if we're talking cyberpunk, it's gotta be the light/melee aesthetic. lit: minimal armour with emphasis on speed and evasion. body plates with a cool ass jacket over it. that's the fucking shit. relegate them to street wear and small-sized weapons. hell, extra points if you're using unconventional tools (hammer, wrenches, I've seen someone pull that look off with a god damn screwdriver once)
if we're talking sci-fi; look man, Titanfall broke fucking GROUND with their designs
and to prove I'm not biased just because titanfall had that strap-cum-corset-boob-pocket design, here's another image I hastily fished out after googling "titanfall male armour to prove I'm not horny"
in all honesty, full body armour is fucking ass. i have no reason to state why it's so. they just look ass. you are allowed to criticize me from a utilitarian purpose. it's okay because I know you're wrong. if you want to argue from an aesthetic standpoint, then you're double wrong. fuck you. sleeveless + light plate holders = pure, unfiltered style.
light sub machine guns/pistols, full body suits with built-in plating/casual wear engrained with vests and tech shit, and a god damn helmet.
i guess halo-esque armor is cool too, but c'mon, unless we're talking about the guy from ODST or John himself, the rest are mid-tier design.
oh yeah, as for medieval armor, you either give me a hooded cloak:
or don't give me anything at all
we need the conan eras of movies back. aquaman isn't enough. women have enough sexy screen time. it's time for men to come back with literal tumor biceps and full on abs.
as for the modern/post-apocalyptic era, anything goes; as long as you got some sort of a mask/helmet going on:
and this is
exclusive to the modern (maybe sci-fi too?) era; skin-tight body suits:
holy shit this is untapped potential why hasn't anyone done more of this:
as you can tell, I'm not a fan of bulky steel plated armour (save for Warhammer, but that's by the virtue of them OVERDOING it for fun). I'm not the fan of the mow-em-down-while-wearing-a-bulldozer's-equivalent-of-a-shirt line of armour. I'm more of a sneaky sneaky stabby stabby/super speed slicing-dicing/long-distance sniping kind of guy. if I can't have that, then I might as well beat them down with nothing but my bare knuckles and naked pectorals.
public service announcement to read Gantz, btw
edit:
i take back what i said these look great holy shit