So you’re designing a female character or characters who need some armour, and not the
ceremonial stuff either, stuff they can actually fight in.
That being the case, you probably know to avoid all the obvious armour pitfalls:
armour that protects non-vital areas but leaves your gut or chest exposed, (not to mention
leaving you exposed to the weather if you’re on location)
metal on bare skin in general, battle stilettos,
combat wedges but you’re wondering what to do about the
boob situation.
All right let’s do this.
Four considerations to take into account when designing torso armour for ladies, and at
the end of the video, a lightning round where I give you my actual opinion.
I mean, more so than the rest of this video.
I’m Jill Bearup, I make videos about fights in media, off we go.
1.
You don’t need boob plate.
a) There is no inherent mechanical advantage to armour shaped like two separate breasts.
The disadvantages range from very minor to...more of an issue, but we’ll get into those, and
how to mitigate them, a bit later on.
b) If we’re talking about medieval plate, or medieval plate-inspired stuff, then basically
any size of breasts can be accommodated within a smoothly curved cuirass.
Both because gambesons tend to smooth out the curve a bit, and also because medieval
armour requires a fair amount of extra space in the chest cavity regardless, because people
need to breathe.
So something like this, or maybe this, could be very easily altered to accommodate the
female form.
And it really wouldn’t look that different on the outside at all.
I mean Stormtroopers also look basically indistinguishable,
regardless of breast or chest size, which
is important if you’re a Stormtrooper, though I’m really not sure whether only the male
Stormtroopers get the codpiece.
Apparently, Elizabeth the First historically wore a breastplate though not full armour,
but this is a really nice option.
If the “same armour design as the men” option appeals, but you want to signal that
the character is a woman without kitting her out with metal boobs, then there are some
nice skirt or tunic options.
Long skirts may hamper mobility a bit, but look at this guy.
Is he not stylish?
c) Close fitting body armour doesn’t need cleavage.
If you look at police or military flak jackets, you’ll note that they’re not exactly showing
off the goods.
But underneath all of those pockets they are pretty precisely tailored to fit the wearer.
And for women they do this by taking bust, underbust, waist and length measurements,
as well as possibly shoulder to shoulder measurements
in some cases.
Protective gear for motorbikes is more about tough fabric with extra plates for impact
protection, but even then it’s hardly cleavage-tastic.
I suppose that would be an active disadvantage for impact protection, you want something
that will spread the force over the widest possible area.
And d) There are so many options which aren’t
plate armour.
We’re not really going to be talking about them in depth today, but...so many.
Depending on who, where, and when your female character is, as well as what she’s doing,
why, and what materials are available, you have so many things that you can either use
wholesale or use as inspiration.
Like mail.
I mean historically this was worn over a gambeson...
But never mind.
Or scale.
Or lamellar, like this one which has slits up the back for ease of movement and presumably
also horseriding.
Or brigandine!
And the nice thing about these is that even though they’re not very cleavage-y, a lot
of them do belt in at the natural waist so that you can distribute some of the weight
onto your hips and not have it just hanging off the shoulders, so you can still get that
kind of female shape without going nuts.
OK but maybe you’re really heck-bent on breastplate and plate armour and you really
like armour that looks obviously female.
Second point to consider:
Divots are a disadvantage.
a) Convex shaping is the optimal way to make plate.
Convex shapes are more likely to have weapons glance off, which is why a lot of medieval
examples of plate armour have that ridge in the middle as the highest point, but also
mechanically speaking domes and convex shapes are more difficult to crush, and so they will
be maximally protective when you take a hit.
Because of this, any indent will be a weak point mechanically.
And b) if you add in extra thickness between the
breasts to compensate for the weak point you are raising your centre of mass a little bit.
Which again is slightly disadvantageous.
And this goes double if your breastplate design is a regular slightly curved plate with some
boobs stapled over the top.
Some things which people already rushing to the comments section with at this point: but
Jill, how can you say that?
People did disadvantageous things with armour all the time!
First, look at muscle cuirasses!
Second, look how medieval armour often had a wasp waist!
And third: codpieces!
Need I say more?
So let's talk about all of those, because...it’s
not even a tangent, they’re useful for illustrative
purposes.
First I invite you to look at the depth of the indent on the muscle cuirasses.
Even in the more extreme examples, it’s not that deep.
Is this shape less efficient inherently than a convex plate?
Yeah.
By a lot?
Nah.
So sure, muscle cuirasses with a bunch of abs and pecs aren’t the absolute most efficient
thing, but they did look great, and they were pretty likely to protect you against anything
you were likely to come across.
