Today's search term is "Impossible shirt" and it touches a sore spot I've been brooding about for years. JGreely has a link on his side bar to a blog called "Boobs don't work that way" and this, in turn, is "cloth doesn't work that way."
There are two major issues here. We can call the first one the "Sternum problem". It's about the way that shirts on girls are drawn so that the cloth follows the skin all the way into the middle of the cleavage:
That's not cloth; that's paint. (Or heat-shrink plastic, ouch!) No way anything woven would do that. Even worse is when they do this with plate mail, such as Cecily Cambell in "The Sacred Blacksmith":
The purpose of a chestplate like that is to distribute the force of a blow. But with that shape, if she gets hit all the force is going to be transferred to her sternum, and it will probably be crushed -- leading to all kinds of physical problems such as bleeding in her lungs.
Fairy Tail gets this right. Erza Scarlet wears a chestplate a lot of the time, but hers is not only plausible for manufacture, it's also plausible defense:
It doesn't try to form fit her breasts; it tries to spread the force of blows. Exactly right.
The other problem with a lot of this art we can call the "Hourglass problem", dealing with extreme ranges in the "three numbers".
How can there be such a difference in diameter between the level of the breasts and the level of the waist? If it is like most T-shirts it's going to be a constant cylinder and if it's wide enough to hold that chest, it's going to hang like a sack at the waist.
Fairy Tail usually gets this one right, too. Nearly all the women in Fairy Tail have huge boobs and narrow waists, but they usually wear halter-tops or, as in this case, clothing which is obviously custom tailored. There are plausible seams in this to expand the top part without being loose around the waist.
So these two girls have both problems:
This is a particularly egregious example. The cloth not only follows the cleavage exactly, it goes under the boobs as well. There's no way that's cloth; it's another paint job.
That was awesome! Those guys have the machine shop of our dreams. But they've got a lot of toys that aren't exactly period-accurate, like a plasma cutter and a power hammer and a mill.
I discovered that show on a Sunday night through that episode, which wasn't a good thing. 'Cause after that, it was "Shit. Now I'm going to have to watch all of these, and I need to be at work at 0630."
Some of their builds are period accurate, but they produce an episode like every two weeks, so they will usually use modern equipment. I think the "Kill Bill" katana was as close to accurate as they could get it.
Posted by: CatCube at May 07, 2016 04:20 PM (fa4fh)
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I am trying to remember where the link was posted - Ace of Spades or Hell in a Handbasket - to an interview with a craftsman who specialized in manufacturing medieval armor for movie and TV productions. The memory is a bit foggy, but his point was the balance between armor being able to protect the wearer and actually be wearable, would result in armor that was shaped the same for both men and women.
Posted by: cxt217 at May 07, 2016 08:59 PM (qfQs4)
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Pretty close, of course. If it's a woman who is built like Erza, I think you'd want a bit more room in the chest, though.
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I think you're underestimating the powers of modern elastic fabrics, which certainly are capable of hugging a 22" waist while accommodating a J cup (Or larger!) bust. There are fabrics out there that can stretch 400% or more, now.. I recall seeing some remarkable examples of this, even years ago.
You're right, of course, that even those fabrics won't just follow the contour of the breast like a coat of paint. Something they should remind comic book artists, too.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at May 08, 2016 03:14 AM (l55xw)
It is a PC game, currently in development, i.e. the test versions probably would not even qualify as alpha. The guy developing is slowly working toward a version that he can then crowd-fund for the final development.
Like I said, you will not like it (Although non-violent methods are beginning to appear.)
(I still can not insert links and I will not put the naked link.)
Posted by: cxt217 at May 05, 2016 05:41 PM (HWqP/)
7Here's a kinda-almost-playthrough of the "game", or at least an older build of it. Warning: strong language (human), steam-enshrouded nudity (game), violence (both).
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 05, 2016 05:58 PM (XQ5ac)
Today's keyword is the shortest possible: "v". I remember reading a blog entry a few years ago by a young guy who wondered, "Why are all those girls making the peace sign?" and I sighed and shook my head.
The Japanese learned that from American GI's after the war, and to the Americans it meant "V for Victory!" In the 1960's the hippies decided that it should mean "peace" as a protest against the Viet Nam war, and apparently this guy (who was probably born after 1980) learned it that way.
But to Japanese school girls, it doesn't mean either of those things. For them it means "I'm hamming it up for a camera" and that's pretty much all.
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Twins, unsurprisingly from iDOLM@STER, named Ami and Mami.
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 02, 2016 07:27 PM (XQ5ac)
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4 (FOUR) Uzukis. I'm not in any way displeased, but that's some kind of a record.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 02, 2016 08:21 PM (XOPVE)
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I'm trying to avoid using pictures I've used before (and I had to reject several this time because of that) but I'm not really paying much attention to duplicates that are new. Like using two different pictures of Mito from Shokugeki no Souma. She's worth it. (And if you don't think so, she'll demonstrate her skill with the cleaver on you.)
