Part of me wants to say this is by far the strangest homage to the training montages Conan undergoes in the 1982 movie, but by the time this ad came out we had not only already had the sequel, but also Red Sonja movie that nobody wants to talk about.
Also I have no idea what literally everything else in the ad is about, is it pure art? I don't believe anyone could say for sure.
All of that is eclipsed by literally everything else about Pocari Sweat as a product and a brand, which continued 30 years later and to this day.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the continued success of this brand, and the bizaree nature of this ad, demonstrate two things:
There is nothing normal about boobplate or bikini armor;
If you must use them for marketing purposes, you should definitely get weird with it
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we know we usually post transformers writing stuff but as we navigate digital art, and for descriptions as a writer, we found ourselves seeking armor references for hard scifi future armor that is more rounded and curvy, and moreover not designed around human androcentric stereotype body norms. A lot of the entries in this photo may seem odd but that's because visually hard scifi set further in the future tends to assume that armor will be blocky and flat, half copying the modern military standards (even though rounded armor is a thing that heavier infantry armor right now tends to have), so we had to turn to settings that are not as realistic and whose in lore capabilities (such as energy shielding) are not either.
Fiction aside said norms are an actual problem soldiers of various militaries have complained about and that has also meant that gals whether cis or transfemmes who want to say, find a suit of recreated medieval plate armor often end up using armor accounting for modern engineering principles to actually account for comfort in the chest and having a variety of different curvatures (which of course men also have which is why we said androcentric stereotypes) apart from the fact that usually that's custom fit rather than standardized as modern military armor tends to be. Something we want to note off the bat is that some of the flaws in the armors presented above is the general lack of armor for the groin for lighter armor variants and favoring shin armor instead first, even though getting hit in the groin is painful for nearly everybody, and even if you've had a nullification surgery having your ability to go to the bathroom be impeded by injury is extremely inconvenient to say the least
So- we dug around from stuff we remembered for a variety of art references from official and/or in-game art from comics, videogames and shows that works on those principles while usually at least somewhat reflecting the current trajectory of offensive-defensive technology development, or in other words what armor in the future could look like assuming some radically new physics/chemical processes or changes in weaponry don't cause shifts. Some of the examples here are basically medieval armor redone as a spacesuit but that is a cool look. E.G. the Huntress of in-game RoR2 and RoR Returns art is actually not underarmored from a medieval perspective, a lot of professional infantry such as halberdiers and pikemen did not use leg armor much or at all in order to have higher mobility, and that is something that some tactical / special ops units today with skin tight clothing underneath somewhat reflect. for an archer, her space cuirass with arm bracers and ?leather/scifi material equivalent? banded tassets (the sideskirt armor over the cloth side skirts, tassets can also be at the front of the thigh) would actually be quite good for medieval times for the kind of combat she does.
Risk of Rain is not the only science fantasy influence we looked to, specific armors from Star Wars, Metroid, Halo, Mass Effect, XCOM 2, Half Life, (listed in order approaching realism) and Transformers (the odd one out as an inherently iterative franchise that can range from high fantasy isekai to superhero fantasy to to science fantasy to social scifi to hard scifi, Verity's armor is decidedly from a continuity that is 3 out of 5 of those genres) were also considered, along with the more hard scifi Expanse, Mars Tactics, and Selaco. The funny thing about armor design in scifi is that artists who want to make realistic considerations appear across all the different subgenres because that is something that helps with the scifi feel. We did our best to find stuff that uses convex armor principles, ie, curves outward and thus helps deflect or lesson blows away from say, one's heart or lungs. Rather than concave, which curves inward, which is why boobplate that goes past the extent of being realistically useful to the point of carving out breast shapes, which historically have only been used for ceremonial purposes or by people not expected to be in the fighting, such as commanders who hung back rather than leading from the front, because the problem with such armor is that a blow over either breast can more easily slip into into the middle and chip away or pierce into a vital area.
