If I were to design Chalcara today, she’d look quite different. More regal. More powerful. She’d definitivly have more … outfit on her.
But If I were to redesign Chalcara to bring it in line with what I know about character design these days, she wouldn’t be my Chalcara anymore. She, for all intents and purposes, is a legacy character from a time long gone; she’d been concived years before Siendes came around; back then when Mirrough still was supposed to be a whiny, powerless teenager kidnapped from an interstellar highschool. Her outfit irks me, but well, it’s hers. When her made her, I really didn’t know better.
Now, I made a lot incremental improvments during the last year year. Without her armour, her design’s bland enough not to look tittilating, even though I still need to reduce her most common super power a bit1. The-without-armour blandness serves both character and plot purposes, so it’s actually intended.
And when she does wear her armour, the focus is on her broad shoulders instead her boobs, especially now that I try to pull her gem out of her cleavage and closer to her neck. She’s got a very shoulder-heavy design these days and I am still looking for ways how to stress that even more2.
But no, her outfit’s not really what I do regret creating. I can work with that. Even if it means that now I have to design Pridelord Humar to look regal in a loincloth, not an easy feat, but, well… What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the ladies dress skimpy, my gentlemen will too. Fair’s fair.
No, what I regret is this panel and it’s less obvious bretheren.
Granted, I felt a bit iffy about it when I drew it, but thought, what the hell. I expected jokes. I got them.
It’s preservence of them, that took me by surprise. And how they coloured perceptions of Chalcara for the last of the chapter.
I shouldn’t have been that fucking naive.
…
It’s hard to make readers respect a character that’s presented as titellating. Fanservice might be pretty, but as a characterization tool it’s more that problematic. Because unfortionally the fuckability of a person is inverse proportional to their respectability3. Oh, I wish it weren’t that way, but hey, the ‘good’ ol’ virgin whore dychotomy is still alive and kicking – and whores are to be used, not to be respected.
In the end it’s hard enough to make readers respect a female character even without putting her comprimising positions. While people in general find it easier to grow emotionally invested in a female character than to a male one, those investment do not necessarly command respect. They can. More often than not they don’t. All those numerous “she’s such a slut/frigid bitch and deserves pain” rants usually come from a place of emotional investment, too.
Anyway, I disgress.
Between Chalcara design and those poses, I’m afraid I did quite a bit of damage to how I actually want people to see her. I might be able to fix it, at least for some readers. Right now the best thing I can do is to stop putting her into compromising positions. But after how I portrayed her in the first chapter, I will have a tough time to build her up to the respect commanding, fear inducing powerhorse she’s supposed to be.
Let’s hope I’ll manage it.
In the end it’s just sad that despite all my rants about objectification of women in media, I fell into the trap of doing it myself. *sigh* But maybe it just goes to show how persuavive that shit actually is.
Footnotes:
- More for my own sanity than anything else, though. Chally’s girls have too much volume for the particular form she has. ↩
- Gogogogogo, Shoulders of Doooooom! ↩
- Female managers and politicians basically have to kill all possible sex-appeal in order to be taken seriously – which is quite a hard feat sometimes, there’s no (tasteful) way to make big boobs NOT sexually charged – and even then they’re still getting raked over the coals for being too pretty, or not being pretty enough, for being to stuck up, for being to assertive, for not being woman enough, for not being the right kind of woman, for being incapable, because a woman must’ve slept her way up.
Even if there ARE respectable reasons to make fun out of them like when they are genuily dumb, the fact that they happen to be female is usually the most obvious target. ↩
A word of the wise:
Since this article touches the hot button issue of feminism (insert omnious latin chanting here), I’ll take a page out of Scalzi‘s books and keep my very own mallet of loving correction handy.
I’m pretty sure I won’t need it, but if anybody act like a dolt or an entitled prick, their comment(s) will go the way of the dodo.
1)
If the outfit irks you – why not let her having multiple ones? She does not have to wear the same outfit each time.
2)
Quote: “… shoulder-heavy design these days and I am still looking for ways how to stress that even more”
For me it always works making shoulders broader than the hips (broader hips seem to divert the attention from the shoulders). Maybe increasing the size of the collarbone and trapezius muscle helps too?
3)
Quote: “It’s preservence of them, that took me by surprise. And how they coloured perceptions …”
So you are afraid that Chalcara is perceived as titillating? From my point of view (= forum), jokes/remarks regarding that were rather harmless, did not linger long and only occurred once. And after that, I didn’t get the impression that people always go “*hurr*, sexy”. Thus I wonder what makes you think so?
1) It’s Chal’s “I’m the boss” uniform – I’ve shown her without it, too, but part of that outfit is to make her easily recognizable to the Trarr. I want to keep it around, actually.
2) Sorry, I was being unclear here. I want to tilt her outfit into a bit more shoulderheavy design. I’m very happy with Chal’s anatomy, well, asides the fact that her boobs are a bit too big for the particular form. Siendes’ is the one with a swimmers back.
3) The email(s) requesting porn of Chal that started with that panel. I don’t know WHY that particular person thought it was a prudent idea to ask me THAT (and keep asking after I said no, but that’s a ‘nother issue), so yeah… *shrugs*
1) That gem attached(?) to her chest makes her pretty recognizable on its own. But I see, there is only one “boss”-uniform.
2) Umpfh, no idea here. Merely ‘piling up stuff’ on her shoulders wouldn’t work for me -> looks too unstable/imbalanced. Maybe another color pattern (something that raises attention/sets itself apart from usual Trarr surroundings)?
3) I see, so it’s an off-site thing. To put your mind at ease: It’s only one person.
One person or not, I’d rather not contribute to a problem that’s been neigh ubiquitous AND pissing me off since I was able to read comics and watch tv.
It’s been quite a wakeup call, and yes, I do regret contributing to the “female == judged by fuckability” problem.
Well yes, there is damage plus huge annoyance, I understood that (especially with those previous blog posts/comments around).
I was more about “that contribution did not cause a full scale stampede”, which is good/could’ve eased your mind.
Personally, I found the pose more cute than sexy (though it was a bit of that as well) and enjoyed the fact that it was a side of Chalcara we had never seen before: something playful and adorable. It was the first genuine smile we’ve seen from her and it brought out a beauty to her outside of her standard regal frown or that half smirk she likes to do.
I think seeing actual porn of her or your other trarr would weird me out a bit.
It did seem from my end that everyone was basically focused on her (kinda prominent) chest & butt, though…
Re porn: Now imagine how creepy it is to get requests to actually create porn of them. Kinda like “Hey ma’am, do you sell nude pictures of your daughters?” *shudder* Granted, they’re characters and not real persons, but still… I know their deepest fears and what their favourite teddy was when they were four. It just feels exploitive.
If I were ever to do any kind of porn or erotica, it would be with characters specificially catered for that. If they’re supposed to tittelate, things feel quite different to me.
(On that note… I’d prolly react skeewed out by shipping too, which is one of the reasons Siendes is happily married.)