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Mymearan wrote:
Will someone ever do power armored females without ridiculous boob armor?

Probably not. I'd prefer them and would likely even make a small force of them if they actually made less fetish-y SOB that actually looked like they were wearing power armor and not just weaponized leather corsets. Ironically, some of the heavy infantry shown in this KS shows that it is possible to be both obviously feminine yet actually appropriately visually armored. I'd love to have a visual and rules middle ground between my IG and truescale marines that look like they belong there (so SOB roughly the size of the current marines whereas the real marines would be truescale conversions).

Mymearan wrote:
Will someone ever do power armored females without ridiculous boob armor?

No. Men's bodies for the most part are built very similar and have the same body proportions even when you have a bulky muscled person vs a smaller person. To adjust the armor it is simple since their chest requirements do not need to support other masses, so it rarely changes from person to person. It is a one size fits all type of fashion that works for males.

However woman on the other hand, one size does not fit all. This is and was actually an issue that has currently been faced as more women enter more active combat roles. As a result new armor was created which was lighter but even then it was difficult for them to raise their arm properly to fire a weapon. That isn't even taking into consideration the comfort issues. You can't just simply strap them down. The newer armor however is still an improvement, providing more mobility, being able to distribute the weight better (unlike male armor where you can distribute weight across the back and chest evenly, you can't do that with woman) and being able to fire better.

I'm not saying boob plates are optimal or better, but considering the average US bra size is roughly around 34DD currently. That takes into consideration that many woman for awhile have been wearing the wrong size and non-natural means through alteration. However I believe that worldwide that was already the average size, as Europe tended to have a larger average cup size traditionally than the US. If we're talking simple uniform, that is definitely different than combat armor. Since no one has really provided a functional reference, people on average tend to refer to what they believe would be the easiest customization to armor, modular waist and with separate modular cup size plates which tends to mean boob armor. Granted there are other methods to do it, you could do a slight angle as opposed to an actual mold, although there is a lot of unused and improper space when you do that.

I'm sure my wife can explain it much better than I can as she fits into this category, although this was a discussion we've had when we've been working on Stormtrooper and Bounty Hunter cosplay armor. When we've gone the traditional male route, it is often uncomfortable for her to move and provide proper support. We weren't able to do armor without going with a custom boob plate for mobility, comfort and support. There are often times that I think certain outfits or clothing will work great, however since they don't provide support they won't work. Even though you see pictures of woman with her size as the models, most of them are not natural which means they don't need support.

There's a difference between armor that accommodates breasts and armor that encases them or even accentuates them with individual round plates.

There was a great deal of constructive discussion on this topic when Mark was tweaking his female troopers for the Dreamforge Kickstarter.

I've posted it before, but this is an approach I suggested back when Defiance Games didn't blatantly suck:


Instead of individual cups for the breasts, have an oblique wedge on the armour, with a flat upper surface and a shaped lower surface. There is still an oblique corner beneath the breasts but that is inevitable if you want the armour to have a sufficiently close fit to have any kind of waist joint, and I think it conveys the soldier's body shape while still looking serious.

Dr Mathias wrote:There's a difference between armor that accommodates breasts and armor that encases them or even accentuates them with individual round plates.

There was a great deal of constructive discussion on this topic when Mark was tweaking his female troopers for the Dreamforge Kickstarter.

That was a fruitful discussion, but it cannot (I would say) be divorced from the fact that Mark was explicitly going for a more "realistic" tone with his line. By and large I think that Severance has the right of things, but both are missing a critical context: what people actually want to buy.

Dark Severance wrote:

Spoiler:

Mymearan wrote:
Will someone ever do power armored females without ridiculous boob armor?

No. Men's bodies for the most part are built very similar and have the same body proportions even when you have a bulky muscled person vs a smaller person. To adjust the armor it is simple since their chest requirements do not need to support other masses, so it rarely changes from person to person. It is a one size fits all type of fashion that works for males.

However woman on the other hand, one size does not fit all. This is and was actually an issue that has currently been faced as more women enter more active combat roles. As a result new armor was created which was lighter but even then it was difficult for them to raise their arm properly to fire a weapon. That isn't even taking into consideration the comfort issues. You can't just simply strap them down. The newer armor however is still an improvement, providing more mobility, being able to distribute the weight better (unlike male armor where you can distribute weight across the back and chest evenly, you can't do that with woman) and being able to fire better.

I'm not saying boob plates are optimal or better, but considering the average US bra size is roughly around 34DD currently. That takes into consideration that many woman for awhile have been wearing the wrong size and non-natural means through alteration. However I believe that worldwide that was already the average size, as Europe tended to have a larger average cup size traditionally than the US. If we're talking simple uniform, that is definitely different than combat armor. Since no one has really provided a functional reference, people on average tend to refer to what they believe would be the easiest customization to armor, modular waist and with separate modular cup size plates which tends to mean boob armor. Granted there are other methods to do it, you could do a slight angle as opposed to an actual mold, although there is a lot of unused and improper space when you do that.

