(From Revenant:)
: This seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" topic to
: me.

: If they (designers;343 or venerance) make the female features more
: pronounced, someone is inevitably going to cry "objectification"
: at the size of hips or a breast plate that has features to make it obvious
: "boobs under here" .

: If they don't put in any distinguishable features then someone else
: inevitably cries "I can't tell that's a female" and goes off in
: the other direction.

: Star Wars recently had to deal with this exact subject, and they handled it
: beautifully ;

: [screencap of Captain Chrome Dome twitter discussion]

: This ^.

: This is the only logical, acceptable solution.

: Halo needs to be more like this. You can't even tell if they are human (ie;
: bad cyborg!), much less gender.

: Faceless.

: Featureless.

: Armor is the great equalizer. (a particular reason why I love it for cosplay)

: It's a uniform. It makes everyone equal because it makes them look all the
: same. You can't tell what someone looks like underneath it.

: The only way you should be able to tell what sex a Spartan is, is when they
: talk, or remove their helmet. (Halo 3)

: Venerance pretty much nails that.

: (For the record, I think Bungie and 343's depictions in Reach and 4\5 are
: fine. There are far worse directions it could have been taken)

I really want to agree with you, but I do have some quibbles. I'm getting sick to death of this trend that, in order to avoid cries of "sexism!", artists have to just automatically go into No Fun Allowed Realism Mode. I mean, this shift has ostensibly been to "equalize" portrayals of male and female characters, but in practice it ends up being just as stifling and restrictive (ironically, toward female characters ) as the previous "girl armor" convention was.

(From Grizzlei:)
: If they (designers;343 or venerance) make the female features more
: pronounced, someone is inevitably going to cry "objectification"
: at the size of hips or a breast plate that has features to make it obvious
: "boobs under here" .

: And rightfully so.

Accounting for physiology is not objectification. Now, if it's pushed to a silly extreme for obvious cheesecake purposes, then whatever. Call that objectification. Call a spade a spade. But making alterations to the contours of armor so that it correctly fits its wearer? That is not "objectification" (if anything, it could be argued that it's subjectification, because it's accounting for the character's personal needs).

Regarding armor design philosophy.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've spent several years working on the following design. It's purpose-built as light weight armor for a stealth operator. You'll have to take my word for it that the overall shaping of the armor plates is consistent with the vast majority of other armor designs I've worked up in the same setting.

Reina's Armor (2016) by Tekka-Croe on DeviantArt

(Hopefully that loads okay. I've never tried embedding my stuff from DA like this.)

Are you going to accuse me of "objectifying" my character because the armor doesn't hide the character's femininity? Because it emphasizes the curve of her legs? Because it's designed to compliment her physique, rather than override it?

Granted, I'm speaking more broadly than just Halo here. If armor is designed in a practical-minded way- in a way that accounts for plating coverage, mobility, utility and the like- and yet it also clearly displays the sex of the wearer, what's the problem?

(From Archilen:)
: While I don't really see the female model shown in the OP as too
: "curvy" or petite, now that I look at it, both the male and
: female models look very slim around the waist (especially in the armored
: images). It did occur to me that the armor might add just a little more
: bulk there even if it's just the bodysuit.

They aren't so much thin in the waist as they are broad in the chest. That combined with the bulk of the rib and hip plates on the sides results in a narrow-waisted look when they're all armored up.