Been working on your smile?
an unfathomably amazing commission done for me by the endlessly awesome CATQUEST of my Shepard and Aria! o vo ♥♥
![snarkinfestedwaters:
goddessofcheese:
masterofbirds:
goddessofcheese:
sinvraal:
Man, line up the models and you really see to what extent they humanized Nyreen’s headshape.
Why is it so damn hard for them to conceive of ‘alien’ and ‘female’ in the same thought process, without trying to make her human? Is sexy babe really the only way they know how to define a female character?
Rhetorical question is rhetorical. Sadly we know the answer. Grumble grumble bitch, I really want to see more variation in female characters. Sexy is fine where appropriate, but alien, monstrous and all shades in between would be nice too.
Model turnarounds courtesy of Troodon80’s database.
I’d kind of noticed it momentarily in the past but actually seeing the models still and on top of each other and…
uh
ManI can’t imagine a situation where the head and body of a maleare different shapethan the head and body of the fe-
but Turians aren’t bir-
“Turian features are avian, making them resemble humanoid birds or raptors, however unlike most Earth avian creatures, turians are viviparous and give birth to live young.[1]”
“Males and females do not differ greatly in physical appearance, but female turians lack the crest of horns found in the males of the race. ”
“Turians typically stand over six feet tall, have two long, proportionately thick fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, each tipped with talons…”
oh.
okay but your comparison still doesn’t make sense because they still have the same basic body and, in this case, skull shape. The differences shown here are all on the surface level with colors, feathers, and general mass. But if you were to look under the skin, they’re going to have the same basic skeletal structure.
If you wanna talk science, then I wanna hear a scientifically sound explanation as to why a female of the exact same species would need an incredibly lengthened skull which would affect how she sees, speaks, eats, and even the size and shape of her brain, and how this would at all benefit an advanced humanoid species.
And let’s not act like the Mass Effect team has ever used science as a end-all be-all base for character design. If anyone believes that, I have a pool to sell them in the South Pole.
Their designs, whether alien or human, are built around aesthetics and what they think the players are going to find pleasing to the eye.
this is not just a case of female turians lacking crests but having an entirely differently shaped head that makes her look more human than alien. The context behind this is that they said repeatedly, FOR YEARS, that they didn’t care to bring in female aliens to the series because they didn’t think fans would care for female aliens that weren’t super hot space babes. One designer literally admitted to a camera that he didn’t know how they’d make female turians other than slapping lipstick on them.
Yet somehow they had no problems creating nearly ten different alien races that they all immediately coded as being male.
It buys into this whole idea that female characters, even when based on completely imagine alien races that will undoubtedly have extremely different biology and cultural ideas on gender, must be attractive either on an aesthetic or sexually attractive level. And that’s just a subset of the idea that women, fictional or otherwise, can only be around as props and eye candy rather than fully flushed characters or even just npcs to flush out a species that they themselves created.
So the fact that they did make a female turian who has a radically different skull from the established species that had already been around for years, and that skull is purposefully made to look much more human, you can bet I’m going to suspect that it wasn’t an accident or with the intent of being biologically accurate.
BIOWARE QUALITY
also a really fantastic rant right above](http://24.media.tumblr.com/56fbd3c8832c5644d72799e9dabeb8e4/tumblr_mnz8es2eky1qka7cqo1_500.jpg)
Man, line up the models and you really see to what extent they humanized Nyreen’s headshape.
Why is it so damn hard for them to conceive of ‘alien’ and ‘female’ in the same thought process, without trying to make her human? Is sexy babe really the only way they know how to define a female character?
Rhetorical question is rhetorical. Sadly we know the answer. Grumble grumble bitch, I really want to see more variation in female characters. Sexy is fine where appropriate, but alien, monstrous and all shades in between would be nice too.
Model turnarounds courtesy of Troodon80’s database.
I’d kind of noticed it momentarily in the past but actually seeing the models still and on top of each other and…
uh
Man
I can’t imagine a situation where
the head and body of a male
are different shape
than the head and body of the fe-
but Turians aren’t bir-
“Turian features are avian, making them resemble humanoid birds or raptors, however unlike most Earth avian creatures, turians are viviparous and give birth to live young.[1]”
“Males and females do not differ greatly in physical appearance, but female turians lack the crest of horns found in the males of the race. ”
“Turians typically stand over six feet tall, have two long, proportionately thick fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, each tipped with talons…”
oh.
okay but your comparison still doesn’t make sense because they still have the same basic body and, in this case, skull shape. The differences shown here are all on the surface level with colors, feathers, and general mass. But if you were to look under the skin, they’re going to have the same basic skeletal structure.
If you wanna talk science, then I wanna hear a scientifically sound explanation as to why a female of the exact same species would need an incredibly lengthened skull which would affect how she sees, speaks, eats, and even the size and shape of her brain, and how this would at all benefit an advanced humanoid species.
And let’s not act like the Mass Effect team has ever used science as a end-all be-all base for character design. If anyone believes that, I have a pool to sell them in the South Pole.
Their designs, whether alien or human, are built around aesthetics and what they think the players are going to find pleasing to the eye.
this is not just a case of female turians lacking crests but having an entirely differently shaped head that makes her look more human than alien. The context behind this is that they said repeatedly, FOR YEARS, that they didn’t care to bring in female aliens to the series because they didn’t think fans would care for female aliens that weren’t super hot space babes. One designer literally admitted to a camera that he didn’t know how they’d make female turians other than slapping lipstick on them.
Yet somehow they had no problems creating nearly ten different alien races that they all immediately coded as being male.
It buys into this whole idea that female characters, even when based on completely imagine alien races that will undoubtedly have extremely different biology and cultural ideas on gender, must be attractive either on an aesthetic or sexually attractive level. And that’s just a subset of the idea that women, fictional or otherwise, can only be around as props and eye candy rather than fully flushed characters or even just npcs to flush out a species that they themselves created.
So the fact that they did make a female turian who has a radically different skull from the established species that had already been around for years, and that skull is purposefully made to look much more human, you can bet I’m going to suspect that it wasn’t an accident or with the intent of being biologically accurate.
BIOWARE QUALITY
also a really fantastic rant right above
FolksNeedHeroes drawing Shepard and Liara like the adorably in love little shits they are appreciation post.
