Bikini Armor Battle Damage - Hypocrites and Sexy Art

[madethistocomment]

BABD shows an example of sexy male art. Personally, I'd like it more if the outfit was better designed (those puffed sleeves are a definite no). The thing is that men's bodies in general are different and you have to have that in mind when making sexy stuff. I think this is a better take on how to do lesser clothed men right.

There's actually a ton of examples of male characters that show skin and their designs actually look good.

Spoiler: abs galore

It was actually really easy to find these examples. Literally took me like five minutes on google.

Costuming spergery ahead because this is a common theme I see in "sexy male" redesigns and it frustrates the fashion student in me:

The thing is, is that the people at BABD don't know how to do character design. They think that slapping a fanservicey outfit made for a woman on a guy proves how ridiculous the outfit is because the guy looks goofy in it. And it just baffles me, because of course he's gonna looks goofy in it! The outfit was made with a woman's body in mind, and thus the design choices are going to reflect that! The way a garment is shaped, the fabrics it's made of, the colors it uses, they're all basic principles of design, and anyone who knows a lick about character design knows that there's some shapes, colors, and textures that just work better on women and vice versa.

When you design an outfit, you have to make sure it goes well with the natural shape of the body. A woman's outfit will call attention to her shoulders, waist, and hips, emphasizing the hourglass figure. A man's design will focus on the shoulders and waist in order to show off the triangular shape of the torso. The outfit needs to emphasize the best traits of a person, an ideal, I guess, thus a fanservicey outfit for a girl might show off her breasts, her stomach, and her legs, while a fanservicey outfit for a dude might show off his abs, pecs, arms, and back. They're not gonna be the same outfit because men and women are physically not the same.

It's fucking basic knowledge about design. If they picked up a single book about fashion design, they'd know this.

 

[Akumaten]

BABD shows an example of sexy male art.

I'm gonna be blunt. The green guy looks like a fucking faggot. Reminds me of Zonda from Gunvolt

Spoiler

The fake one(s),not her true form

 

[Hummingbird]

I'm gonna be blunt. The green guy looks like a fucking faggot. Reminds me of Zonda from Gunvolt

Spoiler

The fake one(s),not her true form

Also those piercings make his nipples look like they're infected.

 

[Sun Shihong]

That comment, however, was also one big virtue signal and contained bad logic. The comment's main point wasn't that works don't have to follow real world rules and logic (though the fact that BABD have so little self awareness that they can agree with that statement while violating it in practice is hilarious to me), but that using real world arguments, like historical accuracy, to be "problematic" is invalid and always an excuse to be a bad person:

"If your fantasy world excludes people of color or those belonging to the LGBT+ community, if it’s grossly misogynistic and white cis-male centric, that’s because YOU made it that way. Stop blaming “historical accuracy” or “believability”. It’s not the genre; it’s YOU."

Essentially, this is the same bullshit argument I could see many of the same assholes at Resetera making about why Kingdom Come: Deliverance is "racist" for not including black people. And the stupidity continues:

"In the same vein, “that’s how this particular fantasy setting works” is just as bad excuse for gross in-story stuff as “that’s the way real world was once”. "

This is idiotic on its face. Besides the fact that there is an entire genre called "historical fantasy" which mixes fantasy with an actual historical setting and is predicated on being historically accurate, so what if a general fantasy setting wants to period accurate to the real world? This is nothing more than SJW bitching. The logical statement to make as a rebuttal for this idiocy is simple: "Yes a fantasy world doesn't have to be realistic, but there is nothing precluding a fantasy world from being so, or basing itself on a real life world setting or real life rules. Every author should be free to be as realistic or non-realistic as possible."

Gets funnier when you start to think about their double standards. BABD, being hardcore socjus warriors, are more than happy to apply mental gymnastics to get an upper hand in any discussion people have with them.

They complain about men swooning over sexy heroine waifus with skimpy clothing as it was a thing that came around when Donald Trump was elected president, but this is common ever since the paleolithic age.

Even if you take away the erotic/sexual arousal factor of attractive women, you still have traits that pulls their triggers, confidence, self-awareness and poise. Factors of which none of the art school dropouts there seem to have. And in typical tumblr fashion, it's not about appreciating creative freedom, but rather about trying desperately to twist the world to fit on their own points of view, and yelling at everyone who knows the king is naked because they consider themselves to be intelligent enough to see the "magical robes".

