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I'm happy now. I can stop my whine. Tasteful, Proportions you can see, good details.

I'm just a picky swine.

THANK!

Also, I'd like to formally apologise to dakka. For some reason, I can't help posting threads that end up locked. I thank the mods for thier continued tolerance

Where is that Oz- Dot mini from?

I'd like to get one of those.

I like the girl on the walker. Who made/manufactured that one?

Soda Pop.

Lord_Osma wrote:I like the girl on the walker. Who made/manufactured that one?

Soda Pop, I put a link under the picture here it is again.
https://store.sodapopminiatures.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=33

I find that amusing given that Soda Pops portrayal of women is exactly what kicked off the last thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrookM wrote:Many of the female models from Infinity, they look for the most part functional, wear the same clothes as their male counter-parts and look good at the same time.

el edit.

This one (assuming I deleted the right pictures) would be exactly the kind of thing that's so annoying. The men are in body armor, the girl is in a belly shirt, the men are wearing baggy/functional pants, the girl is wearing painted on tight pants that don't even cover her all the way. Now, women's fashions are different than men's fashions, and I know a decent number of girls who dress exactly like that, but in this specific case she's supposedly wearing a freaking uniform, and decided not to wear body armor so she could show off her body.

Requia wrote:I find that amusing given that Soda Pops portrayal of women is exactly what kicked off the last thread.

<Image omitted>
This one (assuming I deleted the right pictures) would be exactly the kind of thing that's so annoying. The men are in body armor, the girl is in a belly shirt, the men are wearing baggy/functional pants, the girl is wearing painted on tight pants that don't even cover her all the way. Now, women's fashions are different than men's fashions, and I know a decent number of girls who dress exactly like that, but in this specific case she's supposedly wearing a freaking uniform, and decided not to wear body armor so she could show off her body.

Here I think that we really have crystallized the problem in minis of this type, which I call the "Iron Man Paradox"; for those who have not seen the movie (what's wrong with you?) there is a scene near the beginning, where Tony Stark is in a Humvee with several soldiers, presuming them all to be young men, until one of them speaks up and he realized that this soldier is actually a woman. Now, the point of this is that it is a nice illustration of the problem that faces illustrators/model makers: put a woman into a modern uniform, and it does what uniforms are meant to do, make people look uniform. In war, that's good (for various reasons), but it makes designing female characters for illustration/minis a a catch 22.

Do you;
-Make the woman realistic, but fall prey to the paradox and produce a mini that is (especially at the 28 mm size) essentially indistinguishable from the male miniatures. Put another way, in the image that BrookM posted, is it not entirely possible that there are 2 women? The woman with the bare midriff, and the person with the high turtleneck and knit cap (line kazak 3)?

-Make the female minis distinctly female, either by overemphasizing anatomy, stripperiffic garb or a combination of the two. The problem, of course, is that you run the risk of the same consumers that clamor for female minis will bare their fangs at your attempt to make the mini noticeably female.

This problem is compounded by the move to plastic kits; take, for example, the recent (excellent) Dark Eldar Wyche, Warrior and Hellion kits. In each of these the torsos are all interchangeable, which is excellent, but at the cost that the arms all have a distinctly "masculine" muscle structure, while the hips and legs must be androgynous. So, the only place to put any real mark on the mini to indicate gender is the upper torso, which results in quite a few examples of cleavage windows and the most common superpower.

I acknowledge the problem, though the pic I singled out above is one of the more egregious examples (if not as bad as heavy armor with a cleavage window).

It's not necessarily an unsolvable problem though. A good example of a kit that does it:



Though interchangeable plastic parts would make doing the above a freaking nightmare. Throw in the problem there seems to be with female faces (I'm not sure if that's an artist skill thing or a problem with certain casting processes or what, but I've seen a few lines where the women had manlier faces than the men), and I can see why people would resort to drastic measure to try and get past the problem.

Of note to any budding artists trying to solve the Iron Man Paradox, I just pulled a pair of eye tracking papers into my reading queue, haven't read them yet but the abstract concludes that men's eyes don't linger longer on larger breasts/hips in the first .2 seconds (when gender is established), which suggests giant breasts aren't really useful, as long as the breasts are visible in the first place.

Requia wrote:I acknowledge the problem, though the pic I singled out above is one of the more egregious examples (if not as bad as heavy armor with a cleavage window).

It's not necessarily an unsolvable problem though. A good example of a kit that does it:



Though interchangeable plastic parts would make doing the above a freaking nightmare. Throw in the problem there seems to be with female faces (I'm not sure if that's an artist skill thing or a problem with certain casting processes or what, but I've seen a few lines where the women had manlier faces than the men), and I can see why people would resort to drastic measure to try and get past the problem.

Of note to any budding artists trying to solve the Iron Man Paradox, I just pulled a pair of eye tracking papers into my reading queue, haven't read them yet but the abstract concludes that men's eyes don't linger longer on larger breasts/hips in the first .2 seconds (when gender is established), which suggests giant breasts aren't really useful, as long as the breasts are visible in the first place.

