Raidlord by Azora Visuals

Interesting to see male fantasy armour (of a sort - I can see oh-so-many unprotected targets) that looks as silly as far too much female fantasy armour.

This looks uncomfortably snug. Is it made to fit over inhalation or exhalation? If the armourer and wearer get that wrong, things are going to get a bit breathless.

As for wearing it in cold weather over bare skin, no thanks!

Finally, it extends below the natural waist without any break, so bending over to pick up something from the ground would be a bit of a problem - and that codpiece-thing looks too much like an ice-cream scoop for my liking. Ouch…

One of the odd things about fantasy armour is the way the artists spend so much time on getting the textures and sheen correct and so little time on the ergonomics of “can someone wear this and fight move or even breathe in it?”

Look at real historical armour, people. Pictures of that are mere clicks away. 

(…snicker)

older lotr illustrations sometimes depict éowyn wearing ridiculously small armour. apart from the problem general sexualisation of the only female character (who really does anything), there’s another hilarious thought:

éowyn pretended to be dernhelm, a man. to fit in, she must have worn men’s armor. so the armor in the illustrations is normal for rohirrim.

therefore, all the rohirrim rode to war just like that:

there’s a thundering sound in the distance as the rohirrim ride into war but rather than hoofbeats it’s the collective sound of all their cheeks clapping

the artist for this particular piece is Frank Frazetta and to be fair to him this is how he drew the orcs armor 

so the rohirrim comment is probably not that far off

That’s a man who just straight up had a problem with the concept of wearing pants into battle, and I respect that

male or female

hero or villain

sea or land

even in the snow

I guarantee you Frazetta’s Rohirrim were 100% pants-free

Good Old Frank. That man loved bodies and hated clothes so much

When is it sexist? - A Handy Chart

My favorite moment when playing FFXIV for the first time was seeing the men in the same ridiculous subligars as the women.

In order:

World of Warcraft

Dark Souls

Final Fantasy XIV

Seriously, Dark Souls is so good about this, I accidentally became female and didn’t even know about it until I was changing my gear.

Sorry, that last bit is funny to me because I’m just imagining this knight changing and looking at a pair of breasts like “…Those are new.”

THE LAST COMMENT KILLED ME

click through, the video form is much more interesting

Since people often ask “Alright, well this is fantasy!  Why can’t we have boob shapes in plate armor?!”  I decided to make a post about it.  My frustration hasnothing to do with historical inaccuracy and I’m all for imagination and freedom— but I’d like to (very quickly) illustrate this for you:

I purposely over-emphasized the shape of the two spheres in the armor so you can really think about this. 

Look at the shape of the blue cups and the green line, think about the form of that on some beautiful ornate plate armor.  A female warrior is charging into battle.  In the midst of this, she trips!  Or is pushed over, or takes a blow to the chest!  So long as the force is on the front of her torso it really doesn’t matter for the conclusion:

She feels a sharp pain in her chest and hears the cracking of bone!  Oh no, what’s gone wrong?  Well she doesn’t have time to think about that, because she is now dead.

Her sternum just fractured, take another look at that green line, that’s where all of the pressure from any front impact is going to go because of the shape of the two blue cups made for her breasts.  The rest of the armor slides around your body, but because of the two cups for breasts that are often made in fantasy female armors, the pressure point is directly on the sternum.  The breasts are not going to stop the force of you falling onto them, and because of that the metal is going to push in and bash you in the sternum.

What does a fractured sternum do?  Why it goes right into your heart and lungs of course.

(that was the sound of all of my followers inhaling a sharp breath between closed teeth at once)

Here are three great solutions to the problem:

GREAT EXAMPLE OF FANTASY TORSO ARMOR THAT IS FEMININE BUT FUNCTIONAL:

It is usually possible to bind the breasts when fighting if they really are far too large to fit into regular looking armor (there’s padding anyway), but most women can actually fit into a similarly sized male counterpart’s armor quite easily.  Even if that’s the case, the armor can be made to have a curve to it without putting all of the pressure in one area, which was actually a style of armor for quite some time as shown here:

And don’t even get me started on the dreaded “Cleavage Window”

The “Cleavage Window” defeats the purpose of having any armor on your torso because it means you’re just going to be leaving open the vital organs the rest of the armor is trying to protect.

If people are going to protect themselves and not have much torso protection, invest in some blocking lessons, because the best defense is to not get hit at all.  There are also advantages to not having plate armor, and plate armor was often really expensive anyway.

— Edit —

supaslim replied to your post: “Why do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?”

This week’s throwback: one of the very first posts I reblogged and a big inspiration for BABD even existing. It is THE Boobplate Post - one with the most comprehensive explanations why semi-spherical individual compartments for each boob in armor are an awful, awful idea. 

To reiterate briefly, boobplate:

~Ozzie

see other good articles about impracticality of boobplate: here, here, here. here and here

h/t: @whydontyouhateithere who recently asked about boobplates

Angular fantasy plate armor is ugly. Rounded plate armor is where it’s at.

Hey buddy, I think you got the wrong door. The rounded plate club’s two blocks down.

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