Best Of

I realized I could probably go into a deeper explanation as to why I reacted the way I this way, maybe it would be helpful and a good educational bit.

So yes, I will lay my bias out, I am sensitive to this topic, but not in the way that you might think, in that I'm offended... I'm sensitive in a way that you get when you have decades of lived experience that creates a finally tuned "radar" within yourself and you can instantly grab subtext, it's something I'm sure a lot of women and other femme presenting people can also relate to. My radar got pinged I'll try to explain why.

I have actually created a girl character before, about a decade ago for a horror game, she was about 10-12. I did have to look up child proportions but I did so in a very general way. I did think about what proportions would look appropriate for her, considering her age, and I had a bit of my own lived experience to draw from. I kept a very objective, arms length approach, trying to not pass judgements on what is "cute" or "attractive" but instead what fits her as a character and fits narrative. However at no time did I think specifically about her band or cup size, that is something that feels deeply personal and are facts that a lot of people actually get wrong, even if you need or wear a bra. I also had to look up burn wounds for a creepy burned variant of her and create a pregnant woman for the game as well, so RIP my search history for the time. It being a horror game and some of the subject matter I had to look up to get details right, it was kind of uncomfortable, but sitting with my discomfort and working on this does give me a chance to think about why I do feel uncomfortable and how I can create a bit of distance between myself and my work to stay in a healthy objective mindset.

For what I do now, well in my work history I have worked a TON with modular character sets, and have done refits from one gender to another, and from one playable race to another. I've developed a bit of a passion for it, being a big advocate for making sure the quality looks equally or comparable on all available options. I'm very used to giving feedback on breasts/ chest areas, butts and groins, you kind of have to if you're going to do this job. There is a way to do it with tact though, and I'll give some generic examples of feedback I've given before, scrubbed of specifics:

I have too much free time today. Behold.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and use your eyes and your mind. There are some minor differences, yeah, like the shape of the young Kay's eyebrows, but that's pretty petty. All in all, it's a good match. Her features are similar. They look like they can be the same person years apart. It's good work. I gained an appreciation for the work of the artists who created these models by looking closely at them. Why didn't you? Kay looks like her actress. Just a bit thinner and more tired, and with a marginally longer chin. That's it. It's not a big deal, or a conspiracy.

I don't know why you're still going on, really. And if you want to be taken seriously, why would you pepper your supposedly legitimate constructive criticism with daft jokes about her looking like Palpatine or whatever? And the whole "it's just my humour, it's not my fault if some people are offended" line has worn very thin.