Go sculpt me a feminine character in GW style heroic proportions at 28-32mm scale. A certain level of 'man face' is inevitable. The need to exaggerate the nose and brow in particular, down at that scale, it's very easy to make a manish face. And that's GW's style, large proportioned stuff that is easy for the brush to pick up, as opposed to say, KDM which is softer, as soft as you can get at that scale (so still some issues), but it relies more on the painter's skill to be able to do it at all.
The store painters' style also do them no favours, there was an infamously man-faced sister of battle with some stubble a few years back which did cause some controversy. And it's not that there isn't an issue with them being man-jawed, there is. But the painting style they use on the store exacerbates it further.
So now there's 3 things all working against them. And we haven't even spoken about the models and lore yet, are they even supposed to be feminine?
If you want femininity, you're looking at some of the wrong models. 2.5 of those are filthy xenos (1 is part zerg, 1 is freaky space elf, the other a cow/fish alien race), 2 are the same roided up mutants who everyone within a mile feels unease just because of their presence and who do nothing but train, and the other are the military wing of the ecclesiarchy because of a loophole they found, they were banned from having men-at-arms because of a coup they tried to pull. But it says nothing about women-at-arms. So they now roid up a bunch of fanatics who do nothing but pray and train
4 things working against it now in some of these then.
Go sculpt me a feminine character in GW style heroic proportions at 28-32mm scale. A certain level of 'man face' is inevitable. The need to exaggerate the nose and brow in particular, down at that scale, it's very easy to make a manish face. And that's GW's style, large proportioned stuff that is easy for the brush to pick up, as opposed to say, KDM which is softer, as soft as you can get at that scale (so still some issues), but it relies more on the painter's skill to be able to do it at all.
The store painters' style also do them no favours, there was an infamously man-faced sister of battle with some stubble a few years back which did cause some controversy. And it's not that there isn't an issue with them being man-jawed, there is. But the painting style they use on the store exacerbates it further.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/isqndf/the_faces_can_be_saved/ (what people achieve when aiming for full feminine doll-like)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/ejv17v/when_darkness_is_so_grim_that_even_adepta/ (how gw paints em)
So now there's 3 things all working against them. And we haven't even spoken about the models and lore yet, are they even supposed to be feminine?
If you want femininity, you're looking at some of the wrong models. 2.5 of those are filthy xenos (1 is part zerg, 1 is freaky space elf, the other a cow/fish alien race), 2 are the same roided up mutants who everyone within a mile feels unease just because of their presence and who do nothing but train, and the other are the military wing of the ecclesiarchy because of a loophole they found, they were banned from having men-at-arms because of a coup they tried to pull. But it says nothing about women-at-arms. So they now roid up a bunch of fanatics who do nothing but pray and train
4 things working against it now in some of these then.