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 Andrew Rae wrote:

 BrookM wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
If you don't like the "sexy" sisters of battle, dreamforge Valkir with Victoria female heads looks the part.

Spoiler:

Aren't those heads from Andrew Rae's Statuesque Miniatures?

edit.

Ah I see, BoLS is the source, they always feth up.

They are indeed Statuesque heads, though BoLS (and Spikey Bits) got the source right and helped massively to increase awareness of my product.

Sorry, mistake corrected!

 Kojiro wrote:
Don't confuse a lack of ability to do something with the lack of desire. Why would a creator spend their time, energy and money doing something they don't want to?

I'm not entirely sure it is lack of desire as it is why bother. If the only difference between a "realistic" armor set of a male and female is simply a slightly thinner waist and maybe arms thinner... but not exaggerated but only shaving a 1-2mm off then there is no reason to do it. The only other difference is a head swap and everyone already has a choice to do that if they want too.

At least that is my opinion. I did go down the route of designing artwork for set that would do just that. The differences although could be noticeable on the artwork if you viewed them side by side and if you blew up the 3d sculpt. However on the table there wasn't a difference that you could tell. The only way to tell a difference was with a head swap. If I couldn't see a noticeable difference between armor, then why bother making a separate sculpt, when I could just do one, create a new head and just have one set of molds. I'll probably still attempt it at some point but with limited budget towards sculpting I would want those resources spent on more varied designs.

 Dark Severance wrote:
I'm not entirely sure it is lack of desire as it is why bother.

As with any labour, either you have to do it or you choose to do it.

If you really want to see a certain type of content created, you have two choices. 1) you can commission a creator to make the thing you want or you can 2) get off your ass and make it yourself. Either of those seem valid to me. What isn't valid, so far as I'm concerned, is 3) whine that other people aren't spending their time, energy and money to cater to your tastes.

Then there's the morality aspect, which is really only grounds to ban content.

 Dark Severance wrote:
I'm not entirely sure it is lack of desire as it is why bother.

Yes, the argument is 'why bother with doing two genders for a single model, if the female one doesn't have watermelon breasts and a battle bikini?'. But I am not asking for that. While it would be nice, all that would be necessary really is that when people decide to have that dilemma for themselves, at least someone would then go with 'well, then we'll just make the female model'. That has never happened so far. Why on earth do people say it doesn't sell? You do not know. You have not tried. No one has. Sure, it is a niche within a niche, but so are cheesecake models. In an ideal world, realistic female models would not alone be enough to make me buy a model, but at this point it would probably be because we have six quintillion space marine variants but no other options for a realistic woman. I strongly doubt I would be alone in this - more niche things than this have sold well simply because it was the only option available and was first in an unexploited area.

If the only difference between a "realistic" armor set of a male and female is simply a slightly thinner waist and maybe arms thinner... but not exaggerated but only shaving a 1-2mm off then there is no reason to do it.

It's like the difference between MK2 and MK3 power armour, basically. Instead of segmented vs flat armour on the front only, we have different leg-torso and hip-shoulder ratios. And I have not seen people angrily ask FW why they bother with two different marks when they are not easily distinct from six feet away. And, you know, in many cases our delicately painted miniatures are detailed things that must be seen up close to be truly appreciated. There is nothing wrong with this.

And why the hell is your conclusion 'the difference is so small so there is no point to making the woman'? What is the magical thing the man has that makes his presence a must? Why is this alleged lack of distinction (which I am not convinced is 'I cannot see' as much as 'I do not want to see') something that is a problem for the female version only when it is actually bidirectional? If the idea of two different things being too similar is too painful, then surely you would be okay with sometimes only having the female version?

Well for the MK2-3 armour you would have me waving a stick at FW for throwing to the trash the existing 40k lore.

The main difference between the armours was the fact the helmet was movable instead of fixed, then it was the extra plating on the front witch is visible,but whatever, not that important difference I suppose.

On the important stuff, why my conclusion is this, quite frankly because if I want to represent a female warrior on the battlefield I want the model to look like a female, if I am to spend the resources those been time and money to make it I want it to be visually distinct.

And it is not a "I do not want to see" I have people confuse from a distance CB female sculpts for males and CB is not shy on making their female sculpts look female.

What is the point in making a female sculpt if the vast majority will confuse it for a male version? never realizing what it is? sure no problem in creating the female version of a troop only, but if nobody realize it, why bother?

Lets be honest here we talk about models, fluff means nothing, only the invested will read it, it is not a movie, a comic, a computer game were the audience can be teached this is a female warrior in an asexual armour, visuals are what matter.

One can make the argument that even in movies, comics and computer games visuals are important for somebody not investing time for the medium, a cover browser, but models in particular are a special case, either they are not made for a specific game or are used cross games.