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Regarding the 'V sign,' I remember reading about how it starting being used for peace because the hippies saw a photo that supposedly had a ARVN soldier doing the gesture to the camera and thought it was for peace. Except the interpretation was completely wrong - the combat photographer who took the photo said it was a gesture by his assistant that they were running out of film.
Posted by: cxt217 at May 04, 2016 10:09 AM (xdLRt)
Today's search term is "American flag bikini". Turns out that this mostly resulted in characters from Kancolle, Girls Und Panzer and, oddly enough, Touhou. There's a character in Touhou who is dressed like a jester except her costume is stars and stripes, so inevitably fan artists portrayed her in a stars-and-stripes bikini, not to mention other Touhou characters.
So, on with the show.
I gather that this is BB-61 Iowa from Kancolle. Not too much of a surprise that an American capital ship would be portrayed as a big-breasted blonde.
(UPDATE: No, it's Kay from Girls und Panzer. That's a Sherman tank behind her, not the gun turret of a battleship. My mistake.)
And apparently this is USS Archerfish and USS Albacore, American fleet submarines during the war. (I don't know which is which.)
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Picture one (and three and eleven) is actually Kay from Girls und Panzer. She's next to her tank. Iowa has star-shaped pupils like in the last picture.
The Albacore is on the right and the Archerfish is on the left. They're from a Chinese ship girl browser game called zhan jian shao nyu. It has more western ships than Kantai Collection. The tattered graphics are used when the ships get damaged.
The Touhou character with the jester hat is Clownpiece, a fairy from hell. "As a resident of Hell, Clownpiece isn't actually American. She chose to use the star-spangled pattern on her clothes after having seen the American flag on the Moon." The next to the last picture is Yukari Yakumo, also from Touhou.
Posted by: muon at May 03, 2016 01:04 AM (IUHrD)
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Considering your recent interest in election and anime ship-girls, one artist crossed Kancolle (Pacific) with themes from the US primary elections. Trump naturally takes prominence in the latest artwork.
Posted by: Rykehaven at May 07, 2016 09:48 AM (BSgMR)
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Those are pretty neat. He's really disrespectful of Hillary, which suits me!
Today's search term is "wind lift", the result of a fortuitous action of the elements on a cute girl wearing a skirt.
You know, as common as this is in anime, I've never seen it in real life, and I don't know anyone who claims to have seen it. There used to be a fun-house at the Oregon State Fairground but it burned down in the 1960's. But it had a place inside it where there were air-jets in the floor being run by an employee, and if a girl in a loose dress or skirt walked over it he'd blast air and lift it. Me, I was too young then (grade school) to really appreciate it. Discounting that, I've never seen this. I guess it's one of those things like accidental-compromising-position which are common in anime because of wish fulfilment even though they never happen IRL.
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I saw it happen once, ironically enough at an anime convention. It was split between two buildings across a fairly major street with a wind tunnel effect from the nearby buildings. As I was moving between the two buildings, there were a pair of girls in cosplay (I forget the characters) wearing skirts about 100 feet in front of me. One bent over to tie her shoe (I think, it happened a long time ago) and a gust of wind came. Her skirt went up by her head and I had a classic panty shot of the Aika type.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at April 29, 2016 01:37 PM (5YSpE)
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Women here don't wear the kinds of skirts which can do this.
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I don't think parachutes really count.
And I think I'm going to clear my cache now, after that last pic. Who knows, the Feds might actually look at it at some point, and I'm too old to go to prison.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at April 29, 2016 02:01 PM (l55xw)
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I didn't think it was a problem, but I'll delete it now.
By the way, it isn't a legal problem in the US now. I assume you're worried about "child porn".
The legal presumption in porn as in nearly everything else like this is that the First Amendment prevails. But SCOTUS has granted a legal exception to the First Amendment for child porn on the assumption that the government has a reasonable interest in protecting children from harm. So porn which involves children during its creation is not protected and the government has a legal interest in finding and trying those who own or consume it, because if there is no market then less of it will be created and fewer children will be abused.
As such, if porn is created without involving any children, then the First Amendment prevails again, and it is protected.
Now that's not the case everywhere else. Australia has different rules, which is why a couple of years ago a traveler from the US was arrested in Australia at customs because he had part of a manga on his notebook computer which was rather sketchy. (I'm not sure what happened to him in the end, though.)
But I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, and if you all really care about this I'll try to tone it down a bit when I pick the pictures I use for these posts.
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And yet Christopher Handley ended serving 6 months in prison for posession of hentai.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 29, 2016 07:40 PM (V59r8)
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He pled guilty. Regardless, I'm not worried about the law. But I am worried about driving away the few remaining readers I have; I don't want to do that. So how does everyone feel about this? Have I been going too far?
