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 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???

Nope. Look at the forearm - no long glove covering the forearm, there's a solid armor piece covering the entire forearm instead. The hand looks like an articulated armor gauntlet instead of a leather glove.

The upper leg flares outwards a bit as it goes up. It helps that it's an upright stance rather than the wide-legged stance most sisters models are in.

The top level of the shoulder armor only goes up to near the mouth-line, rather than the eye-line (this varies from model to model in the metals) - meaning the user's field of view is less restricted.

It's a small set of differences, but it LOOKS more like a suit of solid plates, where the current sisters look like they're wearing overlapping leather.

Note that St. Celestine has much better armor, though the body is a bit too corset-ey. There's one model of a sister superior that has solid forearm armor (the one with the bolter in one hand and an icon in the other). GW made a few moves in this direction.

If Sisters went plastic, hopefully we'd get some more dynamic poses - kneeling sisters, running sisters, walking sisters, standing at rest sisters. Right now it's all 'wide legged stance sisters' - probably because that cast better in metal.

Like this, perhaps?

@John Prins: i would be bummed to see them lose the corset...
it is one of the aspects that i really like about the look...

@JohnHwangDD: i don't get the point you are trying to make with that pic...

cheers
jah

To be honest, one of my favourite bits of Sororitas art is the cover of the RPG supplement for them:

 jah-joshua wrote:

I really like the one pulling the pin on the grenade with her teeth

She is an example of things that tend to get lost when we switch to plastic. Mono-pose metals can get a lot more custom interaction between parts. With multipart plastics you loose a lot of range of motion any dynamic posing. While they have been doing great things with HQs in the monopose plastics, I doubt Sister Badass will get that treatment. Which is a shame, as she is one of my favorite sculpts in the range.

John Prins wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???

Nope. Look at the forearm - no long glove covering the forearm, there's a solid armor piece covering the entire forearm instead. The hand looks like an articulated armor gauntlet instead of a leather glove.

The upper leg flares outwards a bit as it goes up. It helps that it's an upright stance rather than the wide-legged stance most sisters models are in.

The top level of the shoulder armor only goes up to near the mouth-line, rather than the eye-line (this varies from model to model in the metals) - meaning the user's field of view is less restricted.

It's a small set of differences, but it LOOKS more like a suit of solid plates, where the current sisters look like they're wearing overlapping leather.

Actually, the metal models vary - some wear leather gauntlets over their armour, others have armour without the leather gauntlets. I should know - I've painted enough of them!

John Prins wrote:
IIf Sisters went plastic, hopefully we'd get some more dynamic poses - kneeling sisters, running sisters, walking sisters, standing at rest sisters. Right now it's all 'wide legged stance sisters' - probably because that cast better in metal.

Ah, yeh, that'd be amazing! I hope they do have different poses.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???

That image is from Codex: Witch Hunters, page 19, the image used as an example of Sororitas Power Armor, with explanations of the helmet and other parts as text to the sides of the image.

So yes, Sisters have looked like that for a decade or so.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: i would be bummed to see them lose the corset...
it is one of the aspects that i really like about the look...

I'm sure they'll keep it, whatever my feelings are about it. Games Workshop doesn't have a casual disregard for human anatomy, they have complete contempt for it <cough>Terminators<cough>.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@JohnHwangDD: i don't get the point you are trying to make with that pic...

He's asking for different poses - that's a very different pose.

 Melissia wrote:
That image is from Codex: Witch Hunters, page 19...

So yes, Sisters have looked like that for a decade or so.

Sisters art has. The miniatures didn't IMO quite live up to it. They still look great, but they could look better. Every model evolves every time they decide to make new masters and molds for them (space marines have changed how many times?). Giving sisters a bit more 'armor' to their power armor isn't a big change - as that piece of art shows!

Nvm

 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???

Thats what I see, dunno where these sleek, sexy sister models are supposedly at.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@JohnHwangDD: i don't get the point you are trying to make with that pic...

He's asking for different poses - that's a very different pose.

And, amusingly enough, it's a Sister of Battle, too.

However, I think he might have meant kneeling firing, advancing, running, maybe even standing with the legs closer together...?

Kneeling would also be fine...