Another problem with the asexual armour/ combat gear is that the warrior is a primarily male role, while there have been many instances of female warrior and even warrior cultures in the pages of history, they remain as "exceptions" and not the normal, so the subconscious is to expect a warrior to be male, this may change if mixed regiments become more prominent, but it will take more than a couple decades (and probably a few bloody battles) to enter the public consciousness.

So we come down to the point of asking why include female models, if the point is to represent the gender in the wargame then the model should be visually distinct, if it is for eye candy, well, it is for eye candy and whatever, if it is for simulation, we go to the simulation category and it should not be distinct I guess or the distinction should be kept to a realistic minimum (no helmet?).

Sorry I am not sure I make my point across.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
On the important stuff, why my conclusion is this, quite frankly because if I want to represent a female warrior on the battlefield I want the model to look like a female, if I am to spend the resources those been time and money to make it I want it to be visually distinct.

To me, a female model is important because it is easier to identify with, not to show it off as obviously cheesecake-female.

Can you imagine how it feels to enter the hobby as a woman, look around at the available options, see that people offer mostly male-only ranges, a few ranges where the women wear combat bikinis emphasising the T&A, and then be told that without emphasis on the T&A you may as well just make it a man instead?

If there had been an equivalent 'there must be a LOT of emphasis on the cock (or superwide shoulders, etc), otherwise you may as well just make it a woman' and 'it must have obviously exaggerated stereotypical male features so it can be identified as male from a long distance, otherwise there is no point to a male model and you may as well make it a woman instead' trend going on there would be EXTREME amounts of outrage, but why is the inverse fine?

I only have mild sympathy for the "I can't identify" argument. I mean, I have a bit of sympathy, but it's not really much (if any) higher than any other "I want" complaints. Not being able to identify with the sexuality of the model you are playing with on the table top doesn't seem like anything overly major to me.

Maybe it's just me though, given more than half my armies *aren't even human to begin with*, including the army that got me in to wargaming to begin with and I don't particularly feel the need to relate to the gender of a character I'm playing in an RPG let alone a character that I am manipulating on a table top. Even when I do play a human male character (say in a video game), I can't say I particularly identify with the vast majority of fictional characters, it's a mark of good story telling to get you to care about a character who may be vastly different to you personally.

I don't want to see table top game characters in a fantasy world like *me*. Sharing the same tackle between the legs as me is only a surface trait.

If you're saying that it's vitally important that a player identifies sexually with their fictional characters then you're basically proving the video game executives right when they don't want to take the risk on female leads when most their existing customers are male.

But polls I've read from RPG's tend to suggest males are as likely to play a male character as a female character.

....there would be EXTREME amounts of outrage, but why is the inverse fine?

I actually don't think there would be extreme outrage in this hypothetical world of yours where models are by default female and need exaggeration to be male. Though it's kind of a difficult hypothesis to prove one way or the other.

Men are exaggerated as are women when it comes to table top miniatures. When neither male nor female features are exaggerated then people tend to default to thinking it's male for obvious reasons. It's not some great conspiracy against women, it's just reality that men are associated with war more than women.

I honestly feel the lack of topless female miniatures is kind of sad, it really just art to me. Painting the female miniature is the same as painting a nude woman on canvas in my opinion. If I wanted to look at topless women for sexual purposes I'd go down the road to the strip club.

Aside from that, I really wanted an entire army of topless deamonettes...that looked more elfish than deamon, until few years ago it would have never happened, a few companies have released topless dark elves which look great. Now I can have the army I wanted, deamonettes with a illusion spell on them to lure victims to the slaughter, in the way sirens of myth worked.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
On the important stuff, why my conclusion is this, quite frankly because if I want to represent a female warrior on the battlefield I want the model to look like a female, if I am to spend the resources those been time and money to make it I want it to be visually distinct.

To me, a female model is important because it is easier to identify with, not to show it off as obviously cheesecake-female.

Can you imagine how it feels to enter the hobby as a woman, look around at the available options, see that people offer mostly male-only ranges, a few ranges where the women wear combat bikinis emphasising the T&A, and then be told that without emphasis on the T&A you may as well just make it a man instead?

If there had been an equivalent 'there must be a LOT of emphasis on the cock (or superwide shoulders, etc), otherwise you may as well just make it a woman' and 'it must have obviously exaggerated stereotypical male features so it can be identified as male from a long distance, otherwise there is no point to a male model and you may as well make it a woman instead' trend going on there would be EXTREME amounts of outrage, but why is the inverse fine?

First of all in my opinion, most of the non historical ranges (and some of the historical) model ranges depict males in a highly sexualised way, with an unrealistic body type that emphasize in indeed super wide shoulders unrealistic "bodybuilder muscles".

Why there is not much outrage I do not know, maybe males like to identify with this? maybe it is the social acceptable? maybe the vast majority does not care? definitely thought the average, normal, male body type is not what is depicted in models, coming to think about it it the same goes for sculpts and paintings throughout history, so it may have a lot to do with the societal perfect form of that era.