I'm sure my wife can explain it much better than I can as she fits into this category, although this was a discussion we've had when we've been working on Stormtrooper and Bounty Hunter cosplay armor. When we've gone the traditional male route, it is often uncomfortable for her to move and provide proper support. We weren't able to do armor without going with a custom boob plate for mobility, comfort and support. There are often times that I think certain outfits or clothing will work great, however since they don't provide support they won't work. Even though you see pictures of woman with her size as the models, most of them are not natural which means they don't need support.

AlexHolker wrote:I've posted it before, but this is an approach I suggested back when Defiance Games didn't blatantly suck:

Spoiler:

Instead of individual cups for the breasts, have an oblique wedge on the armour, with a flat upper surface and a shaped lower surface. There is still an oblique corner beneath the breasts but that is inevitable if you want the armour to have a sufficiently close fit to have any kind of waist joint, and I think it conveys the soldier's body shape while still looking serious.

I've spent quite a lot on Kickstarters that featured female models, but in all honesty, I wouldn't buy a model along the lines of what Alex posted. Granted there could be a lot of changes in the translation, but it doesn't "read" as feminine enough. Now, you can say that real women soldiers don't either... but in real life, they aren't supposed to. Outside of dress uniforms that have skirts, that is. Soldiers are supposed to look uniform.

It's the basic quandary in making female miniatures (among other things): people who are interested enough to buy female models don't want to have to squint to know that it's a female model.

 AlexHolker wrote:
Instead of individual cups for the breasts, have an oblique wedge on the armour, with a flat upper surface and a shaped lower surface. There is still an oblique corner beneath the breasts but that is inevitable if you want the armour to have a sufficiently close fit to have any kind of waist joint, and I think it conveys the soldier's body shape while still looking serious.

It isn't bad at all, although I'd need to see a side view. Currently based on the just the picture, she would looks like a 32C. After the design is done the next question is how does it size up or down and what does that mean for mass production as well as distribution to masses of varying sizes?

In theory you could make one for each cup size but that seems inefficient and wasteful. It would probably mean that they were custom made based on the troop makeup, maid to fit. You could have them obviously use their own bras for support, then allow an outside piece to have a higher degree of variance. I'm not sure of how comfortable that would be when applying it to actual version though.

When we were creating armor we did try the subtle shaping, darted and even the plated overlay route which is similar to what you have posted. (None of the pictures are of what we did, just examples of the styles since I'm at work currently)


Unfortunately they were uncomfortable for her when trying to actually do any real bending of the waste or trying to crouch. And because of the shaping it made it difficult to lift her arms above her head without it being uncomfortable. Ultimately that was we did go the cupped method though, not because it was outwardly feminine but the curve provided support, was sized so she had full upper mobility.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
That was a fruitful discussion, but it cannot (I would say) be divorced from the fact that Mark was explicitly going for a more "realistic" tone with his line. By and large I think that Severance has the right of things, but both are missing a critical context: what people actually want to buy.

And that is the rub. The masses say they want more realistic but what sells is something else. That is also due to no one really understands or know what "realistic" is or how it functions. It is one thing to post a picture, but another thing to build a piece of armor and get it to function properly for comfort and protection (hence why it tends to be scifi/future because it hasn't been done)... realistic doesn't really exist to a degree.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
It's the basic quandary in making female miniatures (among other things): people who are interested enough to buy female models don't want to have to squint to know that it's a female model.

There is also that. The only way I could tell my helmeted Eldar woman from non-woman is the boob plates. There are also some miniatures that are male armored troops but by looking at the armor, they could be male or female depending on simply what head you put on them (instead of a helmet).

Although it's not power armour (I'd probably class it in 40k terms closer to carapace armour), I like the Mantic Rebs Commanders armour.



Please excuse my general painting incompetance.

 Compel wrote:
Although it's not power armour (I'd probably class it in 40k terms closer to carapace armour), I like the Mantic Rebs Commanders armour.

Yeah that is a style that I was referring to, carapace, layered plate that the only way we know its a female is because of the head. If there is a squad of them in helmets, next to the males, it would be hard to differentiate between male and female. Now for squad based battles that is usually fine but for smaller skirmish battles, that may matter. Granted a lot of people are fine with that and a lot of people would want a more defined separation as well. Although probably more expensive to a degree, it would be better if the torsos were modular and let people swap out torso's then players could choose more subtle or more defined to suit their own personal tastes.

Mymearan wrote:
Will someone ever do power armored females without ridiculous boob armor?

They have been done, but males just seem to appreciate the focus on the female "aesthetics" , now with the focus on the rear part of the female anatomy
in recent popular culture i expect the rise in "ridiculous butt armor"

feth feth feth fethity feth bugger. I knew it, I bloody well knew it would happen, one of my selections has been pushed to wave bloody 3. Ugh, why can't this drek just be over already.

I have to admit that all the delays and stuff have, thus far, been well within my expected parameters for the Kickstarter - and I paid for an early ship and got models, and have been quite pleased with what I received.

DFG has armored females without boob plate

and while Raging Heroes fetishizes their girls in other ways, they did avoid boob armor for the Kurganova Shock Troops at least.

