"Trends in art and wargaming miniatures " Topic

I have started to become aware of certain trends in art and the media in the last few years. It happened after my daughter was born in 2013.

I bought some Infinity miniatures and rolled my eyes when I saw the Reverend Moira model in the Bakunin sectoral starter. There are several other examples of ridiculous female models from their range. I want in the army and I never once saw female soldiers wearing stocking with garters and mini skirts.
What soldier goes into combat in stiletto heels?

I really liked the Bakunin pinup cat girl model and wanted to use it as that doctor / healer model for my Bakunin Sectorial. She is pretty bawdy, but I acknowledge she is a PINUP girl.
I took my tools and cleaned her up, gave her a more respectable pose and lengthened her space skirt. I wish I had photos. The model is still in storage. I am fine with the cat girl motif. Bakunin does genetic modification so her look fits the character of the background.

A comic book artist drew Power Girl's boobs slightly bigger every issue. Eventually someone noticed the giant jugs and made him stop it.

I could go on and on with examples of gals in almost no clothing fighting super mutants , soldiers and cyborg nazis.

On the other hand, I want to praise the models in the Guild Ball range. All the females are dressed! And this is a fantasy game! Corvus Belli has really improved their female models by putting them in uniforms, giving them boots, etc.

Is this trend of scantily clad females going to end? Will there be a renaissance where sci fi and fantasy art babes are completely clothed? Trends go in cycles and I personally wonder if the media and art nerds will scoff at anime girls with gonzo boobs firing uzis. Maybe things will switch and male soldiers will be in speedos,mid riff tank tops, combat kit and whatever.
I may be alone in this but I feel weird buyING models of dames that are clad in g strings and high heels wielding assault rifles. You can do some simple painting bits to "unslut" your sleazy models. The Moiras can be painted wearing a full body suit with no skin revealed. The Ariadnaian Scottish volunteer in the mini skirt can be lengthened to be a fully fledged kilt. I filed off the nipples on the Riot Girl models. It was an easy fix.

I look forward to the day when women are not exploited in pop art. It will probably never happen…but I can dream.

Dear Heston fan.

To answer you in a word.

No.

I agree with you as far as "realism" in the sculpting of models and on the demands of the real life experience and nature of war.

However I quote from a great book I once read on Science Fiction, called "The Stuff our Dreams is made from."

"The golden age of science fiction is 12."

What you are talking about is pretty much the same thing for war gamers. The figures you describe are all a 12 year olds vision of women, a sex Goddess who is well armed to keep the bullies away.

Get used to it. It will get worse. Check out Nude and Semi-nude figures to see how far the stupidity has gone.

I'm afraid that the trend is much much older than 2013 and I don't see it stopping anytime soon or ever. I too have removed the heels from infinity miniatures and added jeans to eM-4's plastic ganger girls along with a bit of sanding of some oversized features so I know exactly where your coming from.

Ah yes 12 year old gamers, I only have one topless female miniature, part of Alternative armies old Sidhe range and she spent the entirety of my sons teenage years hidden since he had friends over for wargaming every weekend.

Robert

It's the main reason we launched our Heroines in Sensible Shoes range…

link

link

It would be nice to see science fiction heroes in sensible shoes.

Of course, go the mall or Google outlandish prom pictures to see how many girls dress these days. While not topless, some might as well be. I think the epitome of women's fashions was reached in the mid fifties – from the perspective of being attractive without being raunchy. It is good that women today have fashion choices that enable them to be athletic, professional, or functional, but why many choose to dress like prostitutes is beyond me.

I would love to see heroes in sensible shoes for Pulp, Victorian science fiction, and science fiction. I play very little fantasy.

Dear Lovejoy

I especially praise you for recognizing the most important element of females, the ability to give birth. It's rather daring on your part, but long overdue. This is the first time I've seen a female war game figure that is pregnant. I hope she has a nice husband and is happy.

I like your miniatures. Unfortunately they aren't in my period of the 18th Century otherwise you'd be getting an order from me, but again, congratulation for making figures that don't look like they should have a stripper pole in their hands instead of a weapon.

HestonFan. You've been around these parts since 2012, and you're just noticing naughty miniatures now?

Dear Surdu2005

Amen! and Again I say Amen!

The answer I got when I asked a girl why she was wearing such a scandalous dress to the prom was "Guys like it." The craving for attention, or to show off against their fellow though less endowed classmates.

This was confirmed by Scott Adams, illustrator of "Dilbert" who commented at the start of one of his books about all people at times are idiots. In particular he said.

"Advertising for men relies on two principles. The first is -- "Use our product and you will get dates with lingerie models." The second is "use our product and you will after a while have enough money, time, gain savoire-faire- entry,-- and the knowledge to get dates with lingerie models."