Why companies mainly make male only ranges, it is a multi problem issue, that has to do a lot with the expected target audience, the preconceptions of the management/ marketing/ industry knowledge, the fact that war is a mainly male dominated area for a few millennia at least and how this is engraved in the peoples consciousness, I am not saying this is right, I am saying these are the reasons.

Now, there are many companies out there who do sexualised female models without been cheesecake, I am not sure were you summed up my post in "if it is not chain mail bikini its is not worth it" I would be highly interested to see that logic path, but I did not say that I said I would rather spend money and resources to have a reverent custodier created, or indeed the mobile brigadas linked above that the Shadowforge troopers and name them "female troopers" in the fluff, nobody will understand they are female, they will not bring any gender inclusion to the table and for me it is a case of why bother.

Lets assume you played metroid and the revelation of Samus been a female never happened, except maybe in the footnotes of the manual that (almost) nobody reads, what would that bring to the table? what would the impact be? what gender representation be? how would the sock (for that era at least) that yes, there can be kick ass females out there that can easily take the role of the up to that point male dominated action hero?

It is different for you because you have plenty of options for male models that are not exaggeratedly masculine in any way. It appears to be a case of not noticing how good something is to have as an option until you don't have that option.

Consider these models, which are very realistic and unexaggerated - particularly the former - yet they have never been complained on as not looking obviously male enough. A female version of the latter, with slightly shifted proportions (leg-torso length ratio, hip-shoulder ratio, head size, smooother jaw, etc) would look great!



Why do only women have to justify their existence as models? Men have plenty of exaggerated models, but also plenty of models that are downright androgynous or everything in between. Why is it not okay for women who stray that entire range on the other side?

Of course you do not see the point, but then you were never going to collect those to begin with!

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why do only women have to justify their existence as models?

Whoever said you did? I simply said....

"I have a bit of sympathy, but it's not really much (if any) higher than any other "I want" complaints."

You can make all the "I want" complaints you want, doesn't bother me in the slightest. You don't even have to justify them. Just don't expect me to hold them any higher than any other "I want" complaint (that is, sure, it'd be nice to have, but if no one wants to sculpt it and/or not enough people want to buy it to make it profitable then such is life).

If I genuinely believed that the lack of realistically proportioned female soldier models (ie. so realistically proportioned that you can barely tell on a 28mm model) is keeping droves of genuinely potential female gamers out then I might care a bit more. However I tend to think it's pretty far down the list of things that stop females becoming interested in wargaming. I'd guess most the reasons are the same reasons most men don't care for wargaming either.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 godardc wrote:
So, in order to bring females to the tabletop, but keeping the realism,should GW just do the same models as now, but giving them femal name ?

This assumes that the obstacle preventing females from playing miniatures game is sexualized miniatures.

Personally I don't think sexualization of miniatures is what keeps women from playing miniatures game compared to males. That would imply that these over sexualized miniatures are in game shops and I don't think that has been made clear or visible. Most of these are in niche markets that you see online, not purchased in a store, and rarely played on a table at a game store... at least I haven't seen it in all my years of gaming (unfortunately I realize that sample size is considered small).

I agree on this: the problem is two fold, that 1) there really doesn't seem to be any evidence to support the 'exclusion' narrative, and 2) this exclusions narrative seems to be like the 'reasonable consumer' argument people make. That is, the person complaining claims that their preferences represent the reasonable consumer, so the company should pay attention to them.

Unintentinaly, Ash puts her finger on the problem;

 Ashiraya wrote:
That said, those 'SoB' are probably the best female miniatures I have seen so far, which is a bit depressing.

The sculptors of today can make insanely detailed miniatures (see FW Primarchs) but apparently making a female model without inexplicably thin armour, smacked-on T&A or big gaps is an insurmountable challenge.

Ash is saying that "the best female miniatures I have seen so far" are conversions made with Dreamforge Games Heavy Valkir troopers and Statuesque female heads. Fair enough, except for one point...

Dreamforge makes a line of Hard Plastic Female Stormtroopers.

Ash invites us to consider; "Can you imagine how it feels to enter the hobby as a woman, look around at the available options, see that people offer mostly male-only ranges, a few ranges where the women wear combat bikinis emphasising the T&A, and then be told that without emphasis on the T&A you may as well just make it a man instead?"

Let me, by contrast, ask: how do you think someone like Mark Mondragon feels, having spend tens of thousands of dollars designing and producing a line of realistic female sci-fi troopers, only to see that the people who claim to be most interested in them think they don't exist. It rather makes the following seem a bit ironic, no?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Dark Severance wrote:
I'm not entirely sure it is lack of desire as it is why bother.

