Tired of half-naked ladies.

[The Raging Gaijin]

[OT] Xena Kicks Much Ass!

Originally posted by ZaPhOd
In fact, I think Xena is the second cheesiest show on TV (next to Relic Hunter).

Am I the only one that finds the barely hidden lesbian overtones enjoyable in that show?

The Raging Xena Fanboy.

 

[Badaab]

Half nekkid ladies...

Personally, I\'ll buy and paint the figure if it\'s nice-looking, good in a specific combat role in the game, represents a character for roleplaying, and/or is moderately priced. If a half-nekkid woman finds its way into my miniature collection its because of those criteria...

Anyhoo though, most of the miniature sculptors I have heard of are men. And men like boobs, and half-naked, attractive women. If you\'re a female sculptor, more power to you if you want to sculpt half-naked men. So, instead of bitching about the products, just don\'t buy them?

Badaab

 

[sivousplay]

Badaab,

It\'s just a friendly discussion ... I don\'t think anyone was bitching; they were merely stating a point of view. No need to assert otherwise.

jim

 

[Coyote]

Which is funny.

Here is a quote from Dragon 296, in the fan mail section

\"Although the cover art on issue #294 is excelklent from a technical viewpoint, showing Ms. Nielsen\'s great skill and panache, it\'s a subject that frankly makes me a bit queasy. If you\'re going to show someone in very little clothing on the cover, please make it a lady, in deference to the 98 percent male readership of your magazine. Believe me, we don\'t want to see some other fellow shirtless, no matter how well the painting is rendered. I\'m not suggestiung that you show only scantily clad wenches on the cover, enjoying as I do pictures of mighty dragons, noble knights, crafty wizards, and so froth, but if there is going to be skin shown, please make female skin!\"

This guy can\'t handle 1 picture of a mostly naked guy? Sad.

I don\'t mind looking at half-naked, fully naked, or fully clothed women.

I do wish there were more realistically clothed women though. Take for example, the cover of said Dragon magazine. An attractive young lady who is posing infront of a dragon she\'s just slain. Wearing full plate armour. Huzzah! I like that. I even won\'t complain about why anyone would mold boobs in armour, instead of having the woman just bind her breasts like any sane woman would do when going into combat (like the spartans would cinch up their privates)

 

[Thri-Keen Priest]

The Cleavage Wars of Boobylon

Man, what a raging debate! I gotta step in for a moment-

First off, yes, I\'m a man, and, well, okay, dammit, I like porn too. And when I look at porn, it\'s usually not porn depicting plump women in their forties. Call me a pervert, but I\'m most attracted to women between the ages of 16 and 24. I do not, however, find huge breasts attractive in the slightest. Nature knows best.

And yes, I have painted a few of the women warriors who look like their most punishing attack might be to unhook their chainmail bikinis and spin-slap you with their boobs, (when I was, maybe, 14 years old.)

But as an adult, I appreciate female models that give a little respect to women in terms of properly dressing them: warriors wearing armor, head (or neck) to toe, and even elves showing only a tease of cleavage (Lorthian Silverhair *rocks*!) And dancing girls dressed just as dancing girls should be dressed, *alluringly*. That is their job: to entice and entertain.

Moreover, one of the most important qualities I am seeking in building my collection is *diversity*. I want to have a model in my collection for virtually any possibility. At some point I realized, \"Hey, my collection is about 1% female!!\"
So I went out and picked up a great many of the fine female miniatures from REAPER; they\'re awesome. And yes, Sandra Garrity is truly a divine sculptress; I adore her work.

All of this being said, (seems everyone has a great deal to say on this topic, huh?) I would like to see more of the type of models that CrafterGoddess has been describing: middle-aged sorceresses, and benevolent wise women in their seventies. And while we\'re at it, how about more children, and especially more ordinary townsfolk? My collection is also too heavy on the earth-shattering titans, with precious few simple peasants and pilgrims.

The reason we see so few of these types is simple, of course: They\'re just not as popular with the typical gamer. So it becomes a Catch22. How to get more women into gaming with so few realistic female characters, and vice versa.