This is true whether for pecs or tits it doesn't matter it's a bad idea. There is, from a point of view of ritual or fashion, nothing wrong with segmented boobplate, but for combat armor it is a terrible idea, unlike concave boobplate (which frankly is what a variety of historical armor designed for men look like which is yet another point for the appearance of the body is shaped by clothing showing how much of gender is a construct tally), cavalry heels (and as far as street brawls go as compared to muddy warfare if you're good at balance in high heels those things deliver quite the sharp kick, but there's a reason soldiers don't usually go past 1-inch in terms of heeled boots), battle skirts (again, tassets, such as the heavier scale mail ones used by ancient scythian men and women, and then you have stuff like hoplite battle skirts where the leather flaps would usually have an actual cloth skirt underneath, and then you have the lengthier scythian, assyrian, celtic, and persian skirts that with the scythians could be out of leather, banded, or scale mail. these are among many other societies who have a history of combat with skirted clothing), and so on.
We went for a mix of light, medium, and heavy armor on purpose, because different amounts are preferred based on needs regarding mobility and stealth, amount of combat where enemies landing a blow is expected and what kind of weapons are being used (and thus how to approach deescalation if possible), amount of other equipment being carried or that may need to be carried or carrying injured personnel, and availability.
Note- this is not a criticism of preparing for combat *without* armor that isn't just a kevlar weave or flame resistant material or something or less than that- some situations call for forgoing armor usage either because of needing to be able to move as fast as possible or get through very tight places, or because the setting is one where armor is a bad idea. For a different example, when you look at flight suits for pilots of aircraft and spacecraft, they often don't have much armor (of course, astronauts irl are not supposed to have to worry about combat in space and we hope things stay that way even though things around satellites are getting a bit heated), and even during World War II the downside of wearing flak vests on a big plane is it slows you down and if you need to get somewhere fast say to do repairs or grab a parachute or apply first aid, and technology later changed to make them much lighter.
For a different comparison, an almost absurd Catch-22 one, from scifi, in Battletech, mech pilots ideally use cooling suits to reduce chances of heat fatigue. But when that technology was lost to most societies after several rounds of galactic nuclear wars and key industrial assassinations, most pilots typically were practically down to their underwear. Given all this, it does make sense in a way that Samus's layers under her armor is basically a jumpsuit because of the amount of heat her armor could produce (with that said, we do want to eventually try drawing her with some light armor and flight suit stylization on top of that). We do fully intend to reblog this post with futuristic scifi flight and stealth getups that we took a liking to, eventually
A friend also recommended this linked thread on people going over armor designs as something to look at starting from the most recent and trawling backwards, it has been useful!
anyway, people probably want the names of these things in the image so they can look them up, so without further ado:
-top left: Security Chief Dawn's armor (which you actually equip within gameplay iirc) from the game Selaco
-in red and white with forearm armor integrated blaster cannons: Verity Simone Carlo's armor, which first appeared, iirc, in Last Stand of the Wreckers by Nick Roche for the IDW1/IDW 2005 Transformers continuity
-the two Mass Effect armors present nearby are the N7 Defender Armor worn by MShep (couldn't find an image of canon FemShep with it on and didn't feel like booting up ME3 to photo, but this one is great because Shepard is still effectively wearing mostly convex boobplate that actually looks realistic apart from the underboob indents lmao, and the suit really accentuates curves for both versions of Shepard) Hahne-Kedar armor, and that one is sourced by the art models posted by ME3 artist Rion Swanson
-with a similar color scheme and less obtrusive shoulder armor is the Martian Marine power suit armor worn by Bobbie Draper as depicted by the amazing actor Frankie Adams in the show The Expanse (we are not in any way ready or looking to discuss the plot of the show at the moment we just wanted to bring up the armor. only so many spoons). Her armor also features a forearm sized integrated minigun
-the five armors from the Halo series present are: ODST battle dress uniform,Gen 2 MJOLNIR/V - EVA, Halo 5 MJOLNIR/R - Recon, MJOLNIR/K - Commando, and MJOLNIR/B - B-class
-we chose a photo of the Laborers from Mars Tactics specifically because they are very much on the light side of armor, only having space cloth/polymer, an astronaut helmet, greaved boots, and a remote unit/life support pack that is basically a chest cuirass ie the most bra-like realistic boobplate can get
-the armor chosen from XCOM 2 is the W.A.R. suit, which in what seems to be a running theme has a heavy forearm blaster weapon mounted on.