Yes, the argument is 'why bother with doing two genders for a single model, if the female one doesn't have watermelon breasts and a battle bikini?'. But I am not asking for that. While it would be nice, all that would be necessary really is that when people decide to have that dilemma for themselves, at least someone would then go with 'well, then we'll just make the female model'. That has never happened so far. Why on earth do people say it doesn't sell? You do not know. You have not tried. No one has. Sure, it is a niche within a niche, but so are cheesecake models. In an ideal world, realistic female models would not alone be enough to make me buy a model, but at this point it would probably be because we have six quintillion space marine variants but no other options for a realistic woman. I strongly doubt I would be alone in this - more niche things than this have sold well simply because it was the only option available and was first in an unexploited area.

Spoiler:

If the only difference between a "realistic" armor set of a male and female is simply a slightly thinner waist and maybe arms thinner... but not exaggerated but only shaving a 1-2mm off then there is no reason to do it.

It's like the difference between MK2 and MK3 power armour, basically. Instead of segmented vs flat armour on the front only, we have different leg-torso and hip-shoulder ratios. And I have not seen people angrily ask FW why they bother with two different marks when they are not easily distinct from six feet away. And, you know, in many cases our delicately painted miniatures are detailed things that must be seen up close to be truly appreciated. There is nothing wrong with this.

And why the hell is your conclusion 'the difference is so small so there is no point to making the woman'? What is the magical thing the man has that makes his presence a must? Why is this alleged lack of distinction (which I am not convinced is 'I cannot see' as much as 'I do not want to see') something that is a problem for the female version only when it is actually bidirectional? If the idea of two different things being too similar is too painful, then surely you would be okay with sometimes only having the female version?

Let's be clear: Mark went through an intense process to create his female troopers. I know this, because I was there, and it happened (in large part) on Dakka;

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, I guess I'll be the one to say it. Is it possible Mark just meant for their butts to look feminine and not sexualized, but just designed his minis based on a er, gifted model? As an artist, I would tend to use my wife as a model if I wanted to draw or sculpt a woman who looks as realistic as possible, and having been with her for years I tend to think of her automatically if tasked with conceptualizing female anatomy or proportions. Is it possible that's what happened here?

Considering how well-defined the male Eisenkern butts are, Mark was probably just sticking with the same aesthetic, although that doesn't explain the feature-free thigh and shoulder plates.

PS: Am I the only one reminded of "The Pumpkin" from Portnoy's Complaint? Surely not.

This is no complaint about Bob specifically (others are making the same point), but I do sometimes wonder if Dakka causes a kind of amnesia: this discussion, about the look of the (then called Black Widows) is one we already had six months ago.

Mark was quite interested in people's thoughts about the Widows, you can see him responding to my questions (specifically about the model's thighs) here. Mark even set up a survey about the Female Stormtroopers.

That's just some of the discussion from six months ago: in January Mark specifically asked people "how should the Female Stormtroopers look?", and it's worth pointing out that Mark has explicitly said that the feedback of one Ms. J. Cooper, a female LEO, was a major influence on the design of these models.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not yelling "the time for complaints is over!", just pointing out that these images are... well, basically the same thing we saw (and I commented favorably on) six months ago. So... yeah, I'm pretty happy to get the girls in hand.

Wait...

Mark didn't just ask people's opinions, he didn't just conduct surveys, he talked at length with women that actually work in law enforcement (and thus actually wear modern body armor) in order to make the most realistic and interesting female models he could. He made them compatible with his superlative accessory kit, allowing you to outfit them in a huge variety of ways.

No boob plate. No pigeon toes. Heck, Mark himself made fun of exactly the same thing Ash is complaining about...


It is absolutely untrue that female model kits are limited to "watermelon breasts and a battle bikini". Mark went through huge efforts to put out a realistic female trooper kit, and you know what? I supported him then and now; there is a box of Eisenkern Panzerjagers, partially assembled on my desk right now. You want to support him? There is a link above to the Dice Lady store, which is specifically trying to carry non-cheesecake female models.

EDIT: oh, and for those inclined to think the final result was 'too sexy';

Mark's ones are good, no doubt about that. I think the converted Valkir look even better but that is because I prefer their armour design, like, from a design standpoint without any gender being involved.

The reason Mark's work is remarkable is because it is so rare as to be all but unheard of, which kind of adds to my point when you think about it, and you have to keep in mind Dreamforge is still relatively obscure.

But imagine how he feels when you use his work as a big red herring and slap it on my arguments.

Of course this is all an 'I want' from my side. A lot of posts here are 'I wants'. Many games started as 'I wants'. I doubt making a good sculpt like what I am asking for will be a revolution in wargaming, but it will sure add to an underused area to say the least.

In fact, I find it kind of insulting that you try to stomp all over everything I have said since your last 'contribution' by implying that I do not know what I am talking about because my favourite female armoured model is not your friend's, and given how you seem to pride yourself on logical arguments I really would expect better than that.

IOW tastes vary, but which model is my favourite has no effect on my argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, I am not sure if there is much point left for me to debate here.

Me: 'Some more realistic female armoured models would be nice.'

X: 'No demand.'

Me: 'Well, it's not like people have checked very hard. Besides, they would be nice even if they are not in high demand.'

