chainmail bikini - you can't see out of those helmets, you're almost immobile encased in 300lbs of iron, and it is easy to be knocked off balance. Once you're on the ground, you're as good as dead because it is pretty much impossible to stand without the help of a squire, so all they have to do is find a seam and stick a sword in.

 

[LuckyClover95]

Haha a funny video. I don't care if the joke is old, it made me laugh

 

[Rene Brungs]

im totally into sexy female armor. i don't care about realism at all!

 

[CorvusFerreum]

'nuff said

 

[CommanderKirov]

This is why quite a lot of females are shying away from tabletops...

That and "Strip when you loose the dice" Tuesday.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Also having worn heavy plate (tournament plate), I'd bet on the girl in the chainmail bikini - you can't see out of those helmets, you're almost immobile encased in 300lbs of iron, and it is easy to be knocked off balance. Once you're on the ground, you're as good as dead because it is pretty much impossible to stand without the help of a squire, so all they have to do is find a seam and stick a sword in.

If you take a look at modern body armor, it's much more specific as to what it protects, and is generally much more useful, simply because it's much better armor. It's relatively practical, and is much more effective at stopping much more than ancient armor was. Of course, all of it is due to scientific advances in just about everything.

 

[CorvusFerreum]

Also having worn heavy plate (tournament plate), I'd bet on the girl in the chainmail bikini - you can't see out of those helmets, you're almost immobile encased in 300lbs of iron, and it is easy to be knocked off balance. Once you're on the ground, you're as good as dead because it is pretty much impossible to stand without the help of a squire, so all they have to do is find a seam and stick a sword in.

Actually, from what I have heard, good armour still let's you quite mobile. What I'm meaning is of course field armour, not tournament armour, wich was much heavyer.
I have never worn a good plate armour (wich should be specifically forged for your body properties to leave you as mobile as possible) but know some who did.
And they were suprisingly agile with it. But this is of course only true for multi-thousand dollar pieces, wich is faaaaaar out of my reach.

I on my acount regullary wear chainmail with about 40lb (incl. helmet). You aren't as flexible as without it. But if you are used to it, you can minimize that flaw. On the other hand your endurance and running speed seriously suffers.

Oh, and armour with 300lbs is far to heavy. From what I know the common weight was about 60lbs (+-) for field armour and maybe up to 100-120lbs for tournament armour.

 

[Hungry Donner]

"Right in the shiny part!" an excellent video with an excellent outro.

 

[standokan]

I agree, way too much armor.

 

[xanovich]

Ok... But...

Let's take a look at the upcoming D3 Demon Hunter images.