 

[One Man Bland]

BABD shows an example of sexy male art. Personally, I'd like it more if the outfit was better designed (those puffed sleeves are a definite no). The thing is that men's bodies in general are different and you have to have that in mind when making sexy stuff. I think this is a better take on how to do lesser clothed men right.

It’s always amusing to me that people like BABD always give their yaoi-fueled “subversions” massive cod pieces/bulges in some vain effort to find an equivalent for larger breast sizes, but outside of some niche artistic (read: porn) circles massive bulges aren’t really popular with either men or women. Those two body parts aren’t remotely comparable since breasts are considered a secondary sex characteristic while a dick is considered primary - as seen with the number of cases where bare breasts have been depicted in various media, but full male nudity is often restricted to the highest rating or just straight up banned.

They’re basically trying to “stick it” to all the dude bros by trying to shock them with their porn collection; but since it’s not all that shocking, instead of rage most people seem to look at these “subversions” and at most think “lol gay,” so BABD just ends up having egg on their face.

 

[Pumpkin Girl IRL]

I'm reminded of that wonderful Short packed comic which made the claim women are only attracted to men "built for agility". Wtf does that even mean.

 

[One Man Bland]

I'm reminded of that wonderful Short packed comic which made the claim women are only attracted to men "built for agility". Wtf does that even mean.

When people say that, they’re usually talking about how male and female artists tend to implement different visual languages. Women on average tend to lean towards much more “flowy” styles, so everyone tends to be leaner and less defined - see shows like Sailor Moon or anything made by CLAMP.

What people tend to forget however is that despite the difference in execution, the intended principle is still the same. The big muscle guys in women’s entertainment are still representing an idealized big strong man body even if they don’t look explicitly like the Hulk. Just look at any title that had men as the target demographic but also has large swaths of fan girls swooning for the male characters.

 

[Hummingbird]

Remember, if a female cosplayer has to use double-sided tape, you shouldn't make it a costume for your fictional characters. Because it's too much of a cost for those poor women. Also, if you're a guy wearing it for laughs, you better respect the female who does.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Remember, if a female cosplayer has to use double-sided tape, you shouldn't make it a costume for your fictional characters. Because it's too much of a cost for those poor women. Also, if you're a guy wearing it for laughs, you better respect the female who does.

Jesus Christ, this has to be the most patently absurd, retarded thing I've read on that site and that's saying something:

New rule for female armor: if you design female armor and you wouldnt be willing to cosplay it, you’re making a mistake...

If you’re a guy and you’d wear it because “it’d be funny” but you wouldn’t respect a female cosplayer who wore it: You are a mistake.

Another caveat to the rule, inspired by an article we linked in the past: if a costume is (near*) impossible to replicate or too uncomfortable to wear for cosplayers - it fails as a costume...

Honestly, if a cosplayer would need to use double-sided tape in order to maintain their decency while wearing your costume, maybe just… don’t.

Since when do companies design outfits based on the whims of cosplayers? Oh wait a minute, THEY ALREADY DO! Part of the reason they design women in hot outfits is specifically because they KNOW cosplayers will want to cosplay as these hot women. Do I really need to post rows of images of 2B cosplayers to hammer in this point? Or any other scantily clad female fictional character for that matter? Do they think cosplayers are bothered by the need to use double sided tape? Seriously? I like how they presume to speak for all cosplayers, when I'm wiling to bet none of the bitches involved in this site has cosplayed a day in their life or knows anything about the craft.

And once again, they unironically fail to understand that FICTION is FANTASY and isn't predicated on real life. Why the fuck would anyone need to be willing to dress up as a character before they can design their outfit? I've never seen Stan Lee dress up as Spider Man, or any of the characters he had a hand in creating. These statements are so headbangingly stupid, I'm horrified they actually thought any of this bullshit was worth championing.

Oh and this comment is hilarious:

Indeed. I remember when I went to Comic Con in London and saw someone dressed up as Ryuko but without her Kamui because I don't think it would even be safe to wear that. Apparently they told me they found a tutorial online for how to make it safe apparently? Hmmmm....