-from the Risk of Rain series, the default armors of the Risk of Rain 2 Commando, Loader, and Huntress are shown, along with Risk of Rains Returns art of the Huntress and Mercenary.
-the cover art of Half-Life Decay depicting player character scientists Colette Green and Gina Cross wearing the signature HEV suit (Hazardous Environment Suit) typical of Black Mesa scientists prepared for dealing with said environments, including forays to the border dimension world of Xen, and famously worn by Half Life protagonist Gordon Freeman. while not quite what hazardous material suits or bomb suit armor looks like currently irl the design is undeniably slick and didn't break any of the rules we posed for our search except the avoiding concave armor in that the mid-riff area has a remote unit indent. ah well, given that the suit is literally something you power up to reduce damage to your person, it has (within the lore) first aid capacities to administer morphine when wounded, this suit doesn't play by normal modern armor rules.
-two versions of Samus Aran's armor from the Metroid series are shown, one is her partially organic technology power suit as it appears in Metroid Dread and the other is her gravity suit as it appears in the Metroid Prime trilogy. The power suit is definitely on the lighter side, while the gravity suit is easily some of the heaviest armor shown here. the size of her pauldrons on the gravity suit is of course absurd and irl her armor would be difficult to move around in unless it's an exosuit with it's own locomotion
-lastly, Star Wars The Old Republic's Shae Vizla's armor as leader of the Mandalorian people, Mandalore the Avenger. she's sometimes shown with closer to breast tight boobplate but thats not the case for this art here
Also just want to say it's very funny to us how armor plate carriers (which are commonly used currently) are not as prevalent in scifi the further in the future of a timeline one goes
Something is coming up in the queue soon that may be considered by some to be political or controversial. This page is not meant to hold politics and will continue to refrain from openly taking political stances, however, this subject is something that the author of this page does not consider to be a political issue. Itâs the âboob-plateâ âissueâ. The subject of boob-plate on this page will only be explored from a standpoint of âpractical armor vs impractical armorâ and/or âhistorical armor vs unhistorical armorâ, and NOT âgood people vs bad peopleâ. The author of this page makes no moral judgement against people who like to see boob-plate armor in media, at least not any more so than I would for huge spiky pauldrons, ridiculous swords, or other unhistorical items that commonly appear in fiction. TL;DR: Any criticism of the idea of âboob-plateâ on this page is in NO WAY meant to be a criticism of the moral character of anyone who writes about it or draws it.
Born out of my general distaste for overly-fitted chest armor, Iâve decided to create a shirt so that I and other like-minded individuals can register our irritation with absurd and badly unrealistic breastplates. Itâs available here, and is also discounted until 7/15.
My boi be makinâ sum SoBs 4 Joazzzâs big 40k model project, and dare I say theyâre up there with the best depiction of the sisters I've seen. So i made some preview gifs just to show yeâs all the bodygroup options and combinations available so far. (still wip, most likely more stuff to come in the future)
Battle Sister:
You can swap out the heads with whatever you have
Seraphim:Â Â Â Â Â (retains most bodygroup options from regular SoB)
Hospitaller:
If you can override materials or have the submaterial tool in gmod the armor textures are compatible with Joazzzâs space marine detail props:
Best thing about these models though:
Iâve been told Ninj has plans to make em even more buff n beefier in future updates given the feedback, which makes sense given theyâre already monastic amazonian space knights. Release will probably be far off in the future when those changes are made.Â
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Finished the second champion for my Escher gang at the weekend. Stripes to tie in with Krokodil. Who says that Escher have to wear bikini armour to look kick-ass? đ
4 Character Design Tips Every Designer Needs to Know
If you're interested in character design, you've probably seen your share of tips. Some are good advice that should be followed, some are absurd, and some are misguided and pretentious attempts to apply blanket rules to a field with lots of variables.