X: 'There is this one.'

Me: 'That is -one-. Let's hope more come.'

That is about my contribution here? To my knowledge, there is no real survey or evidence as to what would happen if that kind of model becomes widespread, so at this point we would just be stuck arguing 'if they become widespread, what I want to happen will happen!' and there is little point to that. My argument was of course never that a proliferation of reasonable female miniatures will suddenly bring in an avalanche of female gamers, but I do think it would help and it is certainly an underused design.

I will wait and see, and leap on to any models I like enough.

So yes, I am done here. Unless you post something particularly egregious, I guess.

 Ashiraya wrote:


Why do only women have to justify their existence as models? Men have plenty of exaggerated models, but also plenty of models that are downright androgynous or everything in between. Why is it not okay for women who stray that entire range on the other side?

Of course you do not see the point, but then you were never going to collect those to begin with!

I think that with wargaming miniatures, there is a rather justifiable bias of "Default=Male" stemming from the fact that, even in modern militaries, 85-90% of members are men, in many cases even more in the combat roles(88% in Canada, according to http://www.forces.ca/en/page/women-92). So in order for a model to be considered female for most people, it must be noticeably different than the males.

There's also the fact that for guys like GW, making the difference subtle differences in proportions doesn't work with the business model, since it just results in model parts which just don't fit with the "Same" model when the other model is male, limiting options for trading pieces.

We could probably use more minis like these:

http://thedicebaglady.net/bad-squiddo-games-women-of-the-red-army/

OK, the busts on some of them might be ... Generous, but no more so than the hands or heads. They definitely look like women, and there's no centrefold poses, chicken-legged stances or unlikely cleavage.

True, you're not going to find many ranges of historical miniatures like this (the Red Army in WW2 was rather a special case), but for fantasy and sci-fi? Yeah, go for it. Ideally they'd just be part of the standard packs, rather than special packs of "female troopers".

Ash here is (again, unintentionally) giving us the answer to a problem she has proposed, and it's what I like to call the McLean Deluxe problem;


For those that are unfamiliar with the McLean Deluxe, it was a low fat hamburger intended to appeal to more health conscious consumers. It was one of the biggest flops in fast food history, and the reason is quite illustrative: people were asking for two mutually exclusive things, a great burger and low fat.

You see, in taking out the fat, McDonalds had to replace them with something... which turned out to be water, bound to carrageen (a seaweed derivative). The resulting burger was... unpalatable.

People told McDonalds they wanted healthy alternatives, the only problem was that people wouldn't actually buy them.

While I like to use the McLean as an example, it's by no means the most recent: ask people what kind of coffee they want and you'll invariably get people saying 'I want a dark, rich, hearty roast.’ The problem? Only "somewhere between 25 and 27 percent" actually want to drink that, "Most of you like milky, weak coffee. But you will never, ever say to someone who asks you what you want – that 'I want a milky, weak coffee.’”

This brings us to Ash (used only as an example, not an attack), who, when speaking in the abstract, will say "In an ideal world, realistic female models would not alone be enough to make me buy a model, but at this point it would probably be because we have six quintillion space marine variants but no other options for a realistic woman. I strongly doubt I would be alone in this - more niche things than this have sold well simply because it was the only option available and was first in an unexploited area."

Confronted with an actual product that meets these specifications?

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

Mark's ones are good, no doubt about that. I think the converted Valkir look even better but that is because I prefer their armour design, like, from a design standpoint without any gender being involved.

The reason Mark's work is remarkable is because it is so rare as to be all but unheard of, which kind of adds to my point when you think about it, and you have to keep in mind Dreamforge is still relatively obscure.

But imagine how he feels when you use his work as a big red herring and slap it on my arguments.

Of course this is all an 'I want' from my side. A lot of posts here are 'I wants'. Many games started as 'I wants'. I doubt making a good sculpt like what I am asking for will be a revolution in wargaming, but it will sure add to an underused area to say the least.

In fact, I find it kind of insulting that you try to stomp all over everything I have said since your last 'contribution' by implying that I do not know what I am talking about because my favourite female armoured model is not your friend's, and given how you seem to pride yourself on logical arguments I really would expect better than that.

IOW tastes vary, but which model is my favourite has no effect on my argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, I am not sure if there is much point left for me to debate here.

Me: 'Some more realistic female armoured models would be nice.'

X: 'No demand.'

Me: 'Well, it's not like people have checked very hard. Besides, they would be nice even if they are not in high demand.'

X: 'There is this one.'

Me: 'That is -one-. Let's hope more come.'

That is about my contribution here? To my knowledge, there is no real survey or evidence as to what would happen if that kind of model becomes widespread, so at this point we would just be stuck arguing 'if they become widespread, what I want to happen will happen!' and there is little point to that. My argument was of course never that a proliferation of reasonable female miniatures will suddenly bring in an avalanche of female gamers, but I do think it would help and it is certainly an underused design.

