I don’t generally get a lot of complaints about my own female MOCs (at least… not anymore….) and I think it’s got a lot to do with my going for completely different skeletal designs for male and female body types.
It’s all about the shoulder to waist ratio. A male character generally has much wider shoulders than his hips. A female character’s shoulders generally hover around the same width as their hips. (given most female MOCs here are toa, who tend to be athletic and strong looking, they may be a little more wide of shoulder than normal)
It’s also generally a good idea to make your character 7-8 heads tall if male, and a little smaller than that if female. Whether or not you base that on the actual head size or the size of the mask is not so clear, but that does make a big difference.
Once you have the skeleton sorted out, THEN you can start thinking about armouring and more specific shaping. If you’ve got the skeleton right though, you shouldn’t have to add anything to the chest to make it obviously female - they can be flat after all.
That, or just add blue.
That’s all you need to make a matoran/toa look feminine.
Seriously.
Male matoran are just attracted to the colour blue. That’s all you need! :v
Ah yes, the famous and lazy Razhakea butt plate design he introduced in the Hayday of the Biotube and bionicle MOCcing community before he had to give up MOCcing for a while
I’ve been quite guilty of using this on occasion. More for giving a butt shape rather than just leaving it a flat piece, y’know?
When you make a female moc, you try to make it not look like something a Considering your age, watch your language. - Eljay 13 year old would make
Dont give it thin waists, overly obvious boobs (this doesn’t just refer to that of the nuva kind, those can work in quite a few situations)
tbh, just dont make a rahkshi girl moc
You have to find a balance, dont make a crappy rahkshi girl, but dont make a normal male moc and say its female
I mean, you kinda have to make a female moc look female
I pretty much agree what Hawk said here
I also agree with this too
maaaaaaaan
everything I want to say has already been said
you forget, add blue, give it a kaukau
and say its a female matoran MOC.
in fact, give any female moc/matoran a kaukau
That is a surefire way of telling everyone its a female MOC
because remember, you cannot use a Kaukau on a male MOC
Except the piece didn’t look like a butt
At all
Don’t threaten me, eljay.
that was sarcasm, in case you didn’t realise.
It also isn’t a rude word, so I dunno what you are all up in arms about
How to make a female MOC uh…
Well, I would say you should take inspiration from human proportions.
A female Toa, for example, being a warrior should use an athletic look: this means no over-exaggerated proportions like the infamous Rahkshi ladies.
Imho, one thing you should always remember is to make feMOCs shoulders and waist a bit more thin than the ones male MOCs have.
This are some examples I use when I build
As you can see, these two bodies are pretty similar, but you can see which is supposed to be the male body and which is the female one.
The male body is 9 studs wide from one shoulder joint to the other. Also the waist connection (to the pelvis) is 3 studs wide.
The female body is 7 studs wide from one shoulder joint to the other. Also the waist connection (to the pelvis) is 2 studs wide and it increases to 3 studs wide when going up (you can see this better in the first image).
From the back they look pretty similar too.
The only difference is in the pelvis area: while the male uses the same piece the female uses in her pelvis front area, the female uses a nuva shoulder (I know, I’ve used a nuva shoulder, and it even stays in place only because of friction… I’m such a non-purist jerk)
I don’t know if these custom torsos I’ve made are bad or good, but I hope I’ve somehow helped you
When it comes to female MOCs, I tend to prefer the subtle things. Nothing overly sized, or too oblivious. Subtle curves in the hips, narrower shoulders, slight bust, but nothing crazy that sticks out over a foot, something just to get the idea across. Proportions are also some of the subtle things that really pull a female off. I also tend to hover towards weaponry like polearms and shields for females as well, and sometimes swords.
Mainly, what I am trying to suggest and say is, I go for something that pulls it off without the MOC screaming out “Hey, I am female”. Things like: overly sized hips, curves everywhere, super skinny waists, overextended busts, overly long “hair”, Rahkshi heads, and very round, uh, backsides let’s say, are not really needed. You could pull off a female MOC just by being more subtle with your build, and you’ll actually get more praise for it. At least, that’s my opinion anyways. Feel free to disagree.
OH, and one last thing. Gringat is right, color does have to play into it somewhat. I find that brighter more poppy colors tend to distinguish females more from males when it comes to MOCs. So… there is that.
Don’t misquote me. I never said anything of the sort, and I certainly don’t agree with the above.
Western society may tend to put women in brighter clothing than men, but this has not always been so, and with MOCs chances are you’re still sticking to your element’s colours and/or have characters equipped for battle.
The bit about the blue is a joke reference to Gen1’s terrible gender differentiation. Don’t read into it too seriously.
Here is a simple solution to this question: Don’t build MOCs like the ones you see on tumblr
But in all seriousness: Build takes priority over the female figure. Don’t focus on the female form as it will straight up make the MOC look terrible. Also don’t give your MOC exaggerated proportions… it looks dumb and out of place.
i really don’t see why we have to use human proportions for a biomechanical species that probably isn’t even in our galaxy. maybe the way they distinguish genders is something totally invisible and incomprehensible to us.
but more so, i find it tiring we even have to talk about this kind of stuff. i am glad this thread seems to not have descended into a vicious internet battle like most of these topics do, but do we really need to make a big deal out of the female side of bionicle?
Humans, being humans, have a desire to love, whether that be other people, or things. Part of that desire includes “Eros”, which can best be described as love through physical contact, whether that be that action that has the most possible euphemisms in the English language, or physical contact with portions of the body that identify with a human being’s gender/capacity for said action. Some individuals, whose position in life or extenuating circumstances do not allow them to properly partake in Eros, wish to find a means through which to channel that facet of their nature, and if they happen to have BIONICLE pieces around, that facet can be channeled by thrusting predisposed ideas of gender onto nonhuman characters.
At least that’s my theory. If anyone has any better ideas, I’d gladly hear them.
It depends on the aesthetics you’re trying to convey with the MoC. If it’s strictly a G1 character who isn’t a Glatorian/Agori, an overtly feminine build doesn’t really make sense. G2 is a bit more fair game because we haven’t seen many female characters, but don’t make her Madame Estrogen Von Shmexy. If it’s not supposed to fit into any Bonkle canon, some curviness is okay. If it’s supposed to be human or the like, don’t anime it too hard, if you know what I meme. Rule of thumb: if your MoC looks like a tumblr Boobonicle, you might want to rethink it. Context is key; if it doesn’t fit into the setting, rework to where it does.
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