Okay, I know this is an art showcase, but every once in a while I’m going to air my opinions on some issues about art and the video game industry (or SF/F industry) at large. I’ll label these “Soapbox” in the title so you can skip them if you need to.
Fellow artists–please, please, please dress your female subjects appropriately for what they do.
I can’t believe this is still an issue. We’ve been talking about this problem since I started gaming in 1980 and it still needs to change.
Now, I’m not saying don’t create sexy women. Sexy women are fun to draw. For some reason (for me) they’re more fun to draw than sexy men. But if your women are going into battle, give them armor that actually protects them. If they’re police officers or fire fighters, give them the appropriate uniforms (hint–they should be the same as the male uniforms). If you’re just drawing a sexy woman, do whatever your heart desires; just don’t send them into combat.
I have no problem with this:
Why not? Because she’s dancing. She’s not going into combat.
Even this is okay
if you’re not expecting her to go hand-to-hand. If you need inspiration, there’s a great tumbler showing some examples of good female armor. College Humor has also done a great video of how ridiculous these female “armor” designs are. And if you’re drawing modern female martial artists, we wear the same uniforms as the men. Exact same. Not kinda the same or a lot like the same. Absolutely the same. When I worked at in the office of my dojang (White Tiger in Cary, NC. Great school; in you’re in the Raleigh area, check them out), I would hand the same uniform to both women and men–the only difference between them was size.
Finally, please don’t pose your women in spin-breaking positions. That’s just lazy anatomy. There’s a great set of blog posts that points out how ridiculous some of these positions are. I realize he’s talking about book cover art, but it still holds true for games.
I know it’s often not the artist who’s to blame. Direction comes from higher up and responsibility should too. So game and level designers, producers, art directors, you’re not off the hook. Even if it is the artist’s decision to depict unrealistic clothing, you’ve got approval veto; someone along the line needs to say “Hey, that outfit is ludicrous: change it!”.
Oh, and it’s never the character’s choice. I’m so tired of hearing “Well, maybe she likes to dress that way.” Let’s just drop that excuse where it belongs: in the trash. The character is a fictitious person. She has no say in how you dress her. You (the decision-maker) like her to dress that way. Draw the armor on a man. Does it look ridiculous? If so, it’s just as ridiculous on a woman and you need to change it.
Now can we all finally agree to fix this problem? Thanks. I knew we could.
Addendum: Check out the Pinterest board Women in Realistic Outfits for more examples of realistic armor for women.