I will wait and see, and leap on to any models I like enough.

So yes, I am done here. Unless you post something particularly egregious, I guess.

Now the line is "Mark's ones are good, no doubt about that. I think the converted Valkir look even better but that is because I prefer their armour design, like, from a design standpoint without any gender being involved."

Realistic female miniatures are the "dark, rich, hearty roast" of the miniature world: loads of people claim they want them, but when creators actually spend the tens of thousands of dollars to make them... ehhhhh, maybe not.

This is a common problem in all genres: people are bad about predicting (or even understanding) their preferences. Heck, a game I was pretty fond of, Wildstar, is basically well into the (not so) slow death process Now, I won't claim that I have all the answers about why Wildstar is failing, but one thing that certainly didn't help was the repeated emphasis of how "HARDCORE" Wildstar's raids were. The developers listened to a niche player base that claimed they really wanted hardcore raids, like the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Unfortunately for Wildstar, when they actually provided that (and Wildstar's raids have been near universally praised as excellent), the audience just wasn't there. This is why game companies are increasingly paying less and less attention to forums, and more and more attention to what people are actually doing in the games.

So, the shift here from implying there is a large number of people interested in realistic female miniatures to "they would be nice even if they are not in high demand", and "My argument was of course never that a proliferation of reasonable female miniatures will suddenly bring in an avalanche of female gamers", the answer to why there aren't a lot of realistic female miniatures becomes pretty clear: there isn't a market, or, better put, not a market worth pursuing.

Or, to put it in raw numbers, DFG's kickstarter, which contained loads of awesome stuff in addition to the best realistic female miniatures on the market, ended with about $206k. Raging Heroes, pretty much the poster child for semi-cheesecake female miniatures? Their two campaigns combined to about $1.5 million.

That's not an apples to apples comparison, of course. One is hard plastic, the other spincast resin. One was focused on female miniatures, the other wasn't. But if there is a good example of 'realistic female miniatures' making big money on kickstarter I don't know about it and I've looked. Heroines in Sensible Shoes? About $50k. The two Bombshell Babes campaigns? About $180k.

I must say though, you sure are writing a gargantuan narrative because I happen to prefer angular over rounded armour. It is kind of surreal.

I would say that you are putting too much thought into my armour preferences but we have kind of crossed beyond that territory into something I struggle to even fit within the borders of farce.

I know I will remember the day when I said I preferred X armour suit over Y similar armour suit and someone spun it into a Tolkien-esque fairytale about hamburgers and Wildstar.

By the by, let me be clear (since I'm not sure it reads this way): I'm not saying that people that want X don't, on some level, actually want X.

So, people that want 'realistic female models' do want them, on some level, but they aren't willing to buy based only on that point.

This is why I reference the McLean Deluxe: the issue was never that people didn't really want a healthy burger, it was just that they weren't willing to eat a healthy burger that didn't taste good.

So yeah, people genuinely do want realistic female miniatures, but even those people that claim to place a premium on them have other considerations that override that preference. In other words, people think it's their #1 concern, when it's really a distant #2 (at best).

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Realistic female miniatures are the "dark, rich, hearty roast" of the miniature world: loads of people claim they want them, but when creators actually spend the tens of thousands of dollars to make them... ehhhhh, maybe not.

What you are missing is that 'sensible female miniatures' are diverse. You are telling a hardcore Blood Angels player that she is a hypocritical Space Marine hater because she doesn't want your Space Wolf army, and it is kind of disingenious.

Also, good job. I did not expect you to post something so far out there it'd make me return within two hours after I left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
So, people that want 'realistic female models' do want them, on some level, but they aren't willing to buy based only on that point.

This is 100% true, but that making a miniature of sensible proportions would be enough to make them superpopular regardless of other factors is a claim I have not made.

I do think it is a good design component, though.

To return to the McLean example, of course people want healthy burgers, they just do not put it higher on the list than it tasting good. Kind of like how I want sensible female miniatures but not at the price of poor general design quality. Each thing has to juggle several criteria to truly excel.

 Ashiraya wrote:
'the difference is so small so there is no point to making the woman'? What is the magical thing the man has that makes his presence a must?

There isn't an magical thing that the man has to make his presence a must. It will depend on the game universe and environment. For example in one of our games most of the operatives and agents are female for one faction. For another faction the majority of them are male because that is the type of society it is, it isn't meant to be realistic or live up to someone elses values but the ones in the game universe.

It costs me roughly $1-2k for artwork and 3d sculpting. Another 100 for the 3d print and then the cost of casting. Generally I could spend that same amount to create a variation or I can instead make a new design for a different faction or unit entirely. Chances are funding would go for the fresh new unit than a variation. At some point it may be worth it to do the other but that isn't necessarily true. It just comes down to economics unfortunately. If I had an unlimited budget then absolutely choose differently.

 Ashiraya wrote:
If the idea of two different things being too similar is too painful, then surely you would be okay with sometimes only having the female version?