One idea is to hire sculptors to create *exactly* the type of figure you want to see. Though expensive, this would at least get the ball rolling.

Also, any of us can try our hands at sculpting. It\'s tricky, and takes loads of patience and practice, but it\'s not impossible. Give it a try sometime!

Take care, everyone.

TKP

 

[Errex]

At last!!

Fortunately, Reaper has on sale two new packs of townspeople, one of wich includes a matronly looking female. So, to all pewter feminists out there, I say:

\"Get thee as many of those as yon purse allows, and hence leave us be with our fully bossomed warrior vixens\"

And to Lowrianne, well, if I had a life, I wouldn\'t be painting lead figurines, would I?.

Now, I\'m off to ogle chicks in plate bikini...

 

[nadinbrzezinski]

I love the

Stereotypes you just posted, since I am a woman, and married. Funny my husband paints models as well and he stopped liking the chain mail bikinis around 17... maybe he matured.

Now I say this because in what you posted you just covered the gamut of stereotypes... now I do not feel insulted one bit, since I have heard this and worst usually (to use stereotypes) from male gamers who are also overweight, and with quite the body odor... I hope you do not fit this stereotype either. Kenzerco, his comics cover the gamut quite well.

;-)

Nadin, now back to the paiting table, oh and I do intend to pick some of those blisters as well... will be perfect for some of the DnD games I intend to run in the near future.

 

[Sand Rat]

Half Naked Ladies

Time for my nickels worth. I actually sat down and figured out that I have been doing this for about 22 years now, and have watched a lot of the trends come and go in figures. When I first started painting, most figures were male, with the occasional female figure thrown in to give the painter and the gamer something else to look at. Ok, in those days the only way to tell the female figures from the male (this was back when dinosaurs and Ral Partha ruled the earth) in most lines of figures was the strategic placement of bumpy bits. Slowly, things improved (although I still have some Heritige Minis from the early eighties that are just frightening in my collection that I am painting just to see what can be done with them) - more of the lines got female figures, and for a while they actually looked like humans, not some sort of heroine chic super model wannabe. Sure, I\'ve got stuff from Ral Partha that falls into the chicks in chainmail category, as well as the half naked vampire girl, and several others. But I also have several female figures from that period that are fully clothed for what they are doing, including two early female wizard/cleric types that could be any age. Then, in the late 80\'s early ninties while I was living in Dallas I saw this new line of mini\'s come out from a company called Reaper, and I remember the big discussion being about how they could not be sold in NYC because they were made of solid lead (anyone else long for the days before lead free pewter?). For a while there I wailed about the lack of quality in mini\'s in general, and then watched as the quality of Reaper went up as they hired sculpters away from other lines, and then as they went for a little of both - some minis that are dressed as barbarian bimbos in brass bras, and some that are fully clothed. Have I seen many older figures out there apart from wizards and crones - no not in all the time I have been painting. Is there a need for them? Yes, in my opinion there is. But the only way we will see them is for those of us who want them to start raising the question of when are they going to come out with the manufacturers or by doing like someone said earlier and either sculpting our own or having them custom sculpted.

Just as an aside to Errex - which matronly female are you talking about in those two packs - the one the come hither look or the barmaid looking ones?

 

[nadinbrzezinski]

There are the barmaids and also the city town people, which I need to wait for them to come back to my retailer

 

[wokkers]

hmmmm lemme think for a sec.....

Originally posted by The Raging Gaijin
Am I the only one that finds the barely hidden lesbian overtones enjoyable in that show?

The Raging Xena Fanboy.

hell no! the best episode was the one where xena and gabrielle took a bath together! what man doesn\'t like this sort of thing?

Yet another Xena fan boy

 

[Errex]

Originally posted by steelcult

Just as an aside to Errex - which matronly female are you talking about in those two packs - the one the come hither look or the barmaid looking ones?

Uh?, Dunno, the fat one.

Seriously, though, I didn\'t really mean to imply that all female roleplayers would want to be Armored Barbie, that was uncalled for, and after all, about half of the female players I know prefer to play Spellcasting Barbie ( \"Transmigration is hard\")

Anyway, back to our regular programming.

