Re-launched WoW Galleries: Let's end with a gender-swap

As promised, I have another gender-swap to finish out this series of WoW posts. My first attempt at a gender-swap was reasonably successful, but I discovered that a lot of the sexualization gets lost in translation since the "collection of bits" phenomenon has to be unbelievably exaggerated in order to come across on a male figure.

Thankfully, the new WoW galleries provided plenty of ammunition!

The ladybit assassin (see part 3) was almost my choice, but I was afraid that people have been so desensitized to Conan-type beefcake that it wouldn't have the impact I was looking for. So instead, I went for my second, uh, favorite:

God. This makes me want to facepalm every time I see it.

And here is my take, what I have dubbed a work of "mancake":

I got lazy and didn't bother reproducing the bad PhotoShop filter frost magic effects. Also, I changed the colors and simplified the design of the robes. That was out of copyright concerns, not laziness.

This time, I was every bit as successful as I had hoped. This time, the sheer ridiculousness of the pose and costume wasn't lost in translation, even after correcting the anatomy to give my gender-swapped mage a rib cage.

We have the usual suspects when it comes to sexualized female figures. Her costume has both a cleavage AND a midriff window. Anatomy is similarly distorted in the usual fashion. Ginormous fake boobs? Check. Lack of rib cage? Check. Impossibly flat abs? Check. But honestly, that's not what I was after.

The most obvious object of ridicule is the pose. Her back is arched with her breasts and ass being thrust out at the same time. I'm really not sure how she's supposed to cast magic like that; I tried to get into that pose myself and it was all I could do to not fall over or accidentally injure my back. (Give it a try when no one's looking. It's pretty hard.)

So I'm pretty pleased that most of that still comes through with my gender-swapped version. I'm not positive that the cleavage window has the same effect, even with him thrusting his chest forward. Without actual cleavage I suspect some of the impact is lost. But the intent still comes through loud and clear, which makes me very happy indeed.

Now to be fair, a fair number of the comments in the WoW gallery revolve around how it looks like she's about to take a crap. But there's just as many comments about how "real" this looks - which kind of freaks me out that nobody notices basic shit like WHERE ARE HER ORGANS? And then there's an even scarier subset of people who, predictably, find Crapping Frost Mage hot:

she definatley... wants it in her anal cavity

she hot she most will be a porn star

Delicious

Mage porn star.

Oh, internet. I'm finding it harder to be surprised by this stuff anymore.

Anyhow. I'll definitely do more of these in the future (though perhaps not right away since my time is at a premium for the next few weeks). I had way too much fun doing this one!

Re-launched WoW Galleries: Analysis, Part 4 (right and wrong)

Last time, I highlighted the difference between class depictions with male figures and class depictions with female figures. In this post, I'm going to end the series with some comparisons of some positive art and some problematic art.

Some of the response that I get to complaints about over-sexualized women in game art is can be summed up in one of two ways: 1) sex sells tits or gtfo or 2) OMG WUT DO U WIMMINZ WANT ALL UGLY GIRLZ OR SUMTHIN? And then you get the artists themselves who say things like:

When I draw a woman, I want to draw her as sexy as possible, I can't really help that. That doesn't mean I can't or won't draw a woman more realistically, but that's the truth.

(Taken from the comment thread on the previous post.) Since not sexualizing women seems to be a challenging concept for a lot of male gamers and artists, so I thought I'd put together a basic primer on ways to create positive depictions of women.

First: The basics (so I don't wind up repeating myself)

Make an effort to learn how female anatomy works. In particular, educate yourself about how breasts - REAL breasts - work. Life-drawing is best, but there are lots of great resources on the internet and in print. Then put what you learn into practice.

Don't use porn as a reference.

When composing your image, choose a pose and angle that are suited to telling a story. That isn't PLEASE COME FUCK ME.

Repeat after me: I will not draw gratuitous cleavage. I will not give female clothing mysterious holes. I will not make breasts larger than heads.

Draw clothing appropriate to the setting. That means no bikinis in the middle of a snowfield. Or on a battlefield.

If your character is toting a five foot long sword, she should probably have some muscles.

