Anna Nilsson, from Swedish site Svampriket, has some ideas on what some of the “sexier” female fighting game characters should look like. Mostly, this involves putting some damn pants on.
Nilsson’s redesigns take two things into account: she’s toned down the more, ahem, exaggerated aspects of their physical design, and made their outfits more practical. It’s OK if their costumes are still tight or even sexy, but come on, the least they can do is cover someone’s arse.
Some of them go a little overboard (Cammy has gone from “oh hey there’s your butt” to Sly Cooper), but Mai and Elena look great. As do Felicia’s pants, which is a sentence nobody has ever had to write before, ever.
Anna’s redesigns clearly only focus on sexy female characters. If anyone feels like toning down Urien or Zangief’s underpant madness, knock yourselves out.
Comments
47 responses to “Sexy Fighting Game Characters, Redesigned”
I’m sorry, but those redesigns look awful, especially Mai.
You sexist pig!
*stares ar Ms Shiranui’s boobs*You have preferences on what you find attractive!? Sexist! Throw your free will out the window please!
Dude, come on.
I think he’s entitled to comment
Honestly Mai’s clothing looks fine, I think it’s the face/style that throws it.
I mean put the original Mai in the redesigned outfit and she would look fine.
However Felicia’s normal costume is a little overboard but her redesign makes her look like the one token black character from a Disney channel cartoon wearing cosplay.
Again the style more than anything I think
I’d prefer they just stripped the men for equality.
Also because @liondrive is a champion!
I want to see every veiny outline Zangief’s throbbing, engorged member through his spandex tighties.
Is it hot in here? Did someone turn the aircon off?
Take your pants off, Jimu.
Who’s says I’m wearing any?
You know exactly what I want to hear, Jimmy ;*
But Poison is a DUDE
HERP DERP, my next project is to put shirts on all the men on mills and boon books.
or movie posters like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268016/
What a non-issue.
You’re right, men without shirts isn’t an issue.
That’s true so long as women without shirts is similarly a non-issue. Objectification for all.
When objectification of men is equal to objectification of women then it’ll be a non issue. As it is there is a very very long way to go. 🙂
You are both nitpicking.
To say that a guy that is 1/2 naked isn’t objectifying a person more than a female who isn’t 1/2 naked is dumb.
Do you have to see sausage before you get it?
If somebody says the words “power fantasy”, so help me god…
Fifty shades of grey objectifies a man in a suit. Magic Mike objectifies a man in his underwear.
Now, either one of these is not objectification (hint: this is the wrong answer) or objectification as a concept is far more complex than who is the “nakedest”.
Okay, you named two things that objectify men. This article alone has two things that objectify women. As I said, when the objectification of men is equal to the objectification of women, then it’ll be a non issue.
My comment alone has two things that objectify men.
And what, by your measure, is “equal” objectification?
She somehow managed to make a succubus non-sexy. Why would you do that? Her being sexy isn’t some design choice, it’s what a succubus does.
You mustn’t have faith in a girls personality.
But Succubi are demons, I certainly have no faith.
That’s their job to convince you otherwise.
Made her look like a tranny :'(
Maybe can we not with the slurs and acting like being transsexual is a bad thing, yeah?
Edit: not worth arguing about
Terrible redesigns.
Taki’s just gone back to her original Soul Edge incarnation before they made her all weird and disproportionate.
you’re guest access button doesn’t work.
anyway, when i saw this article i was reminded of that ‘sarkeesian’ bullshit.
those redesigned characters look terrible. they are practically flat chested and are fully covered like its immoral for women to be voluptuous and sexy.
i agree that sometimes the designs are unrealisticly sexy but thats because its a fucking game.
Kotaku should just stop posting any content with women, because the tone of the discussion in all these comments is so deeply depressing.
I like the whole equality thing that a lot of the top comments have going on.
The cognitive dissonance is pretty eye opening.
I haven’t checked the rest yet, but remove the stupid goggles form Felicia and get rid of the duck-face on the other one.
I like them.
I like the idea, but I think sticking with the original style would have been better.
Same style, different outfits, kinda thing.
I’m not going to rag on someone’s pictures though. Drawing is hard.
Though now I want to have a go at redesigning them myself :3
The artice (if you translate it) is specifically about fighting characters, and noting that they’re supposed to be fighters, but they’re all drawn as porn stars. She also notes that these are rough sketches, done quickly to illustrate the concept.
