I want her armor. And her eyepatch. And her torc. Damn you.

You'll have to fight her for all of the above 8E Or just get her really drunk.

Drunk I can do. I wouldn't stand a chance otherwise. XD

Oh man, she's totally hardcore! She rocks.

Thank you! <3

is that a man or a woman? The facial structure is far too masculine for a normal female. Makes me wonder if there's an Adam's apple hidden somewhere under that chin, blocking our view of it. very well drawn if that's what you were going for.

She's a woman, albeit a very strong-featured, masculine one, so yes in a sense it's what I was going for. "Normal" female is pretty subjective anyway, and I'm a pretty big proponent of all body types being beautiful.

I'll partially agree. all are beautiful in their own way, I'm just gonna venture out and say her way is on the inside. but either way, this was extremely well drawn!

I'm in partial agreement with Dragonvcat; character still has to "read". This character's face is identical to male characters' faces. Feminine isn't necessarily synonymous with "pretty", but the character should still read as female without obvious information like breasts.

She doesn't "have" to read as anything. I didn't design a fantasy Barbie pin-up, I designed a strong-featured character who happens to be biologically female and presents herself with what she's got.

To use an over-used phrase... THIS.

There are no rules stating male or female characters HAVE to read as either and it's just... rediculous to assume as such.

But ... what if someone WANTS to create doubt, and/or let gender identity come out in some other way, rather than actually spelling it out for the viewer?

Her amor is a beautiful piece of workmanship, yet appears practical. Did you base it off of any in-game item?

Norns and Charr 4ever.

Guild Wars 2 is ruining my life.

You spelled enhance wrong.

Nice @w@

You need more practise on how to draw humans... no (natural born) woman alive has a face with that kind of bone structure.

But feel free to ignore my advice; after all many manga artists occupy the other end of the spectrum, of being incapable of drawing males with masculine facial features... their popularity thrives in spite of their intellectual bankruptcy, or perhaps even because of it.

Thanks, but she's designed to look intentionally masculine! I also draw women with more traditionally feminine or soft-featured faces (http://aureath.deviantart.com/art/H.....bian-328801502 or http://aureath.deviantart.com/art/Fierce-168702404) but this was a stylistic choice.

I am totally and 100% okay with art critique, but assigning standards for what a certain gender has to and should look like is absurd and hurtful.

Wow, were you trying to come off as condescending and judgmental? Because you totally nailed it.

....Wow, dude.

First of all, there's a difference between offering advice and calling someone "intellectually bankrupt". That's just plain /rude/.

Second of all, you haven't met every single natural born woman alive, so you don't know that to be true.

Finally, not all people are identifiable as either sex based on their facial structure alone. Take, for example, this man: http://xaxor.com/images/Andrej-Peji.....s-Bresnan4.jpg
Don't believe he's a man? Proof: http://d284656.u38.hosting.digiweb......drej-pejic.jpg
By face alone, many mistake him for a woman. As such, it's totally plausible and even likely that the same could happen in reverse.

It's lovely to see strong featured women around here! She reminds me strongly of my best friend's mother, who also has a very similar jaw.

MFW "too masculine"/"not possible".

HELL TO THE NAW.

When I eventually have a machine able to run GW2 without having an aneurism I will have to make a Cey. Because I am that repetetive and so they can HANDSOME IT Up.

/makes grabby hands at ;3;

YES GOOD. Strong-jawed manly nornladies all around! 8] *grabbyhands back*

And now I am singing the Gaston song.

People are cray... Thus is not just well drawn-but feasible. I've seen women who have such facial structures-and admittedly I often confuse them v for men.people who have been saying otherwise are clearly blind to those around them. Very well done, and I'm impressed in the use if facial features that aren't as prominent in woman. It's a nice change of pace to see.

Haha thank you! Much appreciated. And yes, I would be fine if people mistake her for a man at a glance, that's a normal reaction! However, arguing whether it's feasible or not or saying that she should look more traditionally feminine is not cool with me.

DAT NOSE. DAT FACE. DAT EVERYTHING. <3

Made the mistake of reading some of the other comments above and am now super pissed at the transphobia and gender essentialism. >.< Please continue rocking on, Liz.

Ahaha yeeeah I didn't expect people to react to her features, TBH. I hope I'm not coming off as a defensive artist, because it's not about the drawing so much as 'this is what a woman should look like!' which is...never acceptable.

Those of us who are reacting "negatively" are giving constructive criticism, not with the intent of making any social commentary. If her chest wasn't visible, then it would be assumed that she is a man. You (the artist) have a very distinctive style with her your male faces, which you put directly on this female's face. It causes some "confusion" in gender identity. No one has said that she needed to be a Barbie, or beautiful, or typical fantasy gorgeous model face. Just something that registers as "female". For example, softening the nose bridge. I'd say it's even stronger than previous male faces. Keep the strong jawline, big nose, whatever. Perhaps a good reference, for the future, is drag queens. I can safely say that those who are commenting on the facial structure are just bringing to light that this character doesn't read as well as she possibly could. Of course that's up the artist to take that to heart or not, but this isn't an issue about gender, social commentary, whatever. No one has posted a picture and pointed to it saying "it should look like this". Just some people have stated, SUBJECTIVELY, that it's not translating perfectly clear.