Second: Advanced lessons and some examples

All of the examples here listed as "WRONG" violate at least one of the previous rules. Some of them violate several at once. I won't belabor the point with these examples - the violations should be easy to spot.

Please excuse me. I have to take a dump.

Remember the basics? This breaks almost every single one of those rules. DON'T DO THAT. If your art looks anything like this, throw it out and start over.

This is going to seem counter-intuitive, since I spent most of my last post bitching about how passively women are depicted in Blizzard's art. But sometimes when drawing female characters, a neutral pose is better than an active pose. The death knight on the left is active, yes, but look at the bizarre pose she is contorted into that is pretty clearly designed to show off her curves. Contrast that with the death knight on the right, who is standing still, but with her weapon at the ready. The woman on the right is clearly more threatening; the woman on the left just looks like a model in a silly pose.

Expression is important too. People are drawn to faces. The image on the left, with the vaccuous and generically inviting expression on her face, doesn't really convey much of a sense of character. The image on the right is full of it. This woman is not posing for your benefit. Her expression is genuinely menacing. This is a character I want to play! The Draenei? Totally forgettable.

Another example of my point. The druid on the left, while active, is still wrong. Again, the pose serves more to emphasize her, ahem, "feminine wiles" than to give her any real sense of character. Contrast this with the druid on the right, who looks capable of doing things more important than running through the forest in a weird Azerothian version of Baywatch.

Now these are a little less obvious, so I've circled the problematic bits. (You might have to click through to see what I'm talking about.) All of these women are fierce, all of them are active, and all of them are in a believable environment. But all three of them are still wrong. Let female characters be awesome without having to show their tits and/or midriff!

The druid on the right is fierce! Like a mitten!

Okay. The druid on the left is an edge case for me - her robes are pretty tight. But she gets a pass because she's mostly covered up and because she's COMPLETELY AWESOME. Come on, she's calling lightning from the sky. What does the druid on the right have going for her? Nothing. (Oh look, it's a woman in a revealing outfit trying to look vaguely fierce. Yawn.)

Resist the temptation to have your female characters standing around and doing nothing. Draw them doing awesome things!

I won't waste time discussing why number three is wrong. If you're having trouble with that, go back and read the basics before taking a second look. However, I will divert matters for one second to talk about prettiness. Not all of your female characters have to be pretty! If you're drawing a character that is monstrous in nature (like undead) it's okay to have them be monstrous! Do you have any idea how jealous I was when I discovered that only MALE undead get to have missing jaws in WoW?

Okay. Back on track...

Both number and number two are rotten everywhere except their (pretty) faces and their (perky) boobs - which is a particular pet peeve of mine. Let them be gross! But number one gets a pass where number two doesn't because of a few factors. First, number one is posed actively, and not just for the sake of showing off her boobs. Her stance and armor are appropriate for the type of fighter she's supposed to be, and her expression is wonderfully cocky.

Number does have some things going for it: she's covered, her expression is actually menacing, and the image conveys a real sense of atmosphere. However, once again we have the aforementioned magical rotless breasts and the passive stance. What tips it over into fail for me is the visible nipple. Come on, guys. Don't put visible nipples on dead things. That's just yucky.

Lastly, we'll close with the blood elf rogue. This! This is what I want! She is active and competent looking and actually looks like an adventurer! There is a story in this image. I can totally imagine trying to sneak past that giant. This is an exciting avatar! Do you hear me, Blizzard? Now go and do more of it. Lots more.

[Edit: part 5, the final installment, can be found here.]

WoW novels - only female heroes need apply

[A brief side note before I get started: It's been a month since I started this blog. Fifteen posts and thirty days later, I've gotten just over 2500 page views. Holy crap, people! That's four to five times more traffic of my art blog! So thanks to those of you who keep reading. I'll do my best to keep things interesting here.]

So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that WoW is sexist. I mean, when the prevalence of armor like this...

...makes it hard to find pants that are actually pants for my female characters in WoW, it's hard to deny the sexism. WoW's not at all unique in this regard, so I swallow my dislike and play anyway because I enjoy the gameplay.