 

[number9]

nude models, diversity

For what it is worth, Foundry miniatures have a wide range of female models of all manner of body types in all states of dress suitable for fantasy role playing or table top wargaming, historical or otherwise. They also have fully naked men, not that any of them are posted here, or likely will be. There is certainly a historical background to nude fighting as odd as it may seem. The ancient macedonians, greeks, germans, and celts fought in all manner of undress, male and female, well endowed or not. For a fantasy setting I am completely content with my range of 25-30mm model options for all types of characters and figures I wish to paint and play with. I do not feel there is any terrible bias on the part of miniature companies in their depiction of fantastic/historical warriors, moreso bias on the part of the purchaser.

--number9

 

[Lowrianne]

Sure Errex, I\'ll play spellcasting Barbie when you play Ken. Just remember, Ken doesn\'t even have an itty-bitty bulge between his plastic thighs.

 

[The Raging Gaijin]

Tongue in Cheek Replies

nadinbrzezinski quoth:
Funny my husband paints models as well and he stopped liking the chain mail bikinis around 17... maybe he matured.

The Gaijin replies:
The old \'you aren\'t fat, that girl is ugly, I\'m offended too\' routine. He\'s not going to get any if he\'s acting like he enjoys something that might offend you.

And Lowrianne wrote:
I\'ll play spellcasting Barbie when you play Ken. Just remember, Ken doesn\'t even have an itty-bitty bulge between his plastic thighs.

And the Gaijin spake:
That\'s because he\'s married. lol

Ladies, we may be men, and often think with our nether regions. But we ain\'t dumb.

The Raging Gaijin

 

[RHerneson]

There are two points that I\'d like to throw into the discussion that have been aproached but not touched on.

First is that we need to remember the largest foundation that our subjects are drawn from is the pulp fiction books of the 50s. EVERY woman of note was scatily clad and buxom. Its just how it was. We are seeing more variation and in another decade or so...

The other point is that the manufacturers make what sells and naked babes sell (To risk sounding like a pig).
Proof? My local shop had a pack of naked dancing girls on the shelf that would not move, just wouldn\'t sell. They were maked 60% off so I bought them out of mercy. I also picked up the Reaper Barbarian king on his throne, so maybe $6 in figs. I then gave them a fair paint job. (ok, I was still learning blending so it was maybe a 6, but beyond 12\" viewing they looked ok.)
I put them on eBay with a joke Buy It Now of $100.

They didn\'t last 6 hours.

The fact that they had ZERO gaming value taught me one thing; on eBay, naked babe minis sell.
I love working on the tunics and cloaks and well dressed figs more. How much can you do with flesh after the first half doven figs, but when I need money I know where the bread and butter come from.
(An actor friend of mine feels the same way about doing comercials. Go fig.)

RH

 

[Wolfsbane21]

As much as I do agree that there are too many naked chick models out there, I have to say that some times they are justified (dark elf witch elves and Morathi from GW, but that\'s because they are wicked and sick) But I do agree that they should not be the only kind of woman out there in the mini world. However isn\'t it also possible that the painters/players are not to be blamed, but the modellers, after all they decide what to sculpt. They\'re also mostly guys and in the case of GW people rather immature.

 

[vincegamer]

older ladies

Back around 1990 I bought a set of female character figs from Grenadier. (I don\'t recall the sculptor, but I believe she was a she).
They were quite nice, and some are still available I believe. Several were stolen in 1996 so I will try to recall what they were:
Warrior woman: 2 swords, cape, full tunic and plate leg armor. A very realistic athletic build and fully clothed.
Warrior woman: sling, skirt of the type roman soldiers wore (overlapping vertical leather flaps) - I painted her in what I thought at the time was a very good black skin tone, though memory may be rosey.
Sorceress/queen: wearing crown and wimpol, holding staff with hawk head on it. Showing leg, but face looked 40s.
Sorceress: young girl with rose on her staff and showing leg from full length dress.
Wizard: cloaked, hooded figure leaning forward with arms bent and hands forward. Age hard to tell, but not old.
No bikinis, no barbie boobs, no old women, but one who was definitely not young.
These were darn good figures, well sculpted and useful in RPG (in case I should ever game with a woman - which has only happened one day in my life).

