Wrestling Game Body Types
Independent software company PWX are going to have female and male characters in their wrestling game. The first character sketch for Cesey Cannon was straight off the pages of "How to Infuriate Karen from GRC" and "Ways to Piss Off Steve from DS". It would be mock worthy, were it not for the second generation sketches that recently appeared. Gone is the viewing window onto the cleavage to be replaced by the white fleur de lis. The character evolved. Now, I can see that the side on show shows a level of perkiness associated with silicon and push up bras, and since that's clearly a sports bra top, the breasts should flatten, not perk.
I looked at the prototypes and mockups, then I thought I should get the opinions of my readers. The base body prototypes for the maleand female body types are up on the site. Go have a look at the initial body types.
What I'm wondering, readers of this blog, is how you feel about the body types portrayed there, and what suggestions you'd have for PWX on the portrayal of female wrestling characters.
One thing I do know about Dave Wishnowski who runs PWX is that he's very open to feedback about his product. So, Dave will listen to constructive feedback, and he is in a position to shift the video games dynamic by not making the female characters more than just skeletons with silicon implants.
PWX is already tilting at the windmills by being an independent production that focuses on gameplay quality ahead of affiliation with a big name (read WWE) franchise. If they can produce action sports female body shapes that are reasonably realistic/ realistic to the level of the male characters then it's one more beachhead we can secure against the idea that all visual content for young men must be porn with a secondary concept strapped on.
So um, if women and men are supposed to wrestle each other, doesn't it make sense that the female body type would have significantly more muscle to it? Shouldn't the female body type at least look solid, with larger or fuller thighs, legs, and arms? Female wrestlers are not going to look like supermodels for heaven's sake. For once could we have some plus sized female bodies in a game? Please? Make her look like she's been hitting the weight room and eating three squares a day!
Comment by wallflower — September 24, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
It's weird…the female model doesn't even seem to be going for "sexy" - it's got no hips, very small breasts and the arms are super-skinny. I'm not sure what they were going for with this model, but it definitely doesn't work as either a wrestler OR eye-candy…
Comment by Neev — September 24, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
What really caught my attention is that woman's noodle arms. Those look like my arms, and that's not a compliment. Even WWE women have more definition that that.
Comment by Betty — September 25, 2006 @ 7:04 am
There are several other female prototypes, and some of them look much more buff than that one.
Comment by Lavode — September 25, 2006 @ 9:02 am
As I was saying to you earlier, The noodle arms really bug me. Also, the fact that they have a Big Show-esque size in the male figure, but the 'heavy' female figure is smaller than me (Hell, I'd go so far as to say the 'heavy' female figure is about Mickie James' size. And y'know, if they're trying not to be a WWE game, it'd help if they didn't stick to the WWE acceptable range of body types). Though I'd like to see side-ons of the female figures as well as the male figures. But it's obvious even now that there's so much more variety in the male body types available that just isn't there in the female bodies.
Comment by jen — September 25, 2006 @ 11:16 am
My first thought when I saw the second generation character design was that they were going for a more joshi puroresu look with that particular character because there isn't that much of a stress on the muscular body type in Japan. Not to say that the female wrestlers are string beans. Then when I looked a bit more at the costume I thought "Hey, Ayako Hamada" because well…
Ayako Hamada
She's got the sorta boob window and the wrist bands (although I can't really find a good pic of her whole outfit).
Actually, I think the costume more than anything else makes me think this is supposed to be more of the joshi type than a North American style female wrestler.
Comment by lostinube — September 25, 2006 @ 11:29 pm