So: same principle with your lady armour.
Is it marginally less efficient to have a
boob shelf with a slightly steeper curve underneath
to emphasise the bust?
Yes.
Might some characters choose that option anyway?
I would say yeah probably, because it’s not going to make that much of a difference.
A very pragmatic character, or one who does not wish her sex to be known on the battlefield,
or one who would really like you to stop looking at her boobs please , or one who is actually
just using repurposed men’s armour, hi Eowyn, probably wouldn’t have it, but a character
who likes to look good may well go for this option, albeit not as suctioned on as it looks
in computer games.
It’s a little more tricky with cleavage divots.
Now again, if it’s fairly small, you can probably crack on if aesthetics are a priority.
But I would refrain from having a really big indent.
Or at least making like Wonder Woman and adding some extra thickness over the top so the indent
is less steep and deep.
Something like this will raise the centre of mass a bit, but not by very much.
And if it’s more illusory thickness, like there’s actually more of a shelf behind
there than two separate breast holes, then that will also make it easier to wear.
Two plate plate has its own disadvantages, but hold that thought for point 3.
As for: why does medieval armour go in and have a wasp waist with a join there then Jill?
Glad you asked.
I mean, aesthetics is one reason, aesthetics are important, but there are two other really
quite important reasons.
First because armour is heavy, and one of the ways they distribute the weight evenly
so you can move around freely in it is by taking some of the weight off the shoulders
and putting it on the hips, and to do this, you need armour that comes in to the natural
waist, so that it can shape itself over your hips and distribute the weight there.
The chest, as I mentioned earlier, has to be larger than the natural chest otherwise
the knight will not be able to breathe, but the armour should come in relatively close
to your natural waist.
Even armours which had that super efficient pot belly for weapon deflection still come
in and sit on the natural waist so they can shape over the hips.
Weight distribution matters and waist shaping is really good for this.
As for the second reason?
Well, you have to be able to bend in armour, and that means there needs to be some kind
of joining or segmentation at the waist.
If it’s just one flat plate that goes all the way down to your hips you’re not going
to be able to bend very effectively which...might get you in trouble.
And so the indent at the waist is necessary.
If you’re facing enemies with weapons they want to stick to you?
They want something that’s going to catch in one of the joins so they have sufficient
force to knock you off your horse, then a big cleavage divot is just really asking for
a polearm to the bust, which is an unpleasant experience for anyone.
Breasts don't need to move for your character to fight.
Rather the opposite, in fact, so this concave piece between the breasts is aesthetic but
entirely unnecessary and in some situations, a really active disadvantage.
It serves no practical purpose, unlike the waist join, and its deepness and steepness
will make it more of a disadvantage than the muscle cuirass.
Now metal plate is pretty darned strong, and if your armourer is in any way sensible they’re
not going to make it so it rests directly on your sternum, so that’s probably not
going to be an issue.
But again it will be inherently less good at distributing the force of strikes because
of its geometry, so if someone comes at you hard with a polearm then you are going to
feel it more than you would if you were in a more gently curved design.
And in general, unless she’s a member of a fantasy race of some kind, women have lower
bone density than men and so it’s more likely that you’re going to break a bone anyway
if someone comes at you with a weapon like that.
Frankly I don’t think that force distribution is the main disadvantage of the cleavage divot,
I think that it’s 1.
It makes you stickier so it’s easier to knock you off your horse, and that’s most
of the win condition if you’re a medieval peasant because now they’re on the ground
and maybe unarmed and this is a very bad day for them, but also because of point 3 which
we’ll get to in a second.
Basically boob plate is the equivalent of the metal codpiece.
It’s there for fashion, your actual boobs or penis should not be in there, it’s not
a bra, it should not actually be resting on your skin, and there are some disadvantages
you need to consider if you want to make it comically huge, even if the armour is sci-fi
and sci-fi materials and so very light so weight isn’t an issue.
Also note what was acceptable in tournament armour was either toned down on the battlefield
or reserved on the battlefield for dudes who were not expected to do a lot of actual fighting.
You know, important people.
If that’s true for your lady, crack on.
If not...maybe consider making it more of a gentle indent than a giant valley.
3.
Consider mobility.
Remember that I said, probably a couple of times at this point, that armour requires
space in the chest cavity for breathing?
Well, please imagine you have that, and then on top of it you’ve hammered out extra unnecessary
space to make boobs.
At what point does this become a problem for mobility when wielding weapons, particularly
two handed weapons?
Something to consider.
This is a particular problem for two plate boob plate.
Even if you have beautiful strong light sci-fi armor for your characters and you don't need
to weigh the consequences (heh).
