More Lessons from Dansel's in Distress (Patreon)

So what you're looking at here is a "before and after" image if that wasn't obvious. 

In my initial piece one of the things I had to unlearn was the need to make my barbarian beautiful. I ended up working and reworking her face a number of times until (I felt) her face was as fierce/grim as any other male barbarian I might draw. For the next piece I wanted a more traditional muscle-bound barbarian.

The problem was I was aware, but perhaps didn't actually believe, that women can be incredibly strong and still be feminine.

That's kind of embarrassing to admit as a Feminist, but as it turned out (for me) until I put pen to paper a lot of my Feminist principals turned out to be theoretical.

The irony of all this is that most barbarian men are beautiful. Call it "masculine beauty" if that helps - but there's a reason why Conan the Barbarian has those perfect flowing locks of hair, that always manages to find a breeze.

Maybe it's because I'm queer but I would argue that a big part of the appeal when considering fantasy based barbarians are that they are very attractive. We perfect, polish, and glamorize their physicality just like any superhero. But we also give tend to give them the least amount of clothing of all the male-hero archetypes.

This makes sense given Barbarians and Body Building kind of go hand in hand.

One obvious connection is the Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Conan shortly after winning the "Mr. Olympia" contest. But if we look at body building in general it has that same fixation on the "perfect"physique that can tends to become so toxic and sexist.

This general sexism becomes super sexist when studying female body building. Something I finally did before re-drawing this barbarian.

I can't for the life of me find the fucking interview but I'm almost positive it was with Janae Marie Kroc - who has the unique experience of making a name for herself in body building as Matt Kroczalesk - before coming out as a trans woman and transitioning accordingly.

Essentially what she commented on was the fact that, as a man, none of her strength was considered unusual or unnatural. It was expected, and celebrated that a male body should be bulky. But as a woman she was quickly stripped of acceptance.

This is why a lot of women body builders (are expected to) undergo plastic surgery to retain their breasts.

Anyway. Point is. Women can be strong and still be feminine. Even in "Dansels in Distress."

And God help me (not something I say often) that's part of the point of all this. It's recreating the same tired imagery we all grew up with, but swapping out genders.

It's shockingly difficult.