I was thinking more kneeling on one knee, braced, and firing/aiming. Or maybe spotting. Or using a piece of equipment, like a vox-caster or chirurgeon's kit.

But sure. Kneeling Eldar slavegirl style is also an option, I guess.

 dracpanzer wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???

Thats what I see, dunno where these sleek, sexy sister models are supposedly at.

This discussion has inspired me to pull the few I've got out of the bottom of the closet and get to painting them, and as far as I can tell the sleek, sexy Sister models are buried behind the limitations of the metal casting process and a mediocre studio paint scheme. I've been doing a Sacred Rose scheme, and armour with actual depth and cloth with a different colour lining goes a long, long way towards breaking up the chunkiness and bringing the model back out. That said plastic sculpts that didn't present the cloth and shoulders as solid chunks would help immensely.

(I'd also like a more subtle/more detailed chestplate, articulated gauntlets patterned after the current greaves, a more uniform rear collar, and a more detailed bolter with a less unwieldy scope, but you could do a lot with the current design with very subtle fixes).

After spending time with the models and the art I also think I've come across a clearer understanding of what's wrong with the current torso, too: it fundamentally can't decide whether it wants to be rigid plating or not. There's no chest/abdomen divide the way Space Marines, Guardsmen, Eldar, et cetera fit together, and the chestpeice comes down over the pelvis such that if it were rigid all through there's no way a Sister could bend at the waist. The central line is clearly intended to invoke the cutouts on the outside of the legs, but positioned as it is it can't help but look like a zipper. The backplate, on the other hand, is uniform between models in a way the chestplate isn't, and has cabling that invokes the abdomen section on Space Marine power armour.

So at the end of it you've either got to reach the conclusion that the Sisters are wearing armour that leaves them with a locked waist joint, or that they're just wearing ceramite shoulders, pants, and upper-back plate.

Taking a closer look at what other non-Astartes power armour looks like I think the best approach would be to go in and do the chest/abdomen division (as opposed to the chestplate-flares-out-from-the-hips thing they put on the Tempestus Scions). You could make the upper-torso plating more subtle and get the 'a woman is wearing this' point across visibly with the way the line across the bottom is cut, sort of like how the female Eternal Guard chestplates work in the Wood Elf range (though less extreme since there wouldn't be a large beltpiece under it); that'd have the extra benefit of drawing a clear visual distinction between Sororitas power armour and Space Marine power armour in a consistent way (Space Marines have geometrically simple components defined by the bling, Sisters have cleaner plates with more contoured components).

(I don't know if this explanation is understandable or gibberish. I'll try and mock up a concept, but it may take a bit.)

no like this:

 Mr Morden wrote:
no like this:

Almost? Head, gun, and backpack look out of scale with the rest of the model and there's a vaguely high-heel look to the boots that's bothering me.

Yeah, the Grishnak Sisters have wedge-heel boots, as opposed to the GW flats, which makes more sense. On the other hand, at least wedge heels are slightly more sensible than full-on high heels. I think the head's OK, but the backpack's definitely too big - but not by much.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
Yeah, the Grishnak Sisters have wedge-heel boots, as opposed to the GW flats, which makes more sense. On the other hand, at least wedge heels are slightly more sensible than full-on high heels. I think the head's OK, but the backpack's definitely too big - but not by much.

The head seems out of balance with the model somehow. 40k is giant and cartoonish, yes, but aesthetically we expect the 'head' or the 'face' to be close to life-size even as the rest of the model isn't, and the end result of a head that's slightly too big is the armour looking too thin/too light (essentially smaller head = bulkier armour). And the scale of that head somehow doesn't say 'power armour' to me.

The head seems appropriate for someone actually wearing a protective helmet.



If anything, the helmet is undersized for an average woman's frame.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The head seems appropriate for someone actually wearing a protective helmet.

[IMAGE TRUNCATED FOR SPACE]

If anything, the helmet is undersized for an average woman's frame.

Yeah, but if you proportion said protective helmet the way the Stig's helmet is proportioned you end up making the power armour look like racing overalls instead of power armour. If the Stig were wearing power armour his head would be the same size and the rest of him would be bulked up quite a bit.

OK, then let's see how a woman looks in MX gear...


She is 5 helmets tall.

