More development!

I've started trying to put my female characters into a scene, to juxtapose them to the men, to make the whole idea seem even more ridiculous. My main goal is to create a scene where nothing really looks out of place until you look closer:

And then you start to question why the women are all naked from the waist down and the men aren't...

Different media and other ideas

I've been looking at gouache in comparison to inks, because I couldn't quite get accurate skin colours by mixing the more fluorescent inks:

However, although the skin tones are more realistic, I feel like they don't portray my intent as well as the inks. The colours I achieved with the inks, as well as the texture of the brushstrokes and mild variations in colour across the application, are more childlike and naive, and therefore tell a different story. For example:

This naivety of image-making contrasts with the more serious message behind the artwork, initially making people laugh at their abstractness and playfulness, but actually inspire a second look and more thought behind what the images are saying.

Another thing I thought about was the decision to put all these women in heels. Although it does make a statement about the differences in clothing and fashion between men and women, and WHY there are these differences, I feel like it's not as strongly implied with the other content within the studies. I think the fain focal point and area for discussion is the nakedness of the bottom half of the woman, and why I'm making that statement, and because of this I think the heels idea may be overlooked.

I also made a point of looking at how women will be paranoid about stomach fat and maybe hide it with their arms or a strategically placed bag, but will still wear tight jeans. An ironic contrast:

I also started thinking more about the comparison to men in this piece. As I've noticed that male trousers are generally baggy and shapeless, more for function over form as compared to womens' clothing, I decided to go with the leg-shape idea with men too:

As most female clothing on the bottom half is very shape-revealing, male clothing is the opposite - there's not always much room for interpretation as the leg shape of the wearer. In this study I play on that idea as if the baggy jeans WERE shape-defining - what if this was what male legs looked like? Again, this kinda plays off the ridiculousness of the idea, but in comparison to the female legs I think the message is quite clear.

Originally I didn't add hair, but I wanted to make it clear that this was the leg shape and not trousers! I mean, it is fairly clear from the visible penis, but y'know. I think I could make the folds of the jeans as legs a bit more pronounced to make it even more stupid and fun.

Development

SO

I had an idea that's a bit more outside the box:

These are an extension of the idea that women are always on display, as though they are products on the sexual market, for men to view and judge at their leisure.

They're kinda silly and funny, but also get the point across quite well I think? I'm not sure how to juxtapose the men into this though.