A Knight at the Opera: Women Warriors

Credit: Malaysian artist Qistina Khalidah, who
you should all go check out immediately

Female Fighters

Lady Lancers

Nonbinary Knights

I have a ton of folders of collected artwork for D&D inspiration. I was just thinking to myself that they could make for a good post. Why not start here?

I hope you like women in armor, because I have many digital binders full of 'em. This collection skews towards European knight aesthetics because I'm a hack. Feel free to correct that in the comments by contributing more pics.

I've tried to credit everyone. This isn't exhaustive or anything, these are just the pieces I've come across over the years that I enjoyed enough to save.

This one goes out to all the thirsty lesbians reading this blog. If it's popular then I'll do more of these posts (but with different subject matter).

Let's start off with some William O'Connors.

Let's get a couple Wayne Reynolds in there, too.

I wish so badly I had a better quality copy of this image. It comes from this DM screen that Reynolds illustrated for 4E D&D:

Anthony Foti did a couple more illustrations of that same fighter:

But you really can't beat the original version by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (one of the big Pre-Raphaelites and a poet to boot. Although it was his sister Christina who wrote Goblin Market so she forever beats him at that).

What's that? You want more art of Joan of Arc? I'm glad you asked!

Credit: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Simple and elegant execution of "armor + dress" for the woman warrior look

Credit: August Gustav Lasinsky. Also features some excellent-looking NPCs.

Credit: Albert Lynch. Okay I don't love the TERF bangs but I really enjoy the Art Nouveau style. This isn't a portrait in a museum or gallery. It was the cover of a magazine. When you think of it as a piece of graphic design, the artificial and lifeless composition instead reads as symbolic and iconic, like a stained glass window. Bonus points for the French lilies.

Credit: Henry Scheffer. Every paladin and cleric should aspire to replicate this scene.

Credit: John Everett Millais

And then, possibly my two favorite Joans:

Credit: Gilbert Anthony Pownall. Almost certainly the most obscure one here. I love it because she's just so charismatic here. She's so pretty and goth and determined. This is the Joan that I think people love today. Not the real Joan, but the Joan that people want to be.

Credit: Paul de La Boulaye. And then there's the weird one without armor, dressed and armed like she was born 200 years later. I like a good unarmored fighter, sometimes.

If that somehow wasn't enough for you, Wiki has plenty more. Oh, and here's a period painting of Isabella, the She-Wolf of France in an armored dress. Her story is ridiculous, and you should go read about it.

Did I mention there'd be photography as well? Because there'll be lots. I'll credit the models in each pic.

Dame Archer. No fighter has ever made a medium armor build look so good. Why don't more fighters have a gorget like that?

Tasha Anderson

Katie Burman

Shaniqua Ogletree

LARPer who goes by "Shield Maiden"

Anna Vesna

The best I could come up for a name was "Nika," with the photo by Veda Wildfire

Ira Fedorova

Shersten the Golden. Why doesn't your Oath of the Ancients paladin look like this?

Cosplay by TophWei. Maybe this is cheating since the design is just a character from the Witcher, but fuckit.

Had trouble tracking down the source for this one. But let's thank these Turco-Mongol reenactors for reminding us why fighter is the best choice for an archer build, too.

Janina Beck

Vidrig on Tumblr

"Shakti"

Model unknown. Best I could dig up was that this was from Tewkesbury Medieval Festival in 2010. Photo by Paul Saunders.

ArmStreet, a company that makes nice-looking LARP armor (but low-quality and not terribly accurate, as many reenactors will gladly tell you) is great at advertising:

And here's one specific model, Virginia Hankins, who just has such an iconic look.

And a few more from the world of music:

Model Ruby Commey portraying "Germania" for a Rammstein music video

Janelle Monáe evoking Joan of Arc counts.

Naturally my girl is in here, too

Alright alright that was getting a bit indulgent. We can return to inspirational illustrations. Here's some miscellaneous artists:

Credit: Vicky Leta

Credit: Johannes Voss

Credit: happyim0v0 on DeviantArt

Credit: Deimos-Remus
I fucking love that skeleton in the bottom left just simping (respectfully)

Credit: Tony DiTerlizzi, duh.

Credit: Lucas Cranach the Elder

Credit: Walter Crane. This is an illustration of the fairy tale "Princess Belle-Etoile" and just based on my knowledge of the story, I honestly can't tell who is meant to be who here. But my best guess is that the one in armor is the Princess and the other one is the Prince, oddly enough.