It’s not just about the outfits (which are mostly non-existent), it’s the body shape and the pose. If you translate the page into english, the artist explains what she’s changed and why, and where she found it particularly difficult.
It’s possible to draw a woman and NOT make her look like a porn star, and real female fighters don’t look like porn stars anyway. So why can’t we seeing strong women like Rhonda Rousey or the Williams sisters or Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce being used as models? Where are the muscles? Where is the killer attitude?
Male fighting characters are tall, short, skinny, buff, fat, old and young. Female fighting characters are young, booby and naked. That’s not being artistic, that’s being LAZY.
Not to mention can you imagine how awful it would be to try and fight wearing those ribbons? Double sided tape couldn’t salvage those outfits.
I read the article, Mama 😛
All I was getting at is that the idea is sound (cover up the fighters, make them more proportionate, etc), but the execution was left a little lacking.
i.e. The Felicia redesign does not look like it would fit in with the Darkstalkers world at all.
Similarly, Cammy doesn’t fit with the Street Fighter world anymore either.
They can be covered and proportionate, but still styled to fit in with the particular game.
But, that’s what concept art and design is all about.
As far as practicality in a fight goes, those redesigns are spot on. As far as trying to titillate the original target audience – they wouldn’t fly since they’re already well-known characters. If new games came out with well dressed characters, that would be very interesting.
Good for them! Fan art is a fine thing! I dig ‘what if’ scenarios and academic/creative exercises around a goal, like practicality, or futuristic versions, or fantasy versions, or whatever. Experimenting is fun.
I don’t especially like most of them, though… I guess I prefer the original titillation? It’s the salt on your fries, to me.
No, your fries don’t NEED salt, and I don’t NEED there to always be ‘hawt babes’ in my games, but it sure enhances many of them.
Not always, obviously – Alien: Isolation, for example. Revealing outfits there would be weird. Or in cutesy things: Kirby would be pretty damn weird with sexualization in it. Many games are sweet, not savory, and aren’t helped by the ‘T&A salt’ at all. But I’m pretty forgiving on the lame excuses used, because yeah… I quite like those boob things. They’re pretty great.
If one burger joint sells their fries with salt and the other doesn’t, I’m probably gonna go eat at the place with salt. If they decide to stop adding salt to capture the salt-averse market, well… I guess I’ll go somewhere else?
Changing your target audience is fine. I have to give up on franchises all the time when I stop being the target audience. And often for something more important than mere aesthetics.
Like Starcraft when it went all esporty gogogo (denying my love of turtling), or Dawn of War when the sequel moved it to a MOBA-style micro tactics focus instead of base and army-building strategy.
It’s SAD, not being the target market, especially if it’s a franchise you really like (like Diablo, with 3’s early iterations focussing on always-online and heavily-incentivized group social bullshit, and Sim City as it moved to forced multiplayer and always-online), so I can understand why some more die-hard fans would get a little protective.
I don’t think I’d mind if they officially went this way to welcome a new audience at the expense of the old who preferred the titillation, but that’s probably because I’m not personally invested in fighting games enough to be annoyed at not being the target market anymore.
It can be distracting. The Resident Evil series is supposed to be a “survival horror” franchise, yet how am I supposed to get scared of Jill getting grabbed by a zombie when her tits are bouncing everywhere?
This is a bit more than salt on fries. This is serving fries with salt, melted butter, frosting and glitter. Don’t like it? Too bad, because that’s how ALL FRIES ARE SERVED.
Vivid imagery. I’ve seen that people who have successfully weaned themselves off sodas (or sugar in general) can open a can of coke and spend the next minute trying to scrape the sugar off their tongue and wonder how they ever managed to put up with drinking the stuff, while I’m mainlining it over here and think it’s a really great scenario for me that in the right quantities, coke is frequently cheaper than milk.
With that in mind… To me, it’s really not the salt, melted butter, frosting, etc. It’s just a little salt. That’s all I’m tasting, and I like it. Maybe I’m similarly desensitized to its impact thanks to the over-exposure, over-consumption? The problem for other people who don’t like that is that I don’t have a problem with that and am going to happily continue ordering it.
When we like different things, and those things are apparently in opposition to each other, then far from vilifying or condemning it, I’m probably going to vote for the continued existence of the thing I like, and complain when there’s not enough spice to my tastes. Which, y’know… Has happened before, will happen again; wheel never stops turning*.
*(“That only matters to the people on the rim.”)
As much as I am for having women in realistic outfits these look terrible. Not a fan of the art style