If you want some extra enboobening for aesthetic reasons do consider range of motion and mobility
when wielding weapons.
All armor restricts mobility to a certain extent.
You know what rather restricts range of motion at the front?
Solid breasts.
If your character is a large-chested lady to begin with then she's just going to have
to cope with some degree of restriction but you don't want to add to a generously endowed
woman's troubles by adding extra boobs over the top of her existing boobs.
Especially because past a certain point you
just can't use some two-handed weapons effectively.
Especially if you've decided to go the flipping Landsknecht route and give her a giant sword,
because the way that you wield one of these is you make a really solid triangle with your
arms and you move from there.
The ‘moving from there’ part might be slightly tricky if you've got too much going
on up top.
Bear in mind also that breasts in a push-up bra are not equivalent to breasts in a sports
bra and maybe chill a little bit with the giant-boobed anime girl look.
If use of weapons is important to this character you have kitted out in armor then don't give
her a comedy breastplate that will require you to do an Elsa from Frozen and pass her
arms through her boobs every time she wants to move her sword.
Breasts are squishy, they move.
Armor generally not, so as far as possible you don't want armor that extends out past
the sides of your actual torso, and when considering
how big to make the chest, consider how easy
it will be to move your arms.
So a couple of extra things to bear in mind: the first is that I'm being kind of ungenerous
with the underlayers in order to make it as fair as possible, possibly too fair, I have
one layer on underneath a turtleneck which is not terribly thick.
Gamebsons are generally thicker than that so you've got more restriction to begin with
before you start adding layers.
Second point to consider: my armor is made of cardboard (I was going to add extra bits
over the hips but I just could not be bothered) and so because of that it's already got a
lot more flex than metal armor.
It is also marginally thinner than metal armor.
Something that you can see when I put on the one that's just completely ridiculous anime
girl plate is that it's very hard to do a low guard, and particularly, regardless of
what you do you can't generate the power that you would normally in a low guard.
Given that the vast majority of women are less strong than the vast majority of men
this is not a great thing to do because you're already at a disadvantage when it comes to
power generation.
If you have a bigger plate you either have to put your arms underneath and if the plate
is too big then you just can't follow through like that or you have to put them over the
top which means you aren't generating as much power with the top arm.
In general, uh, I need all the help I can get so I would not be going for that.
One last thing: I mentioned before about not wanting your sex to be known on the battlefield
and I think that's a pretty sensible consideration.
Because women are generally weaker than men you don't necessarily want to draw attention
to yourself as a woman because you pick yourself out as a weaker target, or a potentially weaker
target at least.
To say nothing of painting a target on your back for other kinds of violence which we
will not mention specifically because I'm still holding out the hope that this video
won't get demonetized even though I've said the word boobs about 100 times.
There you go.
4: breathing is important.
This point is about closeness of fit specifically.
When it comes to the relative size of the character in the armor don't take video games
as your jumping-off point.
Game characters do not need to expand their chests to breathe, they just need to look
like they're breathing.
If the breastplate is a solid piece real people will need some space to breathe in there because
respiration is kind of necessary for life.
Your actors and stunt performers will thank you, and so will cosplayers.
I mention games because they don't really need realism in armor fit if they don't want
to have it.
If the metal seems to be suction molded onto your character's body including her breasts
then well i think it looks a bit silly but it's not actually impeding her because she's
not real.
But you probably shouldn't do this with real people and real metal.
Or, like this lady is wearing chain mail but either she has a waist the same circumference
as her head or she's not wearing any kind of protective underlayer at all.
Good luck with those arrows lady!
It is possible to combine realism and aesthetics when designing armor, but bear in mind that
if what you want is cheesecake then you probably should just go for lingerie.
Armor is meant to be protective, if armor is not protective then it's not doing its
job and so it's just kind of dumb looking.
This Skyrim armor looks, you know, good if you're into that sort of thing, but in real
life that would be someone who has hammered out extra space over the top of their existing
bust to give the impression of a bust.
And especially if you're working with real people as I said there will come a point where
that hampers range of motion those of you who saw my fighting in a corset video will
know that I punch like someone who doesn't really know how to punch, but also that fighting
in a corset is not particularly restrictive as long as you don't do something stupid like
lace it up really tightly.
Fabric, even fabric with steel or plastic bones in it, still has a fair amount of give
and flex.
This is not true of solid pieces of metal or just solid armor in general.
If you look at The Mandalorian’s ladies in armor you'll note that they have plates
that are close fitting but they aren't solid.