Point is, the trend now does seem to have swung to less is better. The chainmail bikini has even been replaced with the metal thong :moon: (Rackham). It didn\'t used to be this bad and it will swing back. I\'m going to buy some half-naked chic figs though, because I like looking at them, and I\'ve never painted that much skin so it will be a challenge. However, I wouldn\'t actually use them in gaming. It\'s just silly.

Now a question. I was going to start a new one but the folks reading this thread have done the research:
Where do I get said \"old hag\" figure?
I am trying to get figs to replicate the artwork on the game \"Magic Realm\" and have not been able to find the old witch character (without pointy hat and broom).
Imagine the witch at the end of Snow White.
Thanks

 

[Wolfsbane21]

They\'ve got some at the Orc\'s nest in London last time I was there, they probably still do.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Ok, sticking my oar in, and I mean no offense to female gamers & painters. Firstly I like women, in person and in miniatures. The female form is by far more esthetically pleasing than the male, having said that the number of female figure in low% dress in my collection numbers about 20. This is in comparison to the 1000+ males. But I hope I\'m discerning in that I do not buy mini\'s just cos the\'ve got big boobs and are wearing very little other than fur & steel bikini\'s.

I bought a set of the Rackham Fienna\'s because of the scuplting and detail of the figures. I also bought the male figure with the double bladed weapon for the same reason. (plus I saw Jen Haley\'s work and wnat to get as close to her standard as I can.) I have also bought two sets of Foundry\'s Revenant Elves, one who is in \"The Crow\" like pose and the one with the flower covered sword. Both of these mini\'s come with accompanied part-clothed female elves. If I could have bought the two male figures separatley I would have. The reason I bought them is for the painting challenge that they represent.

Now there are some seriously Non-Politically Correct figures and one of them is shown in \'Phillipe\'s\' collection (6403) I like this image not for the unfeasible and frankly rediculous boobs but for the overall paintjob the best part of which is the woman\'s face.

I find myself in agreement that there are too many stereotypes of \'Barbarian women\' in scanty and impractical clothing and no counterbalance of (for want of a better description) properly clothed women, especially if they are to represent specific characters in RPG\'s. Now Foundry do some Female peasants/family members in both the Germanic and Pictish ranges all of which are well sculpted and could be used to represent charaters who are described as with \'matronly\' aspects, but there are not enough of them. And I suspect that the reason is a psuedo-sexual selling ploy. The vast majority of Gamers are male, a high percentage of them are young adolescents and I believe that this is the target market demographic being aimed for.

I want to see more female gamers, my local store have a few but not enough. I would like to get my wife interested, but I know that she would beat the pants off me at both gaming and painting if she took it up. She\'s already spotted a figure which she\'s says is the typical adult male gamer - made by Em-4 miniatures it\'s an overweight bearded biker, T-shirt and gaping belly. Somewhat like the comic book store owner in \'The Simpsons\' (Hey there is natural justice after all)
Fortunately it doesn\'t look like me or she would have insisted I buy it.

Part of this waffling on is to say \'If you don\'t like it don\'t buy it\'.
The other part is to say why not pressure the manufacturers to listen and create alternatives to the Barbies & Swords figures to suite other needs.

I hope this waffling on makes a bit of sense.

Enjoy the hobby.

 

[madartiste]

Rackham

You know... Every time I look at the Rackham female barbarians I wonder just how comfortable could that armor be? To put it bluntly, it doesn\'t offer much support - or at least to the wrong half of the poor woman\'s breasts.
Yes, I am a female - and I know a good number of female gamers. I\'m the only painter but that has to do more with artistic inclination than anything else. I love reaper\'s massive selection and diversity of miniatures. I don\'t get particularly offended by \"armoured barbie\" but it can sometimes be annoying if you\'re trying to find a figure to match a particular character - one who wears armor and/or clothing.