For women who are much smarter, more intelligent, sensitive, nuanced, polished, and wise than men, only one principle is needed. "Use our product and you will look like a lingerie model.

Thus it is the human dilemma to be idiotic.

Sex sells, just look at many things in all the various forms of the media.

However, even though I do nothing but sci-fi modelling now, since @ '90. I find i.e. many of GW/FW's 40K models have been way "over the top" for me. And have been for quite some time.

I prefer a little more "reality" in my sci-fi, i.e. Hammer's Slammers vs. the 40K-verse. Which IMO 40K is very much sci-fantasy. At times border on the ridiculous to the point of being absurd. But everyone should really do what works for them … not me.
However … I.e. GW's SoB/Nuns with Guns, seems more like a teenager's BDSM fantasy than anything having to do with gaming. IMO of course …

For women who are much smarter, more intelligent,

Yes, I agree, very much so. As I often say, our hobby here is really nothing but grown(?) men(?) playing with toys. And most women I'd think would echo that. But none the less, I'll continue to paint my "toys" regardless. Unless i.e. Sophia Vergara makes me an "offer I can't refuse". But that is not going to happen … ever … so …

Near nekkid women with big weapons? The opposite treatment for males?

Nothing new. And it depends on where you look.

There are plenty the other way around, too.

There are inherent difficulties. The customer base skews heavily male, and--let's be honest here--even in 28mm you'd be hard-pressed to pick the female out of 12 figures in BDU's, and you'd be just about down to guessing by size if they were all wearing body armor. (Someone might also want to comment on the musculature on some of the male figures.)

It doesn't have to be as preposterous as it sometimes is, but once you've said "I want them to look like someone in modern or SF combat and be visibly female" you've set up contradictory requirements, and guess which one will be dropped?

If we don't buy the actually embarrassing ones, eventually people will stop sculpting more of them.

The older I get the more I find the whole moral panic around breasts in particular pretty silly.

Nobody has a problem with breast-feeding children, in principle at least. At what age does it become unacceptable for young children to see bared breasts? It's fine when they're young, clearly, but after a certain point the idea horrifies us. And god forbid that anyone should breast-feed in public! That could cause irreversible damage to onlookers, especially adults many of whom have breasts themselves which presumably they keep covered at all times even in the shower lest they catch a glimpse and be scarred for life.

Then we get things like the post mentioned where someone is hiding a topless miniature from their teenage son/son's friends. I'm not really sure what this is supposed to accomplish. It's not exactly hard for teenagers to access pictures of nekkid women far more salacious than any 28mm miniature if they want (which they do).

I understand concerns about exposing children to *sexualized* imagery but I think this over-cautious, prudish attitude is making things worse not better. It encourages people to treat anatomy as sexualized by default and thus widens the range of sexualized imagery that needs censoring, as well as fostering unhealthy attitudes around the subject among young people.

And especially when you consider how much in the way of violence we're happy to expose children to. A society which fetishizes violence but is terrified of sex surely can't be healthy.

To be fair, the moral panic around a child catching a glimpse of boob is much less ridiculous than the apparent moral panic around a child catching a glimpse of ass-crack on TV. But they're both dumb, and just because it's the way we were brought up doesn't mean it's not.

@Braxton,
I didn't hide it because I was worried about damaging them, I hid it because I was worried about an hour of inane giggling damaging me.

Robert

It's the context Braxton.

No one is at all upset by the artful architypia that crowds our museums. Nudity, male or female, as a personification of an abstraction is acceptable.

Nudity as a badge of degradation or objectification is quite another thing.

I agree with your greater unease about the proliferation of graphic, brutal violence in film and art because the object of that is not an archetype but in fact degradation and objectivization, the victimization of a putative person for the voyeuristic pleasure of the viewer. But that is the same criteria Hestonfan and Surdu2050 were talking about. It's not that we are scandalized by a bare breast of impacted by a peek at a bit of bottom, it's the use to which that is put.

But I admit I am old fashioned. I am also not afraid to recognize that as a young pubescent male I had not the faintest idea of the real beauty of women, and hankered after the images of boobs and but crack for the exact purpose lust and the architypes of the Bimbo so dear to the 12 year old. Then I grew up. But I did not forget what I and all of my fellow adolescents had on their mind, and what they wished to do with and to the objects of our attention. As I said- then I grew up about age 18.

I was no different then, when I was a little boy, as the little boys are now, and so I know what's on their mind. That's why, if I ever had a daughter, I would have done what the Italians used to do. "She can leave the house when she's in a wedding dress or a box."

LOL ! Good one Otto !

And in case some of you missed – Tank Girl – TMP link

whole moral panic around _______ in particular pretty silly

One could fill in that blank with many, many things today … and yes, I think much of it is silly to say the least …

Hope I won't get DH'd for this … but we can't forget one of my favorite subjects – Aliens !!