Design Practice 1 - Final thoughts

Reflection

Female Body Builder Research

Body Builder Image 1

Body Builder Image 2

Body Builder Image 5

Body Builder Image 3

Body Builder Image 4

The images above were taken from a UK Muscle forum where one of the members posted 'Where is the line with female bodybuilders?'. Within the three pages of comments all made by males, the majority of them agreed that BodyBuilder image 4 is where the line needs to be drawn, however they said this because and I quote; 'saved by her pretty face'. Some of the men within the blog said number four would make themselves feel inadequate and believed number 5 had just used drugs as it's difiicult for a male too look that 'ripped'. 

Overall showing personal preference and peoples perception to how far the line is drawn between too much and not enough. 

Numerous articles online such as Stignma of female bodybuilders and Women and the stigma of weight training both different articles, as in the latter is mostly an interview which addresses some gender biases and misconceptions about the sport. Both highlighting that it is your body and you are the one that should be happy about it and no-one else! 

This subject shows you need to be considerate about when designing female characters; is it possible that when creating a muscle bound, strong, female character that some people may percieve it to be 'frightening' or 'disfigured' perhaps even male in appearance? This is definitely something that should be looked into further with a creation and some feedback.

Progress so far

Initially choosing the characters was an easy task. Torbjorn and Junkrat were exactly the kind of characters I wanted to portray as females. They weren't what I'd class as female characters that would be in current games. 

Drawing them took a while and thinking back now, did I really need to draw the initial character as it was portrayed in the games? Possibly not, but it assisted with the female aspects in comparing and altering the characters initially. It provided a guideline for myself in which to follow. 

What to do next

There is a lot of scope for this project and it has identified there is indeed a trend within the gaming industry to create over feminised characters, with limited games that don't. As mentioned previously I personally enjoy playing male characters, within DOTA I play mostly male characters. Within overwatch I would consider playing Orisa due to her build, quite tanky and looks not to be messed with! 

Having completed the drawings, I knew immediately there would be genderswapping drawings by fans/artists online, as there is with many characters. I particularly avoided looking at Overwatch genderswaps as not to influence my own changes. It would have been easy to slim torbjorn down and add a bikini top with short shorts on along with Junkrat as per the images below. 

Junkrat - Link to Orginial here

Torbjorn - Link to Original here

I do particularly like the Torbjorn Genderbend as the drawer didn't make her slim, but gave her pre-defined muscles. Though she doesn't much look like a dwarf or how I'd imagine one. Though perhaps it may just be because I can't tell the proportions. A background may have helped this so it could be something to take note of for when I draw another character.

I have began Roadhog as a hero to genderbend (shown below) and I have managed to draw him and put base colours in, I think I will leave the more finalised colouring to the female version as the two I have completed previously required slight adjustments to the colouring. I plan to complete this over the weekend and will update when completed. The ammendments I can foresee however would be hair, chest, hips and nails. Being quite a large character, I don't think slimming it down would be necessary. Though this is to be seen.

Male Roadhog progress

Steps now would be to keep a balance between drawing and research to ensure I keep on track with producing work and to consistantly get opinions from friends and the network I have built up since starting this course. From this I intend to create more characters wether genderbending prominent male characters/heroes already in the industry or creating my own. Originally I was looking at female robots, however it does not need to be that limited, but it was a useful focal point to start at and maybe looked into further. 

It may be beneficial for myself to record the artwork in progress and will look into this, the alternative would be make notes as going on the processes and steps performed as if it goes down the path of enabling people to recreate it, this would be useful. 

Either way I am enjoying drawing once more and hope that I can continue to improve my skills, especially in the colouring department and faces.