An interesting quandry, no? All I remember is my first experience with a druid was the Darrell K Sweet image from Wishsong of Shannara.
I was so moved by it, I created an AD&D druid character named Belmarillian who would eventually go on to become the most powerful character in the Nameless Realms, and always I kept him just like Sweet's Allanon version, cloaked, mysterious, and bigger than life. Still, whenever I see a RPG druid today, they have basically become the chainmail bikini version of a fighter. So today, I thought I'd show you some images and see if you had an answer for me.
She's have to have a big set of balls to wear that outfit... oh wait, she does, and they are spikey!
Well, at least she's covered, but how much did that dye job cost her?
There is the mid-drift we all know and love, and how about those... eyes, yeah, eyes!
Look, she's riding a wolf ala Princess Mononoke, just without clothes :)
She really decided to 'bear' it all... see what I did there?
She's serious... seriously not wearing enough clothing.
Anyway, just some fun images to consider, and remember, AotG would love your support of The Folio so we can continue to produce incredible fantasy covers like those above. Help us help Jim and other great OSR artists! Subscribe today, or come and support our current Kickstarter campaign.
Because men over all want to see woman look bad ass like that so it’s a fantasy so woman are more liked.
Same reason women in real life tend to wear less clothes than men? That would be my guess. When it is 50 degrees out and I see young men wearing long pants and jackets, what are the young women wearing? Yup, short shorts and crop tops. There is no consipiracy or evil man force at work here just personal preference.
To be fair I haven’t really seen any other male druids drawn like the Sweet image either (and notwithstanding that’s what he was called, Allanon was NOT a druid in the D&D sense). And commenting on her hair doesn’t really make the woman in the third picture in any way relevant to a discussion about fantasy druids apparent aversion to clothing.
That said, your other examples are pretty representative of a fairly common trend among fantasy artists – while I had no difficulty at all finding images of sensibly attired female druids there are a lot more along the lines of the ones you show. Equally, there are plenty of pictures of bare chested male druids but a lot more are more fully clothed. Perhaps male druids are just naturally (hah) more modest :)
The woman with the tiger might actually be dressed appropriately, since it looks like she’s in a tropical climate. (But why the Plains Indian look?) The elf standing in front of the bear is clearly underdressed for the temperate climate she’s in. The worst offenders are the wolf woman up in the mountains with visible snow, and the spiky ball woman riding the enormous hamster, who looks like she’s in Iceland. Can’t they have some furs? Or at least a nice wool sweater?