In fairness though, the paradox really applies more to people wearing sci-fi/"modern" armor: the gun mages are a) wearing only soft clothing, where the artist is able to emphasis the very minor difference in waist and face on that mini, and b) painted by a master painter. Exquisite paint jobs never hurt minis.

The thing about fantasy armor is that, of course, it's already fantasy, and pretty much all armor I ever see is wildly impractical to start. Modern armor, on the other hand, tends to combine either bulky fabrics and rigid plates, or all-over articulated armor.

That said, yeah, the biggest problem is in designing female minis for mass use: individual characters, especially single pose, unique metal models, are far easier to finesse around, as that gunmage, and several examples from Warmachine, and the excellent models from Infinity show. The problem lies in, as is the case with the DE models, you have common parts for arms and legs (necessary so that you can have males and females with interchangeable weapon options) and have to establish gender with only heads/torsos.

Another part of this, which is, from what I can tell, a big problem with the plastic Sister's of Battle line, is that one of the most effective ways of establishing gender on an armored figure is their face and hair.

An example;

In the recent movie Alice in Wonderland, the heroine eventually dons this armor,

A fine, quite realistic suit of armor. And in it, Alice looks like this,

Very nice.
But, what if take away the long, flowing tresses? The actress (Mia Wasikowska) frequently wears her hair short,


Now, imagine (or someone good at photoshop do a bit o'editing) Ms. Wasikowska with that hair, in that armor. Because the armor is realistic, we have a fantasy example of the Iron Man paradox; without the obvious visual clue of her long hair, in realistic armor I think it would be very androgynous, and whether we would be looking at a young man or a woman would be very much open to debate. And that's with an actual (very pretty) young lady!

I bring this up in the context of plastic models because plastic models almost always have the heads separately sculpted, to give the assembler more range of pose. But doing that means that there are very limited possibilities for hair: nothing can drape down or be over-long. Alice, notice, has hair well below her neckline; that would of course be impossible to sculpt as a separate piece.

By the way, none of all this is to excuse bad miniature, but it is intended to spark a bit of thought on people's behalf before automatically condemning a mini for common "failings". Bad minis are bad minis, but we do have to recognize that making female miniatures is, in a very real way, twice as hard as making a male mini: you not only have to convey what the mini does, but its (female) gender. A hulking, armored trooper doesn't need to establish that it's male; we simply assume it is. Making a heavily armed female involves flirting with the paradox.

There's some decent feminine cues to that armor, even without a girl wearing it. The higher waistline in particular. Another bit is proportions to other models. Stick Alice next to a heavily muscled man, and she'll look a lot more feminine (if you look at the difference between the legs and arms of the male and female figures above, you'll notice that they did exactly this for the gun mages).

Though as you've pointed out, interchangeable plastic bits don't really have that option, and I've talked to a few people who feel the customization available from that style of plastic kit is the most important thing in a model line.

Thinking about it as a limitation does change my perspective a great deal as well. I bought Shock Troopers after all, knowing that they weren't ideal figures. Thinking of context inappropriate stipperific outfits as limitation of the medium/artist (depending on which part of the Iron Man problem they were forced to get around) moves them into that same 'maybe this isn't perfect but it'll do' slot, rather than 'why the hell can't they just give me a girl in armor'.

Moz wrote:

Wow ... a WM model I really like - that is almost a first!!

Kilkrazy wrote:

I'm anti the bare belly button look, but it can be fixed with putty.

Belly button aside, this one kills me, I'm getting one. I love the head.

Buzzsaw wrote:This problem is compounded by the move to plastic kits; take, for example, the recent (excellent) Dark Eldar Wyche, Warrior and Hellion kits. In each of these the torsos are all interchangeable, which is excellent, but at the cost that the arms all have a distinctly "masculine" muscle structure, while the hips and legs must be androgynous. So, the only place to put any real mark on the mini to indicate gender is the upper torso, which results in quite a few examples of cleavage windows and the most common superpower.

My two thoughts on that, in that I think DE are the best GWS has done to date so far as integration goes: A.) I don't have any problem with the DE ladies having bodybuilder arms as that fits quite well with their role, and B.) Elves are supposed to be androgynous as hell, anyway.

Buzzsaw hit the problem on the head.

There is no point making female figures that don't look in some way female. The trick is how to achieve that without the use of dubious uniforms.

Hey, I looked at the pricing for that Sedition Wars female terrorist, and before I buy it - how is the scale? I know they say 32mm, but how would, say, the female terrorist look mixed with GWS SM Scouts? There is only one pic in the gallery of her, with nothing for size reference.

That particular model is still available only as a limited edition resin cast. There will be a metal cast soon, which will be cheaper.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with SM Scouts.

In general, all of GW's human figures are so distorted from normal proportions that no-one else's models are a good match in terms of bulk, though the height is usually compatible.

I've got some some Sedition Wars metal models on order. When they arrive I will measure them against a 1st edition Beaky, and do a comparative height pic.

I don't have any modern SMs to hand, unfortunately.

When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy figs, I don't buy the paradox, or at least I think there's room to work within it.

As this thread shows sci-fi and fantasy have enough leway that a good artist can produce an armored female figure that looks armored and female without resorting to open shirts and exposed belly's.