But there are a few rules that I believe are universal, and that far too many character designers seem to blatantly disregard.
Here are some practical, common-sense tips you can use to make your characters' appearances feel more real and fit the characters better, without restricting your creative freedom to "their outfit must have X number of colors!" in the process.
Character design tip #1: The character's outfit should fit the situation.
This especially goes for people who design female characters.
OK, it goes for all genders, but fictional women seem to be the most frequent victims of character designers who pretend their creations are smart, strategic people, and then send them into battle moronically and suicidally underdressed.
If your badass supersoldier spy is going undercover at a cocktail party, sure, you can put her in a flattering dress.
But if she's going into battle with her cleavage bared, against opponents who won't be distracted by that sort of thing, you're ignoring the basic storytelling principles of keeping characters in-character and making their decisions plausible just to shoehorn in a bit of extra boobage.
Granted, there are exceptions to every rule. Having a fancy battle dress is practically a requirement for being a magical girl, and their magic powers tend to make up for the disadvantages their wardrobes present, so there is some leeway there.
(Though, come to think of it, I'd love to see a magical girl series where their transformation resulted in armor instead of dresses. That would be a smart, interesting twist.)
Anyway, back to character design tips.
When it comes to armor, if you're thinking of depriving your character of that protection so their movements won't be restricted, bear in mind that a well-constructed suit of armor has approximately the same range of motion as the person inside it.
So while you don't want a stealth-based character who needs to sneak around, slip through small spaces, or blend into crowds clanking around in full plate armor, a character on the battlefield needs a better reason than "I need flexibility" to go unprotected.
Also, if your knight with girl parts is wearing boobplate (a 'breastplate' that cups and emphasizes her boobs separately, as opposed to covering the whole chest in one smooth curve), her blacksmith needs to be fired for being bad at their job and recklessly endangering their customers.
Because boobplate can get the wearer killed.
Here are some practical questions you can ask yourself to determine what outfit is appropriate for the character's situation:
1. What is the goal of their outfit?
Are they trying to blend in? Look sexy (for a good in-story reason, NOT a meta-story "sex sells" reason)? Protect themselves in battle? Carry every high-tech spy gadget invented by every sapient species at once, just in case?
Their outfit should reflect this goal.
2. What resources are available to them?
If your character is dirt poor and unwilling to steal, they might not be able to acquire armor or fancy clothing. Unless, of course, they have a benefactor who's willing to help them, whether out of altruism or because it's required for the mission for which they're being hired.
Your character's clothes should reflect their era, their geographical area and its culture and available clothes, and their current and past financial situation.
I mention 'past financial situation' because they might, for example, still have nice clothes that they bought before their finances crashed. Their whole life needs to be taken into account, to the same degree to which their past influences their present.
3. What is the weather like?
Unless they ended up in a location they didn't expect to visit, or the weather changed suddenly, your character should be dressed for it.
Unless their wardrobe comes with built-in thermal regulation, they're innately temperature-resistant, or they need their suit of armor regardless of the climate, it makes no sense for them to have the same type of outfit in a tropical or temperate location and a snow-covered forest. (CoughBlackWidowCough)
When taking the weather into account, be sure to consider how much time the character has to prepare and acquire/pack clothes, whether or not they would see this kind of weather coming, and whether they'd have the resources to get appropriate clothing with the amount of notice they had.
Character design tip #2: The outfit should reflect their personality and abilities.
This is closely related to tip #1, but is distinct enough to warrant its own section.
If a character is cocky, unwise, rebellious, or wants to mentally throw the people around them for a loop, they might deliberately choose to dress in a way that's inappropriate to the situation.
For example, they might enjoy showing up in court with a pair of bunny ears on their head, or striding onto a battlefield shirtless because their healing factor will make up for it and the sight of their wounds healing will demoralize their opponents.