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Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
So much of the web is dark and gloomy, it's nice to just glance over and see panchira.
Posted by: tellu541 at April 29, 2016 10:29 PM (GVyYP)
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Admittedly it was as much squick as concern about the law. But neither the 1st amendment nor the ex post facto clause are as dependable defenses as they ought to be, and you know what they say: "The process IS the punishment."
Anyway, thanks! I probably don't thank you enough for this enjoyable site.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at April 30, 2016 01:31 AM (l55xw)
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Yo. I read your blog, but I don't usually comment on blogs.
The pictures you've posted are fine by me. Though I didn't see the one you deleted so I can't comment on it.
Posted by: Tex Lovera at April 30, 2016 07:18 AM (tKEz9)
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Since your blog has long past gone past where I would read it at work (which I shouldn't be doing anyways..) I'm now fine with however far you want to push the limits. Fire away with the cheesecake!
On topic, does this count as real world evidence?
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 21, 2016 09:14 PM (XQ5ac)
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The "poi" doesn't come from uncertainty over Yuudachi's fate (she was sunk by the USS Portland), but what she accomplished during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The Kancolle wiki has the best explanation
~poi in Japanese means "maybe", "perhaps" or "seems like", it's something you throw in the end of the sentence if you aren't too sure of the result and end up concluding the sentence by guessing. The main reason behind Yuudachi's speech pattern is because no one actually had a clear record of what she actually accomplished in the Guadalcanal Campaign. It was technically a huge mess during the fight and no one actually knew what was happening. Even though Yuudachi did wreak havoc in the battle, there are other ships who also claimed the kills. Since her battle records were unclear and involved a lot of guess work from naval historians from both sides after the war, the game version of Yuudachi landed with the "poi" catchphrase just to reflect that little piece of history. (You can see from her introduction line that she wasn't so sure of her battle result in Guadalcanal either.)
Posted by: muon at April 23, 2016 11:16 PM (IUHrD)
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I was tinkering with RPG Maker last weekend. (It's an application for making old-school role-playing games, like the early Final Fantasy games.) One of first things I checked was whether you could give a character red half-rim glasses.
Not only can you give character portraits red half-rim glasses, but the animated sprites automatically get teeny-tiny red half-rim glasses too.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 14, 2016 07:07 PM (PiXy!)
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Um, why would you mount a semi-auto handgun to a bipod like that? The bipod can't be folded back up anymore with it like that, and the handgun is practically inaccessible with the rifle there.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at April 15, 2016 01:24 AM (l55xw)
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It's an alternate firing position, to be used when she slips into super-deformed mode and can't handle the rifle anymore, of course.
Posted by: Mikeski at April 15, 2016 05:26 AM (BKBr8)
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I don't think there is any way in which this post could be improved.
Excellent work, Steven!
Posted by: Tex Lovera at April 19, 2016 04:55 AM (tKEz9)
Pete complained that there wasn't any pr0n of Idolmaster. Well, he didn't actually complain, but I'm taking his comment as license to post some. It's all his fault! Don't blame me!
Anyway, that's as may be. I am not sure everything I'm including here is actually Idolmaster. I have a directory named "idols" where I stash images about... idols, but it isn't just Idolmaster. It's also Wake Up, Girls, Love Live, Kancolle, Hatsune Miku, K-On, Sailor Moon, and some stuff that looked to me like idols but which probably wasn't. So I went through that to find these images, and it won't surprise me if I've included something that isn't Idolmaster. It also won't surprise me if I included a picture I've posted here before. If so I apologize for the redundancy.
Anyway, they're all NSFW (because FFN) so I'm not putting them inline. If you want to see them, click the links. Also, they're bigger than usual, and a few of them are immense simply because they would be impossible to see if they were reduced much more. (One of them has 50 girls on it.) Um, not hardcore, though, and no icky boys.
And now I am going to post one SFW picture inline because I have a question about her. I gather that her name is "Shibuya Rin" and what's interesting about her is that all the other idols are usually shown wearing bikinis or fancy costumes or nothing at all in fanart, but Rin usually is shown in her school uniform. Is that a character trait from whatever show she's in? Or is she older than the others?
She also gets cheesecake shots, of course, but not nearly as many as the other girls. So what's the deal with her?
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All three members of New Generations default to their school uniforms in promotional imagery as well as in their regular cards. But until the anime came along, Rin was the only popular one. Perhaps that, as well as the audacity to wear a necklace with a necktie, cemented her iconic image in public perception.
After the anime came along, other characters started to receive more interest, and they spent a large amount of the screen time wearing various stage outfits and street clothing. So, Rin's co-stars have a different history to them in fandom.
Nowadays if you search for Rin's images, you can see the grayish blue dress. It's a good indication of an artist who did not play the game and only watched the anime (I know that the dress is on a card, but).
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 12, 2016 09:08 PM (XOPVE)
