Making Female Video Game Characters With Average Body Types

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By now, most people on the planet realize that characters in comics, movies and video games have over-the-top, unrealistic physiques. I just don't understand why this is an issue. It's make believe, it's entertainment. Besides, what fun would it be to play a realistic version of yourself in a video game? I get tired running to the fridge. :D

For example, plus-sized women are a rarity in video games, and when one does show up, she’s typically unusual looking. More often it seems video games are home to ultra-slim waistlines only. If video game creators are going to pride themselves on accurate digital representations, then it’s time for them to get real about women.
 
Oh brother.people with too much time on their hands to complain about nothing:rolleyes:
 
AND of course obese normal-looking women star in movies all the time too. Yeah, right. Once it a while it happens but people play video games and watch movies to escape reality.
 
That article and the images in it are just plain absurd... Apparently, in the eyes of whoever wrote that drivel and photoshopped those images, "realistic" should always mean "overweight", and since that's "realism", then even fantasy characters should reflect that "realism".

What a crock of shit. It's called fantasy for a reason!
 
What the mother fuck, so now we're "skinny shaming"?! I know PLENTY of girls who fit the body types of these characters, and overall resemble what fat people assume are unrealistic. Being healthy is not unrealistic. Standing 5'8" high and weighing 125 lbs is not unrealistic. Maybe to YOU it doesnt seem normal because you surround yourself with fat friends and live in some small fat ecosystem where a skinny girl has never been seen before, but this fucking bullshit has got to stop. Just spend 5 minutes at the beach or gym if you want to see what a hot girl looks like and just how common they are.
 
The civilized world is rapidly devolving into insanity.
 
Okay, some basic illustration.

Still have access to the costume creator for City of Heroes (thank you Titan Icon!)

Here's the default female in the game.

CoHDefaultFemale-Small.png


Basically exceptionally tall (5'10" when average female height is around 5'4"-5'5")
Legs are unnaturally long in comparison to the torso.
Hips like a little boy.
And the breasts are a 40DD at least (US average bra size today is a 34DD believe it or not, up from 34B in just over 30 years).

Now here's a more normative (or as normative as the costume creator will allow).

CoHNearNormalFemale-Small.png


Height is right around 5'4".
Legs are still a bit long (but it's a comic book-inspired game, and comics have traditionally rendered women unnaturally long-legged), but closer to normal.
Hips are in better proportion to height and body mass.
And the breasts, as low as they go, are maybe a 36D (then again, any "heroic" woman in comics has traditionally been given a bra size that screams "I have back problems!" and could double as geographic reference points).
 
Kinda destroys the social commentary if your "fake hollywood starlett" character looks like a normal person doesn't it? If you actually look at most of the characters in GTA V, they're quite realistically proportioned. It's annoying when people trying to make a point just search Google for images they think fit their ideas without ever actually playing the games associated with those images. Why is every single idiot who doesn't play games at all a critic?

Sure, a lot of game characters aren't that realistic, but neither are images in other media. Maybe push for a ban on all image manipulation in advertising (that would just be funny) first.
 
I should mention that I actually have played a few games with an avatar set up to look how I actually look. It's a option in a few games. I've played the Saints Row Series, GTA Online and Bloodborne though as essentially myself. Bloodborne's horrors feel all the more real if you envision yourself living through them.
 
We're not marketing towards women because women make up a miniscule percent of the gaming population regardless of what a random SJW wants to tell you.

The day that Revlon starts marketing makeup to transgender men on mainstream tv commercials is the day I'll give these SJW's the time of day in a conversation. Companies market towards their target audience in order to maximize their profits. This is logic, and yes, I know the people complaining about this are typically devoid of logic.
 
non-issue.
People are again somehow confusing video games with reality.
Those poor mentally diluted fools.
 
Steve said:
By now, most people on the planet realize that characters in comics, movies and video games have over-the-top, unrealistic physiques. I just don't understand why this is an issue. It's make believe, it's entertainment. Besides, what fun would it be to play a realistic version of yourself in a video game? I get tired running to the fridge. :D
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Spot fucking on!
 
Hey, I prefer women with at least a little meat on their bones, but this is retarded. I didn't see one example in those images where the original was unrealistic in any way. mls1995 is correct, you see the same thing in movies. Fortunately there's all types of body types, skinny no boobs, skinny big boobs, heavier no boobs, etc.

I kinda got the vibe from the article that the author prefers heavier small breasted women.
 
I think over the years they have tried to "sex up" Cortana and have ruined her. I prefer the original model from the first game. All I wanted was more definition/detail and more moving code.

Also the ads for 4 suggested that she was going to split and possibly there would be an evil version, that could have been a good story.
 
Most guys are going to think another man is a "pussy" for arguing that video game models need to be realistic, so I don't it will change anytime really soon. It is ridiculous however because it makes our daughters think that they need to be prettier than humanly possible. I.e., it does add to cultural stupidity. Personality is the primary feature that is useful in a mate anyway.
 