Constructive criticism is great, and I would gladly accept it if I'd accidentally made her very masculine looking, or if it was a canon character who was clearly designed to be more gender normative. I've definitely given women some manfaces without meaning to, but that's not the case in this piece.

What you're doing is asserting that she should look more traditionally 'feminine' to read easily as a woman. What if I don't want her to? What if I don't mind if you mistake her for a male, because the intent is for her gender to be vague at a glance? I'm not offended if you're confused about her gender, I haven't once said "OMG I can't believe you don't realize she's a woman just looks at the boobs!" That's not an issue of mine. But whether you intend it or not, you are making a social commentary in suggesting that a person of indistinct or confusing gender is flawed and should look more like one extreme or the other simply so the viewer isn't stressed trying to figure it out.

I'm coming from an aesthetic point of view; my background is based on commercial artwork, not so much personal artwork. So perhaps that gives some understanding as to where I'm coming from? But considering this is clearly personal artwork, those theories, etc. don't apply (obviously). But with posting anything publicly, you will get an assortment of reactions (especially on an aesthetically controversial piece). But just because some are not full-on praise, doesn't mean they are ignorant, and it definitely doesn't mean they are intending to be disrespectful. What I've expressed is exactly what I'd say to a peer in class or at work, it's nothing personal and I'm not intending to be destructive.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up the 'sometimes people will make comments you don't like' point. It's the only condescending or passive aggressive thing I've gotten from this conversation so far, considering that I'm not crying at you or anything that would necessitate a reminder like that. I hope I'm not coming off that way because I'm defending my design choices. Posting anything on the internet or to a classroom opens yourself up to reactions and criticisms. Some will be positive, some will be negative, and even some of the negative ones will be useful!

I understand that if I were designing her as, say, concept art for a video game based on mass sex appeal, this would be a poor choice. Fortunately, that's not the purpose of her design, it's just for my own kicks. I'm still totally open to input like anatomy errors, flaws in the complexity or palette of the design, etc.

However, gender is a more fluid and tricky concept, and a pretty tender issue for some folks. I'm just a little bewildered when I say 'yes, she's meant to look gender vague/masculine, it's my own choice' and the responses still argue that she should look more traditionally feminine. I don't feel it's out of line or unreasonable to point out that comments suggesting where someone should fall on the gender spectrum can be troubling.

Oh my god THIS, thank you. Genderfluid people such as myself and transexual individuals (of which I know many) take -very- extreme offense to things that basically amount to "you're not portraying your biological gender correctly". That is -never- cool, fictional character being the subject or not. The insinuations are -disturbing-. I thought we,, as a culture, had evolved past that sort of asinine crap. =/

This is a super old argument I realize. But I used to know the artist in question here (I'm just deleting old files and cleaning stuff up and this came up on my "submissions from users" little notification, etc) but seriously? Women have to look some predefined sort of "feminine" before they're viable women? I've met PLENTY of women who I honestly thought were men because of their bone structure. Some were mothers, some were lesbians, some actually were transgender...but they were all women.

I think this is a case of people having a pretty narrow view of what "woman" and "female gender" means/can look like.
Frankly, and to prove the point here, this piece reminds me a little of this actress, who was one of those being considered for Brienne of Tarth a few years ago.

http://i55.tinypic.com/1znpd39.jpg

Does she "read" feminine to you, or do you think she needs a nose job to be a viable woman?

/sarcasm off.

Anyway. I don't even use this account any more but I stopped in to look at a nice piece of art from someone I used to know from WoW-days, and all I see is a shitstorm of idiocy on what a woman "has" to look like.

Now I remember why I quit all these art sites to begin with.

*cosmic high five* A-fucking-MEN, dude. Few thinks grind my gears more than people getting into a wankfest over gender and how specific genders are "supposed" to look. Goes to show that the world still has a LOT of shitty-ass ignorant people. And a lot of them are concentrated on THIS site. =/

Seriously, tho, it's refreshing as hell to randomly come upon other people with a lick of common sense. Rock on. *brofist*

This. Seriously. I don't see constructive criticism, I see "LAWL U DRAWR A TR*NNY WUT UP WIT DAT". Totally unacceptable.

No one said that...?

Not those exact words, but Dragonvcat implied she was actually trans, and T-husky said that no "natural-born" woman could look like that.

Puts me in mind of a valkrie and as for her looking too masculine i've seen women who look far more masculine(like a female conan)as well as men who can be easily mistaken for women.

Well one thing's pretty likely, those talking about her looking like a man probably wouldn't walk up to her and say that if she were real.

Holy crap. That is one smoking hot lady. I love her strong features, her hawk nose...dem boobies. Damn. She looks like such a total badass. I think I'm in love.