No bra, no problem.
Sometimes, when you need to create a human-looking alien, a female member of a race of Unscaled Merfolk, or a Draconic Humanoid, bras or simple breast coverings may look awkward, as she isn't supposed to wear any clothes at all. Well, what should a writer do? The answer is, in this case, covering the mammaries with a natural fleshy appendage, wide enough to hide cleavage and nipples from a view from above. In a few cases, it can also cover a good part of the belly and the waist, forming a shell-like composition. Usually it will be thick enough to hide the nipples underneath, which consequently leads to Nipple and Dimed. Bonus points if the creature either looks like an adolescent or appears in children media.
This trope may be used to avoid Fan Disservice moments.
Subtrope of Clothing Appendage. Sister trope of Seashell Bra and Barbie Doll Anatomy. Compare it to Non-Mammal Mammaries and Exposed Extraterrestrials. Can sometimes overlap with Nonhumans Lack Attributes. Not to be confused with Fur Bikini, though it can overlap in case the character's nonhuman biology is based on a fur/hair-covered mammal (e.g. a Catgirl).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Blue Submarine No. 6: Mutio and her sisters have fleshy bits growing out of their shoulders that hang down over their chests and cover their breasts most of the time. Though there are a couple of scenes where Mutio's movements cause her breasts (and nipples) to be visible anyway.
- Lisanna Strauss, in Fairy Tail, has magic that lets her take on the form of animals. During the Tartaros arc she uses it to create a bra and underwear when she suffers from a lack of clothing, although technically she just transformed those parts of her body into a cat. She's still 100% percent nude, just part cat.
- Kino the matango (mushroom girl) in Monster Musume has "frills" covering her private parts that are actually a part of her body.
Comic Books
- Zatanna (2010): The fire demons take the form of nearly naked women that are Wreathed in Flames, they curiously seem to have some kind of organic fire underwear on their bodies.
Films — Animation
- Ursula, along with her sister Morgana, from The Little Mermaid franchise: her waist, buttocks and breasts are covered by a patch of black skin that forms a sweet-heart neckline. Furthermore their backs lack the black covering, making their skin look like part of a slinky evening dress.
Films — Live-Action
- In both the original Clash of the Titans and the 2010 remake, Medusa has black plates covering her nipples.
- In The Little Mermaid (2018), Elizabeth has scales that cover her breasts in her mermaid form.
- The live-action The Little Mermaid (2023) ditches the Seashell Bras from the animated film in favor of scales covering the chests (and in a few cases the entire torso) of Ariel and her sisters.
- Marishka, Alena, and Verona (a.k.a Dracula's brides) from Van Helsing have their chests covered with ridged leathery white skin whenever they turn into vampires. Justified, as their human forms possess Stripperific clothes.
- In the X-Men film series, shapeshifter Mystique is nude when not shapeshifted. She has scaly parts over her naughty bits.
Literature
- In Skin of the Sea, mermaids have scales covering most of their bodies. When they leave the water and turn into humans, the scales turn into clothes.
Live-Action TV
- The mermaids in Charmed have a variation where their breasts are covered by strategically-placed scales.
- Mermaids in H₂O: Just Add Water and Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure have scales in exactly the same pattern as a bra, complete with straps, with a bare midriff between that and the scales of their tails. Mermen are bare-chested.
- Venus de Milo from Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is a mutant turtle with breasts whose mammaries are covered up by her plastron.
Video Games
- Darkstalkers has Cat Girl Felicia with a strip of fur that both censors her nipples and acts as a Fur Bikini.
- In the Disgaea series, the Nekomata class has patches of fur on their chest, giving them the appearance of wearing a Fur Bikini.
- Despite being a human-like creature, the fury Alecto from God of War: Ascension has her breasts covered by a naturally produced, black, tar-like substance. Her cleavage is quite visible, though.
- Nami, the Tidecaller in League of Legends has this as well as Navel-Deep Neckline formed with her scales. Word of God states that she actually did this when she found out about the indecency of this in Runeterra, the ingame world, after a certain Noodle Incident and used her magic to cover herself.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Princess Ruto has fins on her chest that have the appearance of a dress top to cover her Non-Mammal Mammaries. This carries over into Hyrule Warriors. In the original release of Ocarina, she tends more toward Barbie Doll Anatomy.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Midna's true form has exposed breasts, although a lack of features and dark patches of skin make it appear she has an undergarment of some sort beneath her shawl. The effect worked so well most fans didn't even realize she was technically topless until she got a higher-resolution render for Hyrule Warriors.
- Bowser/Bowletta from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga possesses two large plates on her chest.
- Suzuka Gozen from Onmyoji, already Ms. Fanservice in her normal skins, has this in her exclusive Golden Voyage alternate skin, where she's completely naked above the waist, with only a thin pattern of golden scales running up her torso to cover her nipples.
- Pokémon:
- Nidoqueen sports two massive chest plates.
- Jynx has what looks like an opera singer dress on, with a red bra-like structure on its chest.
- Swanna from Gen V has tufts of feathers on its chest designed to evoke the chest of a ballerina costume.
- Alexia Ashford's Tyrant Form in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica has vine-like growths that cover her nipples and groin.
- The Queen of Blades from Starcraft franchise has purple colored skin that covers her breasts. Furthermore, everything but the breasts is covered with bone-like bumps.
- In Star Trek Online, Fek'Ihri Ravagers have a blobby patch of flesh over the breasts. Very much Fan Disservice.
- The female naga from World of Warcraft have their breasts covered by scales (their models in Warcraft III simply have Barbie Doll Anatomy, but that's probably due to the lower graphic resolution). Some of them wear armor over their chest, though.
Western Animation
- In Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Aquarianne the mermaid's fish scales cover her upper body all the way up to her chest, as if she was wearing a long dress.