But there's also an entirely different kind of sexism at work besides the bimbo-fied armor. Women simply don't seem to be capable of performing heroic deeds in Azeroth. I mean, sure - they can strap on some, ahem, "armor" and go out adventuring. But when it comes to the real earth-shaking events that change the course of Azeroth's history, well then you'd better hope that you have some big strong men to deal with the problem.

It's no secret that the majority of the major lore characters are men. Disappointingly, the women that do appear in the Warcraft lore are depressingly stereotyped.

But, okay, fine. So what if Sylvanas is too pretty to be undead? She's still the leader of the undead, and pretty freaking creepy. And so what if Jaina Proudmoor spends all of her time whining at the Horde and Alliance leaders to stop fighting each other? And so what if she's way, way more slutty in the comics than even in the game? She's still a badass sorceress and leader of an important faction of super-powerful mages. I mean, that's gotta count for something, right? Surely there have to be some women capable of doing really important stuff, right?

Well, apparently not if you read the novels. Not a single one of them features a female hero important enough to be mentioned in the cover copy on the back. Check this out:

The Shattering (Christie Golden): back cover mentions Thrall, King Varian Wrynn, and Prince Anduin

Warcraft Archive (Christie Golden, Richard A. Knaak, Jeff Grubb, and Chris Metzen): back cover mentions Rhonin, Thrall, Medivh, and Tirion Fordring

Tides of Darkness (Aaron Rosenberg): back cover mentions Ogrim Doomhammer, Anduin Lothar, and King Terenas

Rise of the Horde (Christie Golden): back cover mentions Thrall

War of the Ancients Book 1 - The Well of Eternity (Richard A. Knaak): back cover only mentions "three heroes" (no names), Sargeras and Queen Azshara are mentioned as villains.

War of the Ancients Book 2 (Richard A. Knaak): despite having a boobalicious cover, the the "three heroes" of this trilogy are all men - Krasus, Rhonin, and Broxigar. Queen Azshara is mentioned as a villain, not as a hero.

War of the Ancients Book 3 - The Sundering (Richard A. Knaak): no heroes mentioned on back cover, Neltharion and Archimonde mentioned as villains

Day of the Dragon (Richard A. Knaak): Another cover with cleavage! But whoever that cleavagey night elf is, she's not important enough to mention on the back cover. Only Rhonin gets a mention.

Night of the Dragon (Richard A. Knaak): The most boobalicious cover yet! And yet the only hero mentioned is Krasus. Dragon Queen Alexstrasza gets a mention as a nod to past events not in the novel, but only because she had her eggs defiled.

So out of nine books, we have three that feature cleavage on the cover and none that mention a female hero in the back cover copy. Two of the books mention the same female villain, and one book has a tangential reference to a mother who's children were corrupted. So... what's the deal, Blizzard??? You're okay with splashing cleavage on the cover, but heaven forbid that the cover mention a female hero! That might threaten the insulated little bubble your target audience lives in! Female villains are okay, because everyone knows that girls are icky. And moms are okay, because even geeks still love them moms, right?

Okay, you know what? I'm going to say something revolutionary. Women like to read fantasy adventure stories too. I know! OMG! But it's true! And, you know, sometimes we like to see heroes that are women. Not all the time! Male heroes are great! But sometimes it's nice to see female heroes who don't need rescuing and aren't only important for their relationship to male characters. (I'm looking at you Aegwynn, Tyrande, Iridi, Jaina, Maiev, Valeera, Vareesa, Modgud, Onyxia, Soridormi, Moira, Sintharia, Sindragosa, Abbendis, Tyrygosa, and Geyah!)

The problem here is that this type of sexism is just as dangerous as the sexism that paints women as sex objects, because this is the sexism that says that women aren't important and will never be important. Taken to the extreme, this is the sexism that says women can't be "real" gamers and thus it is okay to harass them when they get all uppity and try to play games and stuff.

When put that way, sure it sounds insane. But that doesn't change the fact that there are tons of men out there for whom the response to a woman gamer invading their space is either "go make me a sandwich" or "boobs or gtfo". I'm not saying that putting female heroes into the WoW novels would suddenly make everything okay for female gamers, but hey. Baby steps.