 Yodhrin wrote:
feth feth feth fethity feth bugger. I knew it, I bloody well knew it would happen, one of my selections has been pushed to wave bloody 3. Ugh, why can't this drek just be over already.

And you found that out how?

Probably through a hashtag.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
and while Raging Heroes fetishizes their girls in other ways, they did avoid boob armor for the Kurganova Shock Troops at least.

We can only pray that oversight is fixed for the Sisters KS.

If it really does launch in March, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to chip in for. Excited to see the renders for those models, though.

I'm honestly not in at all. A. I'm unemployed at the moment, buy even if I get employed by then... I'm done with RH KS.

and I'm saying that as a huge Sisters of Battle fan, who loves his nuns with guns

That only took 1 1/2 years and twelve pages worth of posts!

All kidding aside, have you, as a Raging Herald, communicated your disappointment to RH, and if yes, what was their response?

I think the Raging Herald program was disbanded a long time ago, but the members were never told?

No, one of them turned to the dark side and hunted down the other ones to extinction. Only KM survived on account of being so far from France. To watch over us from a distance...

I am the last of the Heralds, and now I wander the North American desert, seeking the one who can bring balance to the force. The one who betrayed us is still out there, you know him now as the laziest PR/Communications guy on earth. Even by French standards*

Real talk that program just kinda vanished about 3/4s of the way through the KS. I have no idea what happened, and while they'll answer me as customer KM (as they fething should, between me and my friend we've got well over $500 tied up in RH product) they won't really talk about the Herald program. I think the idea was good but they had no fething clue what they were actually using the program for.

I have communicated my over all dissatisfaction with the fulfillment speed and process, their chronic inability to communicate and and the frustration I had when they cut us (heralds) out of the loop and left us to twist with all you justifiably angry people asking us what in the nine circles was going on. I got the usual drek back for the stuff they were willing to respond to and nada otherwise. I'm a fan. I love what RH produces, but feth me with a chainsword this is going to be close to two years by the time I get my product. Maybe I'm extra grumpy because of the whole unemployed thing and lots of pain so I've stopped trying to be a relative voice of reason, and just gone back to gripping to keep my own moral up haha.

*Gotta love that mandatory 18 hour work month.

No worries, should the program be started up again, there are still a few people in the KS comments section who would make for ideal candidates, especially the ones who tell us that we shouldn't be worried, because they aren't and whatnot, because the wait will be worth it*, they still have a massive backlog of other KS stuff they need to work through and what they have gotten so far is more than enough to sate their wait.

* Well, I got some minis now and while they are nice, I have long since stopped thinking about doing happy dances when the rest, including the original one I pledged for, finally arrives. The original project it was for has by now long since been shelved and replaced by something else that is more readily available, so there's that as well.

Whereas I chose one of the first sculpts shown and still have nowt.

Same here, Wolfenstein is still a few months away, alas and oh woe.

Personally, I'm not sold on another KS from RH. Sure, some of the concepts that we've seen look nice, but that doesn't mean the finished sculpts will actually match up with the original renders.

I'm certainly not going to go in for as much this time, at most I may put in a base pledge if there's anything that really grabs my interest and then increase it via the pledge manager once we actually get to that point. I'm sure by 2017 they'll have shown off finished sculpts of some of the figures as part of the pledge manager.

You can be sure I will be pledging on the new KS, so I have the privilege of at least posting to the comments section. I might even pledge as much as a whole figure's worth. And I will not lock my pledge in until I know what Wave 1 is.

It sucks for you, KM. You guys put yourselves out there for them, only to be fed to the dogs (us) and for no real benefit either. Did you even get a t-shirt? I would guess not. Bottom line is, yes, focus on your employment situation, and your pain (knees, right?) and the French will take care of their own things.

BrookM... but, but, but... everything is supposed to be done by March! So not a few months... a mere few weeks! Sorry, I can't even keep a straight face on this one.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
You can be sure I will be pledging on the new KS, so I have the privilege of at least posting to the comments section. I might even pledge as much as a whole figure's worth.

A glutton for punishment are you now? Some relationships you need to walk away from, this isn't their way of showing love, it will just hurt you more.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
And I will not lock my pledge in until I know what Wave 1 is.

Ah yes, that worked out so well for us the last time round.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
BrookM... but, but, but... everything is supposed to be done by March! So not a few months... a mere few weeks! Sorry, I can't even keep a straight face on this one.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice..

On second thought, disregard that last one, the final wave of metals is with the casters in the UK right now and I don't want to indirectly insult them after having lost the company owner not that long ago.

Imagine, if they hadn't dittered on three sets of masters, they might have had all their minis before his death. It is a testament to this man's legacy that his company was able to survive his passing. He must have been a great long-term planner.

Actually, the company will do just fine and it is quite legendary among the lead belt for the quality of their work, they do the casting for loads of companies and have been doing it for ages.

edit.

http://www.griffinmoulds.com/

Oh good, then! With RH, I had assumed they had found a small, free-range, organic and non-GMO caster that can only be contacted on a blue moon and after having danced windershin while skyclad for three hours while hand-crafted candles of targ blood burn.

Thankfully no, they went to industry veterans for this one.