The Female Figure (So to say...)

[Lord Anubis]

I was just curious if anyone knows why GW so rarely does female Guardsmen? All through the fluff there's references to different worlds and companies where female soldiers are just as common as male. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, the only feminine figures ever made were the female commissar, the Catachan grenade launcher, and the Tanith Ghost.

I understand from a practical point of view adding such a fig to the sprues would be very limiting, as it would be tough to make arms/weapons interchangeable. But it seems like a basic metal two-pack or so would be easy to do and (I would think) fairly well-received. Here's one Cadian/Catachan female standing with a lasgun and one crouching to match the heavy weapons tripod. I know I'd buy two or three if such a thing existed.

Just random musings/ wonderings...

[wittdooley]

In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there are only... males!

[DevilUknow]

i can't imagine a female guards...person would look very much different than a male unless you're looking for female catachan fighters that look like Laura Croft or something. Those fatigues and flak vests on the Cadians aren't exactly form fitting.

With some green stuff and some 3rd party heads (or even some Sisters of Battle heads) you could probably make some without much difficulty.

[Gotthammer]

That they aren't form fitting is a very good point - female soldiers [URL="http://images.publicradio.org/content/2008/03/26/20080326_female_soldier_33.jpg"]look very similar[/URL] to male soldiers [URL="http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/01/26/female_soldier_wideweb__430x287.jpg"]in full kit[/URL] (see the start of Iron Man for example). I just do headswaps (Hasslefree mostly) to achive the effect. Same with my Marines - I tell people about a third are female, then they go in for a closer look and can't figure it out, and ask which ones as they can't see. I respond to them that you can't tell by looking as they've go their armour on


As to why GW doesn't do it, I suspect it's because very few of their sculptors seem able to sculpt female figures who don't look like men pretending to be women, or laughably slim compared to the rest of the line, or like actual female combat troops who didn't forget to get dressed. Compare the Catachan female to a contemporary metal Catachan and she's tiny - the Escher gangers were slender, but looked like women rather than teenagers (and had greater muscle definition than a woman from The Planet of the 'roids).

Also I think it is partly due to some people who wouldn't want 1/10th or 1/5th of their force to be female (for whatever reason), so if they put a female body on the catachan/cadian sprue they'd need to make a male to counter it out and it would be a bit of a waste from that point of view. Eldar I think get away with it as they are elves and inherintly 'girly' (the heads do double duty as male and female), and they tend to attract a more mature type of kid than guard would, so the employees won't have to explain to some spotty grot why he has to have girls in his army.


There are two other female figures - Warrior Woman and Rocket Girl from the Last Chancers set. Battlefield Berlin do a couple of [URL="http://www.battlefield-berlin.de/shop/index.php?list=WG934"]Cadian conversion kits[/URL] though.

[The Girl]

Definitely agree with the idea that a full kit would make them look about the same. I'll take that over what GW [and most game companies] does to a lot of female characters: strip them of armor to show their boobs and what have you. It's, for lack of anything better, pathetic and predictable. It's more realistic to have them looking like their male counterparts than have GW mold some sort of sexed up, shapely armor to distinguish them.

[Dosadi]

Oddly enough, all three of those Imperial Guard female figures you mentioned appear in my Inquisitorial IG army.
Along with the Death Cult assassins who are female, a Sisters Hospitaller, a Sister Dialogous and some Seraphim to represent the fact that my Inquisitor is not gender bias (he’s only heretic bias). Oh, and who can forget the Callidus Assassin?
I agree that a direct sales blister of female guardmen is in order. While they are at it I’d like some female aspect warriors for my Eldar. GW, please produce a female Striking Scorpion, Fire Dragon, Dire Avenger, Dark Reaper, Warp Spider and Swooping Hawk. Just to be fair, please produce a male Howling Banshee.


Dosadi

[eldargal]

It is actually quite difficult to sculpt decent looking females in 28mm scale. With men you can get away with a lot more, with our finer bone structure it is exponentially more difficult to get a female mini that does not, as someone said above, look like a man pretending to be a woman.

This is why, in my opinion, the finest female figures GW produce are those with the faces covered, such as Eldar, Sisters Repentia + Mistress etc. on the other hand, take the regular sisters of battle, shave their heads and switch their bodies and they could pass for male.

This is not to say there are not some good female models, but mostly they are WFB. The Lelith Hesperax model I think is excellent and very feminine (but the face is half covered), but other than that you have to look at WFB elves. Most of the Dark Elf females are feminine, if ugly, though some of the regular witch elves are very fine. The Bretonnian damsel and Fey Enchantress aren't too bad either. Actually the damsel on foot is probably my favourite GW model after Hesperax. And her face is not covered.

I would love to see an all female IG range, with uniforms perhaps something along the lines of the Mordian gear. I actually made an all female SM chapter (with appropriate fluff, just to annoy peopel) using standard SMs but with the odd sergeant/captain with some of the better sisters of battle heads.

Edit: I forgot, the female comissar is very fine indeed, a pity she has her breasts almost hanging out over her clothes.

[gwensdad]

I should just declare that any guard vehicle crews in my army that aren't sticking their heads out of hatches are female.
I wonder how hard it would be for GW to do a sprue of (metal) female heads?

[Gotthammer]

I buy Hasslefree: [url]http://hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/range.php?range_id=60[/url] - Kev scultps some of the best female figures around IMO, it's a shame GW made him quit.

I think the 'eavy metal painters should bear some of the blame - when they super highlight faces it really brings out the bone structure, making it look much more masculine. The LoTR Spirit Galadriel is a perfect example of a reasonable model they painted up to look terrible.

[TSINI]

hasslefree all the way for the best looking characters, female and male. i may have to experiment with a simple head swap to see if cadian bodies are feminine enough to pull off a female head. definately won't work on catachans lol