Now such a figure is going to have some exagerations from the real human female norm (thinner waist, more pronounced chest, slimmer figure, exageratedly feminine facial features) but it need not be as exagerated as most fantasy figures. It's easy to see which sculpts are trying to achieve balance within the paradox and which are simply catering to imaginary ideals.

As soon as the belly button makes it's appearance on a uniformed female fighting fig, it becomes clear which side the sculptor has fallen on. Though if it's a good fig, I'll break out the putty. I've got an Iron Kingdoms figure with two pistols and a cape that's waiting for this treatment.

Dark Sword has some really good, convincing female models that manage to avoid excessive amounts of skin or boobcup armor.



Red Box Games has a lot of really good female fantasy minis too. Here are a couple from the first few pages.

Ouze wrote:Hey, I looked at the pricing for that Sedition Wars female terrorist, and before I buy it - how is the scale? I know they say 32mm, but how would, say, the female terrorist look mixed with GWS SM Scouts? There is only one pic in the gallery of her, with nothing for size reference.

Scarper's got a nice Necromunda modelling blog over in P&M with a bunch of GW figures and he recently got a few Sedition Wars minis. Link here.

I own this mini, it is cool.

Good job that man!

And well done Zefig for posting the link.

The Emporess Approves!

I see (I realy do) what you did there

MeanGreenStompa This thread is called "Female minis with their clothes on " dental floss doesn't count no matter how cool it is.



http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/wyrd-miniatures/guild/sonnia-criid-witch-hunter.html



http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/scibor-monstrous-miniatures/28mm-30mm-dwarf-girl.html



http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/miniatures/wyrd-miniatures/resurrectionists/kirai-ankoku.html

I just convert my own fighting woman characters from true scale 28mm male models. The scale works out in a way that makes them look slim compared to Heroic 28mm male models. To bring them into heroic and change the gender you just need to swap out the head and hands. Pick one that doesn't have exposed flesh and has a decent amount of armour or robes, and you're set.



This Daemon Huntress is Red Box Game's HighLord Valerion the Gilded, with a head swap (Hasslefree), and soon to be re-sculpted hands. I also added a new sword and a power plant. Of course, this technique isn't perfect, as I have had to thicken the shield and I will probably need to raise the knee a tad, but it should be a decent way of getting a ton of character models for Fantasy and 40k. Lord of the Rings models also work for this, as I used one of the character Ringwraiths for a Word Bearer Zealot priest.

I love that Scibor female Dwarf, if I could see how she scales to GW Dwarves I'd be half tempted to start bringing my Dwarf army up to speed.

Especially with the plastic Slayers coming out from AoW.

Red Box do some very nice female dwarves too

Kilkrazy wrote:Buzzsaw hit the problem on the head.

There is no point making female figures that don't look in some way female. The trick is how to achieve that without the use of dubious uniforms.

I'm honestly not sure there is a solution that maintains realism and is able to convey gender.

I mean, reality is;
and

Legs and arms covered with either armor plates or loose cloth, helmeted and with a rigid plate defining the chest, all that is really left is the face; on a 28mm scale model, how big is that, the size of one's pinky finger nail?

But at the same time, there is a desire for female minis (for various reasons).

Minis that have the head cast with the body allow for liberties to be taken with the hair, but that compromises the consumer's ability to pose the model. It's no mistake that the models we've seen so far in this thread (to the best of my knowledge) are all metal.

Can anyone think of a genuinely good female mini in plastic? Other the the DE figures, I'm not sure I can.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I own this mini, it is cool.

Trollin' like a boss.

It is hard to make a female in armor look female without exagerating some feature(s).

Here is my wife, in full IBA with all ballistic plates in.



She is a d-cup, but you sure can't tell that from the picture. Some sculptors are REALLY good at faces, and there is a place you can make a difference. Sculpting the figure with head gear off can make that easier, but is not going to always be realistic.

Nope but like you said, a good sculptor will be able to depict feminine facial features even with the helm on.

The body shape of your wife is still female
Might be a subtle difference in 28mm but there are skilled sculptors with a good eye out there that could do it.

Buzzsaw wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Buzzsaw hit the problem on the head.

There is no point making female figures that don't look in some way female. The trick is how to achieve that without the use of dubious uniforms.

I'm honestly not sure there is a solution that maintains realism and is able to convey gender.

I don't think many folks are really looking for realism. This is sci-fi and fantasy, afterall.

A totaly realistic approach renders 28mm figs in body army nearly androgenous, while a completely stylized approach has mini barbies with anime implants and guns that cover more than their clothes do. When dealing with female sci-fi military models, its much better to find the middle road that makes the figure look suitably dressed and military, while allowing for a few exagerations of proportion to make her visibly female on the tabletop.

On a more serious note, I created a female Knight of the Blazing Sun on the mmo WAR and the armour was excellently done, feminine whilst not gratuitous or comedic. I'd love a character model like that to lead my forthcoming Marienburg army and would pay dollar for it.


On a less serious note, I do indeed own that Army Brat model and will be using her for a counts as Sly Marbo one day... My wife bought it for me as a valentines day present.