While we are at it, why don't we get realistic with the male figures in the video games.I know I'm not as buff and fast as the guys I usually play. Slow them down to realistic speeds. Make sure they stay down when they get shot or have a long hospital stay. The hair stays perfect after a crazed FPS run, that's not at all realistic. Let's just take it the whole 9 yards and make the game look and feel like real life. The logical conclusion to this is that I'll work at the office all day, go home, start up a game, and play working at the office all day... Good times.
 
Typically when these inevitable discussions come up and someone is complaining, I just reference Magic Mike and every super hero movie ever made. You think women are misrepresented? Oh... Ok.
 
Not very realistic actually. Someone like Lara in Tomb Raider should be fit. They're not a stay at home wife with 3 kids, or someone who works an office job. And there are plenty of fit women out there.
 
It's more realistic that the heroic characters would have slim athletic builds, similar to what you see in olympics, than fat tubs of lard like you see in walmart.
 
I guess everybody should start discriminating against attractive women in order to make unattractive women feel better about themselves...
 
All I hear from the people that complain about this is a slight buzzing sound... as if a gnat is flying too close to my ear.
 
Yeah, you've gotta have realistically chunky women in those ultra realistic video games like Halo...
 
mls1995 said:
AND of course obese normal-looking women star in movies all the time too. Yeah, right. Once it a while it happens but people play video games and watch movies to escape reality.
Click to expand...
Excellent point. That of course would actually affect their lives. I have a feeling these people watch a lot of TV, but play few if any of the actual games they're ranting about.
 
I read this as more of a "Here's what these characters would look like with an average female body type" and less of a "This is what these characters should look like" so I don't really get the poutrage in this thread

Comparing the bodies of male comic and game characters as also unrealistic is disingenuous. The male bodies, while unrealistic, represent male power fantasies, while the female bodies are also created for the male's eye. That's the difference.

Does that mean every female character needs to be fat? Hardly. But acting like its a complete non-issue doesn't help.

The website linked is a bulemia support website, and they posted this to highlight the unrealistic standard of beauty in games by showing what characters would look like if they had average builds. Its in pretty poor taste to attack it.
 
"Plus size" people generally don't do heroic physical shit, ever. Maybe mental work, leadership, but not active stuff, driving, piloting, fighting... they all require physical fitness. In the name of realistic body types, don't lose the reality that ordinary people have no cardio and aren't stronger or quicker than their inevitable opponents.
 
Chas said:
Okay, some basic illustration.

Still have access to the costume creator for City of Heroes (thank you Titan Icon!)

Here's the default female SUPER HERO in the game.
Click to expand...

There, fixed it for you :D
 
This thread is detracting from time that should be spent focusing on what Caitlin Jenner had for lunch!
 
Here is the straight and skinny from my point of view.

I have never ever consciously decided I would rather play one game over another because one had unrealistic female body types.

In other words, I don't think it makes a real difference other then some women, (who don't measure up?), are offended.

OK OK, the don't measure up comment was a little uncalled for :p
 
The best part to me are the opponents to these articles coming into a thread and spouting stuff about "LOL FATTIES", which really just further proves the point about there being a societal bias.

Hilarious. And sad.
 
maverikv said:
I read this as more of a "Here's what these characters would look like with an average female body type" and less of a "This is what these characters should look like" so I don't really get the poutrage in this thread

Comparing the bodies of male comic and game characters as also unrealistic is disingenuous. The male bodies, while unrealistic, represent male power fantasies, while the female bodies are also created for the male's eye. That's the difference.

Does that mean every female character needs to be fat? Hardly. But acting like its a complete non-issue doesn't help.

The website linked is a bulemia support website, and they posted this to highlight the unrealistic standard of beauty in games by showing what characters would look like if they had average builds. Its in pretty poor taste to attack it.
Click to expand...
This is the best post I've read on the Internet for a long time. Thank you
 
I just hate the term "average" for body shape. Do we add in sumo wrestlers or people weighing 4 digits, what about less fortunate countries where they are lucky to have something to eat let alone worry about what body shape a video game character is?
 
lol, at the recent rate of obesity growth, 2/3 of US Americans will be obese by 2030. We don't need space travel like in WALL-E to bloat. We have enough junk food and people willing to constantly stuff their faces to get extra, extra fat down on good old Terra.
 
Pushing extreme body types has been a criticism of popular comic books for DECADES, although you could argue that it's has become in grained as part of the cultural art form. As comics have spread out into the mainstream media they've had to scale back to make them less extreme to market to non comic reading viewer ship.

I think the same can be said for video game media as competition is fierce for attracting new fans, companies will do all kinds of visual stunts regardless of wither the game is any good, (insert tacky game of war ads)

Lastly, the article is on a EATING DISORDER website, and not really intended for the gamer end consumers, but aimed at designers to alter or at least reconsider the trend of characters designs they're pumping out.
 
Darunion said:
I just hate the term "average" for body shape. Do we add in sumo wrestlers or people weighing 4 digits, what about less fortunate countries where they are lucky to have something to eat let alone worry about what body shape a video game character is?
Click to expand...

The article specifically mentions that this particular exercise is based on US averages:

Article said:
With realism in mind, we altered some of the most beloved female video game characters with Adobe Photoshop, shaping their bodies into images that represent the average American woman’s measurements.
Click to expand...
 
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