Sounds like that cosplayer was too fucking lazy to make a Kamui, because I've seen hundreds, literally HUNDREDS, of cosplayers cosplay as Ryuko in her Kamui, both transformed and un-transformed.

 

[madethistocomment]

Indeed. I remember when I went to Comic Con in London and saw someone dressed up as Ryuko but without her Kamui because I don't think it would even be safe to wear that. Apparently they told me they found a tutorial online for how to make it safe apparently? Hmmmm....

Ah yes

Women

Defenitely

Can't

Safely

Cosplay

As

Kamui.

Nope! Can't do it. Not at all. Just ignore the 78,000 Ryuko cosplayers at any anime convention ever. Nah.

 

[Hummingbird]

I could see this beautifully working against them. Since some of the scantly clad men designs they love so much would be deemed inappropriate to wear in public and/or too hard to wear (like that gay, green wizard and his codpiece).

 

[One Man Bland]

Remember, if a female cosplayer has to use double-sided tape, you shouldn't make it a costume for your fictional characters. Because it's too much of a cost for those poor women. Also, if you're a guy wearing it for laughs, you better respect the female who does.

double-sided tape

Th-they know that there's a special adhesive that the pros used in order to comfortably keep strapless dresses and bras in place for this exact purpose, right??? There's even a backless bra that serves a similar purpose, because there's an entire market for women who want to show more skin without having a conventional bra show through. Hell, I've seen strapless dresses, bras, and knee socks that have strips of rubber in their lining so that they naturally stick to skin without the need for adhesive. There's so many popular looks among women outside of cosplay that solutions to these exact conundrums are mainstream and numerous/varied enough that you're bound to find one that would suite your preferences.

Forget being ignorant of cosplay norms, this is "The most adventurous I've ever been is polka-dot hipster briefs I bought on sale at Old Navy" levels of fashion ignorance.

 

[John Titor]

So I suppose those mecha cosplays shouldn't be done because they are the most complex and very hard to move in, never mind that they would end up being gender neutral.

 

[Hummingbird]

The good ladies decide to sex up Green Arrow's design and someone needs to tell them that the nipple shots don't quite work.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

The nipple is absurd, but its not anatomically incorrect. He looks like a slightly more modest version of my bro Gannicus.

Spoiler

Exposed nipples. Thong. Distinct lack of protection over vital bits when engaging in mortal combat. He checks every box.

 

[One Man Bland]

I think it's more the nipple is way too close to the armpit. It's like they realized that no matter what they did there was no realistic way to expose the nipples so they just stuck it anywhere. Though even then considering the number of shirtless men in media I'm not sure why they consider nipples to be such a "gotcha!"

I'm more annoyed that for some stupid reason they seem to have interpreted the crotch padding as his actually crotch and therefore made it bulge. It's not like there aren't female designs with loin clothes that they would REEE at. Although this design does really highlight how little actual skill they have with how much they fucked up both the thighs and the leg belts - even accounting for this being a proof of concept scribble that the original artist probably shat out in 15 minutes.

 

[Hummingbird]

I think it's more the nipple is way too close to the armpit. It's like they realized that no matter what they did there was no realistic way to expose the nipples so they just stuck it anywhere

I knew there was a reason the nipples annoyed me and not for the reason they wanted.

 

[RockVolnutt]

"DC never sexualizes men" and then you remember this was a real variant cover for an issue of Justice League.

 

[Hummingbird]

"DC never sexualizes men" and then you remember this was a real variant cover for an issue of Justice League.

That's the thing. You don't need oversized bulges and holes in the shirt to show the nipples to make a guy look hot.

 

[One Man Bland]

I could see this beautifully working against them. Since some of the scantly clad men designs they love so much would be deemed inappropriate to wear in public and/or too hard to wear (like that gay, green wizard and his codpiece).

I’m actually a little surprised BABD haven’t attracted the same criticisms that the Hawkeye Initiative received for that green wizard design - namely using satire as an excuse to depict various yaoi-centric fetishes and homophobic undertones what with the blow job hand gesture being used for mockery at the character’s expense.

Then again they did get a lot of shit for the troon fetishism a few pages back, so maybe they’ll start attracting more ire for that sort of thing in the future.