I don't have an issue with having an issue with their being a female only. Again when the differences simply comes down to a head swap that isn't an issue.

 Ashiraya wrote:
To me, a female model is important because it is easier to identify with, not to show it off as obviously cheesecake-female.

That comes down to point of view and opinion though. If you honestly think I can identify with a male miniature because it is male, you would probably be sadly mistaken. I actually find I identify myself more with females than males but that is a preference. I definitely can't identify or relate with some steroid induced, nothing but pecs with a beard miniature which is why I tend to play aliens.

Hmm...

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Realistic female miniatures are the "dark, rich, hearty roast" of the miniature world: loads of people claim they want them, but when creators actually spend the tens of thousands of dollars to make them... ehhhhh, maybe not.

What you are missing is that 'sensible female miniatures' are diverse. You are telling a hardcore Blood Angels player that she is a hypocritical Space Marine hater because she doesn't want your Space Wolf army, and it is kind of disingenious.

Also, good job. I did not expect you to post something so far out there it'd make me return within two hours after I left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
So, people that want 'realistic female models' do want them, on some level, but they aren't willing to buy based only on that point.

This is 100% true, but that making a miniature of sensible proportions would be enough to make them superpopular regardless of other factors is a claim I have not made.

I do think it is a good design component, though.

To return to the McLean example, of course people want healthy burgers, they just do not put it higher on the list than it tasting good. Kind of like how I want sensible female miniatures but not at the price of poor general design quality. Each thing has to juggle several criteria to truly excel.

I don't mean to be overly condescending, but as before it seems you are now agreeing with my points, but objecting to their... length? Fair enough I suppose.

Then in the interest of brevity, the points I think we both agree on;

First: even for the people that claim to be most invested in 'realistic female miniatures', this interest is not a point that will lead to a purchase. Overall aesthetics far outweigh realism when making decisions for purchase.

Second: the people that fit in the category above are a "niche within a niche", a tiny group of people.

You'll forgive me, but the logical import of your points seems to be that people expressing your POV... are best off ignored. I don't say that to be cruel, but as a simple reflection of your current points that strongly mitigate against using your desires as the basis of a commercial action.

In the real world, where real money is being spent on real products, listening to you would convince me not to listen to you.

Conversely, when people follow my suggestions, I buy. I have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on kickstarters over the years to support female miniature lines that I like. From my perspective, it's never been a better time to buy female miniatures, and it's only getting better.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Consider these models, which are very realistic and unexaggerated - particularly the former - yet they have never been complained on as not looking obviously male enough. A female version of the latter, with slightly shifted proportions (leg-torso length ratio, hip-shoulder ratio, head size, smooother jaw, etc) would look great!

It however doesn't bring any real variation or alternate design. The cost to create that vs creating a whole new troop type, the investment will go into the new troop type almost 80% of the time.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Of course you do not see the point, but then you were never going to collect those to begin with!

That is part of the point. In your example of models I wouldn't have purchased anyways to begin with. They are great looking miniatures but not something I would purchase in the first place as male or females, sexualized or not. I have no need for WWII looking miniatures and the modern/scifi aren't scifi enough for me. If a line by itself isn't a huge seller (not saying they aren't but I don't have those numbers to begin with) I would never spend the extra money developing more of the same.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Me: 'Some more realistic female armoured models would be nice.'
X: 'No demand.'

Like I have said it actually doesn't have to do with no demand. There is demand otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. It comes down to a business decision with one option being more of a risk.

A) Create a slightly different sculpt, not much variation but a different sculpt for an existing line. There could be 20% demand for it.
B) Create a new line, completely different sculpt expanding existing lines further even more. There is usually 80% demand for it.

Could A end up eventually be 80%... absolutely. However they would specifically need to alter, cater and adjust their market to target that set to increase the amount which does cost more. Or they could focus on the existing lines that sell, expanding them further and focusing on the customers they do have, while expanding the customer base at a lower cost. Personally I don't have the income to do both.

I will use this as an example because I had them designed and paid for them myself, so I can actually speak from experience. Here is concept art for two soldiers. The women isn't overly sexualized, she doesn't have watermelons or a chainmail bikini. In fact her outfit is almost on par with the male except for the slight variation in the chest.
I under normal circumstances would not have created the second, other than just simply providing an alternate head. Unfortunately the head covered wasn't enough to justify the cost of casting so we created an alternate head for all of them. The issue was still there was a no noticeable differences so in order to justify the cost, we did give her actual breasts. Given the armor type we figured that would still fit because she isn't wearing bulky armor to begin with. The overal design of both armor types match together. Since the faction specifically has men and women equally distributed through the military, unlike an opposing faction which the majority of soldiers are male. We needed and wanted there to be a female representation.

In most cases a company will spend that money on creating two completely different units. Considering we're still new establishing a larger customer base is important, so as a new company that would have been the better move. Now I have to wait for these to be completed, sell some before producing additional units. I now only have one product to sell, when I could have had two products to sell for the same price.