Bulk up her armor, and she's going to look more dwarf than human.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Observationally, the whole "be feminine" but "wear armor" starts to approach a certain silliness...


If we're redesigning Sisters armor, this isn't a bad look at all.

Actually, if the goal is to make them clearly female because decree passive etc etc, they should look like that. That way they can be sure that there isn't a man hiding in cleverly designed armor. People have vehemently denounced the concept of common sense in the armour design, so why not?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
OK, then let's see how a woman looks in MX gear...

[IMAGE TRUNCATED FOR SPACE]

She is 5 helmets tall.

Bulk up her armor, and she's going to look more dwarf than human.

...Are you aware of the concept of a 'middle ground'? Or possibly 'not overdoing it'? How about 'subtle distinction'?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Observationally, the whole "be feminine" but "wear armor" starts to approach a certain silliness...

[IMAGE TRUNCATED FOR ABSURDITY]

If we're redesigning Sisters armor, this isn't a bad look at all.

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...
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...If this were just dumb that'd be one thing, but I need to check right now whether I assumed too much aesthetic agreement in my earlier post. I made the assumption that it's a generally-held belief that bulky armoured shoulder pads stapled onto a thin fabric shirt looks unbalanced, cartoonish, and tacky, am I reaching here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Actually, if the goal is to make them clearly female because decree passive etc etc, they should look like that. That way they can be sure that there isn't a man hiding in cleverly designed armor. People have vehemently denounced the concept of common sense in the armour design, so why not?

Apparently because the concepts of 'subtlety' and 'taste' have escaped the discussion?

Equating current SoB PA with LFL uniforms ...

It is obviously really dumb, but from a real life standpoint, so is the status quo. People insisted that we looked at this from the viewpoint where people must identify the soldier's sex above all other factors, and this does that?

Now, this is both tangential and and one I doubt was sincere from the start; and it is not a likely outcome either (nor is it one I want).

 Ashiraya wrote:
It is obviously really dumb, but from a real life standpoint, so is the status quo. People insisted that we looked at this from the viewpoint where people must identify the soldier's sex above all other factors, and this does that?

Now, this is both tangential and and one I doubt was sincere from the start; and it is not a likely outcome either (nor is it one I want).

...No? The discussion got polarized and ran to extreme-edge strawmanning, the clause 'above all other factors' got inserted into the discussion without asking anyone (or at least without asking me).

I'm getting a little cranky at this because I thought I went and explained what's wrong with the status quo, why, and how I'd fix it in a thoughtful manner, and instead of reading or addressing any of the specific issues you're going to go back and attack a ridiculous viewpoint I don't think anyone's put forth this entire discussion.

To address the questions and comments:

1. The idea of GW resculpting anything and "not overdoing it" is beyond laughable. The idea of GW doing anything subtle is ridiculous beyond belief.

2. From a realism standpoint, giant shoulderpads are stupid. In the real world, you want well-fitted flexible shoulder armor that won't limit movement. Especially if a large portion of your fighting MO is to "drive closer so that I can hit them with my giant sword".

The funniest part is that people think GW is ever going to make plastic Sisters at all, when all indications are that GW will do anything *but* plastic Sisters. Heck, I think we'll see Slaanesh appear in AoS before we get plastic Sisters.

In that context, a LFL-style uniform is just as sensible as anything else.

Otherwise, they're going to look like modern soldiers in armor - just like men, but shorter.

We should be keeping in mind that 40k is considered to be 28mm "heroic" scale, i.e. not everything is correctly proportioned. As long as it's not so ridiculously obvious on first glance, such as classic Sisters' boobs practically coming out at right angles from their chest piece, then I'm okay with little bits of flair that add to the character of the models in return for not being quite 100% realistic in scale.

I think the Grishnak models are a step in the right direction for how Sisters should be looking in Plastic, although I'd agree that at least the bolter on that particular example is noticeably out of proportion with the rest of the model.

People aren't wrong to be making comparisons since that's our real life standard, and we do want to make Sisters look a lot more realistic than they do now. However, again, we should be keeping in mind that heroic scale is what it is to make the models more conveying of 40k's unique art style. Plus that Stig comparison was hilarious - Some say he owns 4000 points of SoB, and that beneath the helmet, he is a vision of the God Emperor himself...