There is sci-fi fabric covering the unplated areas, it will move with them.
See also again protective gear for motorcycling: there are plates there for impact protection,
but mostly it's toughened fabric that's doing the work.
If you design a solid form-fitting breastplate which is meant to be worn by a real human
woman, then do leave enough space for breathing.
Enough space for breathing pretty heavily actually because fighting is quite strenuous.
Close fitting solid torso armor is just not going to work.
If you go for something like modern military armor but made from a thin sci-fi-ish fabric
or material (and you put the storage elsewhere) you'd end up with something that would conform
to the body reasonably closely.
It will be less close-fitting if it's meant to be a solid piece but if you go for the
separate plates over sci-fi fabric look then you can reasonably end up with something like
you would see on The Mandalorian, either on Cara Dune or on the Mandalorians themselves,
and it would look pretty good.
That being said if you go for that option you definitely don't want a big cleavage divot
because that might actually sit on your sternum and then if someone hits you there ow.
Ow?
Some kind of minor decorative indent for aesthetics
is totally possible but don't go nuts.
Basically female characters in armor are great and I love them but to borrow a phrase from
past Jill, it rather pings one’s suspension of disbelief by the bra strap when they're
wearing armor that seems to be a sexy afterthought rather than actually meant to be protective.
Or when their boob armor is so huge that they're going to have trouble assuming a guard stance.
And if a stunt performer is going to have to fight in this stuff, and your actor is
going to have to spend 12 hours a day in it, then comfort and breathing room should be
big considerations.
Love the look and the colors but there's no waist segmentation with those metal parts
so you can't bend.
And I don't know what this is made of.
These bits look metal but if you were a man I'd be calling that self-castration plate.
Maybe all the metal and the purple stuff is actually bendy like cloth... except in the
case of the sword.
Concept looks really nice execution would need significant tweaking for a real person.
The metal is over bits that don't bend and goes all the way to her throat which I appreciate.
And I like that there's a suggestion of female secondary sexual characteristics without having
to make a giant booby plate so: quite like that.
This one looks pretty workable actually... this one might provide more issues.
I'm a little bit worried about the positioning of that metal fleur-de-lis and also what is
with the giant cat bell around her waist?
Either way it's a really terrible place to store it.
But cloth that is actual cloth is good because no self-castration, yay!
This isn't even armor how is this even on the list, but girl, it's meant to be winter.
You're going to freeze your bits off.
I mean a little bit two-breasted for my personal taste but doable for a real human though you
might need to lessen that divot a bit to make room for your actual chest.
See this, this kind of thing just annoys me: if she's meant to be sexy just put her in
lingerie, if she's meant to be sexy and dangerous then give her armor that actually protects
but also looks really nice.
Cover her vitals!
Also metal on bare skin is distinctly unfun.
See this doesn't particularly bother me because it's clearly not armor at all.
The thing that's getting me, aside from the fact that he gets to cover like 90% of his
torso where she only gets to cover 30%, is this weird fur/bare skin combination thing.
If you live in a hot climate don't wear very many clothes but make them of lighter fabrics.
If you live in a cold climate wear fur but cover as much of your body with it as possible.
Or are those feathers, I genuinely can't tell.
Moving on.
[laughter] amazing.
Armor that's broken up at the waist, protection all the way to the neck, breathing is obviously
possible, no boob plate and that's totally fine, liking it.
I have mentioned this in a previous video but I absolutely hate the giant combat wedges,
and that swimsuit piece between the legs is just asking for thrush or chafing or both.
But the segmentation means that she can probably bend at the waist and honestly overall I quite
like the look just get rid of the swimsuit crotch piece and the heels and we're good
to go.
I love those metal rings as bracers and gorget, no helmet but you know: movies, and can we
just take a moment to appreciate those nice flat sturdy boots [sigh].
Also as a costume design point, I like that she has slightly different patterning and
gold accoutrements as opposed to the rest of the Dora Milaje who have silver.
In real life I think that boob shelf would have to be a little bit less pronounced for
mobility's sake but I really like that they have the badge in the middle instead of having
a big indent.
Like there's a suggestion of an indent but it's not really going to be a big issue.
Give me some more waist segmentation and a helmet and I am there.
I mean look at it, it's so pretty and shiny.
I like shiny.
And if you made it to the end of this video, congratulations.
I offer you this footage of my cats being extremely unimpressed that I am filming them
as a reward.
Which means that you can go into the comment section and comment ‘kitties!’ and everyone
who hasn't watched the video all the way to the end will be very confused.
Anyway I feel better having got all that off my chest [heh] so I'll see you next time.