Or they might just charge into battle shirtless because they're way too hot-blooded and reckless to care.
But if a character is very serious and practical and has no superpowers, they should dress accordingly, especially when going into battle.
If a character is very comfortable with her body and sexuality, is too innocent to think much of showing skin, or simply doesn't give a crap what other people think of her, then it makes sense to have her show up in a crop top or revealing dress.
But if she's very shy or modest, or has openly expressed disdain for women who use their sexuality to get ahead in life, then showing her cleavage off will probably be out of character in most situations.
(CoughAerynSunCoughCleavageInBattleCoughWTFCough)
Their past, and the beliefs and coping mechanisms they developed as a result of it, should also play a role in your outfit decisions.
A character who's been sexually abused or assaulted might try to hide their body and attractiveness for fear of getting the wrong kind of attention. Or they might deliberately dress sexy in an attempt to reassert control over their sexuality.
Or they might just continue dressing the way they did before, whatever that way might be.
Once again, it depends on their personality and decisions.
Whatever clothing choices your character makes, the basic rule holds true: it should be in-character, and should fit their beliefs, personality, ability and situation.
Character design tip # 3: The character's body should fit their lifestyle and profession.
Can we talk about Lara Croft's arms? Her skinny little arms, with which she supposedly pulls herself up ledges? This woman should have some serious upper body muscle tone... but in some iterations, she doesn't.
This is an example of what NOT to do when designing a character, and it isn't just the ladies who get hit with it.
While females tend to be more consistently shoehorned into a single, sometimes implausible body type, characters of other genders have also been given this treatment.
Here are some examples of how a character's lifestyle might affect their physical appearance:
If your human character has a highly active lifestyle involving frequent feats of strength, give them the musculature they'd realistically require for the tasks they perform.
(Obviously, supernatural/alien/shapeshifting characters get some leeway here.)
If they frequently get into fights that involve cuts and/or burns, are not perfect at dodging, and don't have the medical technology or superpowers required to swiftly and flawlessly heal wounds, having some scars would be more realistic than their skin being smooth from head to toe.
If they live in a hot climate and are outdoors frequently, they should probably have a tan, unless they have a skin condition or wear clothing that prevents tanning.
For that matter, they should probably also have body parts that aren't tanned, unless they were out there nude.
Depending on their hair type, their hair might also get bleached by the consistent exposure to the sun.
If they use crutches or a manual wheelchair a lot, their arms should show the effects of the muscles being frequently exercised.
When you're designing your character's body, consider where they live, what experiences they've had, and what kind of activities they frequently do.
And for the love of all things holy (or at least, for the sake of plausibility, good-quality storytelling, and not making me roll my eyes at you), don't just design them for sex appeal in a way that makes no sense in light of their lifestyle or their past.
Please. Just don't.
Character design tip #4: Their voices should fit their background.
While watching Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon, I noticed a weird pattern:
The adults spoke with an accent that their children didn't share.
Rapunzel had never heard any voice other than Gothel's since she was a baby, yet for some reason, she never picked up her "mother"s accent.
And while the adult vikings all spoke with a Scottish accent, their children didn't.
This seemed weird and unrealistic enough to break immersion a bit, even in stories where hair glows, horses act like hyper-intelligent dogs, and dragons exist.
TL;DR: Keep your character designs plausible and in-character.
Sure, there are other, more nuanced and advanced facets of character design that someone who's studied the field in more depth could get into.
And even then, there would probably be exceptions to most of the rules they laid out, or rebellious try-hards who would take their "don't do this" as a challenge and find a way to make a maligned design practice work. (CoughProbablyMeCough)
But at the core of the process of designing your character, a simple, universal principle holds true:
Their appearance and wardrobe should make sense in light of their personality, environment and activities.
It's just that simple.
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I hope so much that one day Mercy will get a proper medieval armor skin and not just the 'take-my-dual-wok-bookplate-in-the-face' Valkyrie. đ (and I would instantly cosplay that)