I don't think Ashiraya is being hypocritical in not liking the Dreamforge female models. I think that's just demonstrating the problem. If you want male SF troopers, there's a thousand and one different varieties. For female ones? Not really. The lack of choice is part of the problem.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Hmm...

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Realistic female miniatures are the "dark, rich, hearty roast" of the miniature world: loads of people claim they want them, but when creators actually spend the tens of thousands of dollars to make them... ehhhhh, maybe not.

What you are missing is that 'sensible female miniatures' are diverse. You are telling a hardcore Blood Angels player that she is a hypocritical Space Marine hater because she doesn't want your Space Wolf army, and it is kind of disingenious.

Also, good job. I did not expect you to post something so far out there it'd make me return within two hours after I left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
So, people that want 'realistic female models' do want them, on some level, but they aren't willing to buy based only on that point.

This is 100% true, but that making a miniature of sensible proportions would be enough to make them superpopular regardless of other factors is a claim I have not made.

I do think it is a good design component, though.

To return to the McLean example, of course people want healthy burgers, they just do not put it higher on the list than it tasting good. Kind of like how I want sensible female miniatures but not at the price of poor general design quality. Each thing has to juggle several criteria to truly excel.

I don't mean to be overly condescending, but as before it seems you are now agreeing with my points, but objecting to their... length? Fair enough I suppose.

Then in the interest of brevity, the points I think we both agree on;

First: even for the people that claim to be most invested in 'realistic female miniatures', this interest is not a point that will lead to a purchase. Overall aesthetics far outweigh realism when making decisions for purchase.

Second: the people that fit in the category above are a "niche within a niche", a tiny group of people.

You'll forgive me, but the logical import of your points seems to be that people expressing your POV... are best off ignored. I don't say that to be cruel, but as a simple reflection of your current points that strongly mitigate against using your desires as the basis of a commercial action.

In the real world, where real money is being spent on real products, listening to you would convince me not to listen to you.

Conversely, when people follow my suggestions, I buy. I have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on kickstarters over the years to support female miniature lines that I like. From my perspective, it's never been a better time to buy female miniatures, and it's only getting better.

If you like Dark Eldar, you are also in a niche within a niche. That alone does not make something negligible.

If you think I am in agreement with you, you are not paying attention.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
So, people that want 'realistic female models' do want them, on some level, but they aren't willing to buy based only on that point.

Yeah, it's true. That's why having so few options on reasonably armored female models sucks. It means if you like reasonably armored female models, you are very likely going to be forced to compromise on other criterion.

I would argue that any miniature purchase is influenced by the quality of the miniature first, not matter if it is female, male, goblin or alien.

Nobody wants to buy blobs of tin or plastic. However, if I would like to buy high quality sensible female miniatures the options are limited. It is however true, that new ranges are emerging and I feel bringing these to the fore in this thread is already some good publicity.

I think I'll get some Red Army Minis from Squiddo for a diorama. Mainly because I like the minis and subject matter, because it is historically interesting (and I am not that big of a WWII person in the first place). So here the combination of female and high quality, makes me buy it. I would not be interested if they would be some male soldiers.

What is true for female miniatures is also true for their male counterparts. The Arnold barbarian or extremely broad dude right from an 80s action movie is not what I look for in miniatures. But as other have already said, there are more choices for gamers to get the exact male models they want. If one designs a new set I would wonder if they could not just have half male, half female bodies and heads in it. Adds variety and no second identical set needs to be produced.

 Ashiraya wrote:
<snip>

If you like Dark Eldar, you are also in a niche within a niche. That alone does not make something negligible.

If you think I am in agreement with you, you are not paying attention

No, the size of the niche is what makes it negligible; taking you at your word leads to the conclusions that a negligable number of people are motivated to buy based on the factors you've mentioned.

As for any disagreement, how about you specify where you think we're at odds? You have a pronounced tendency to in one post claim I'm being silly, and in the next post accept my premise. Seriously, you literally quote me above, write "This is 100% true..." and go on to restate my points as your own without any meaningful difference. EDIT: it occurs I should specify "at odds" with regards to miniatures, not in general.

The fact is, if you don't like how I'm saying it, just read what Dark Severance wrote: straight from the horse's mouth he's telling you, as a miniature maker, what you are asking for is commercially non-viable.

Most creators know their audience b/c their audience bought in without complaining, but I fear that a creator going by 'feel' of what they think their audience wants is dangerous...and I like that.

What I can add to the anecodtical discussion is: I'd love models like Infinity's minus the Heels and I'm not alone with that, at least not within my playgroup.
Or, more broadly speaking: We love good looking miniatures that fit their aesthetics and feel of the world and don't break it with dumb stuff that blatantly clashes with the picture the rest of the world tries to paint.

I feel my points are left unaddressed, at least I get support in what I said from Dark Severance.