|| Skin Tones
- • Human skins varies in hue, saturation, and brightness. Skin tones can be cool or warm, bright or dull, and light or dark. Play around with different tones when designing your characters!
• Don't just take a light tone and lower the brightness when you want to draw a darker character. This gives you dull, corpse-like tones instead of vibrant and eye-catching ones.
• Every skin tone has undertones in addition to its saturation and brightness. Search around for warmer or cooler shades to add some diversity among your designs.
• Don't be afraid to eyedrop colors from real photos! Just be aware of the lighting in photos and how it may affect the colors.
• You're free to use the chart in the image above if you'd like to, but be aware that it is slightly exaggerated to express the difference in various skin colors.
|| Facial Features
- • When you look at a black-and-white photo of someone, you can still tell their race without being able to see their skin color. This is partially thanks to how distinct different facial features are to different groups of people.
• Avoid giving POC European features. If your black character looks exactly like a white character with darker skin, it's a good sign that you need to work on varying how you draw facial features.
• Eyes, noses, mouths, and face shapes are all included here.
• Examples: East Asian people tend to have rounder faces and monolids. People of African descent typically have wider noses with flat bridges, as well as larger lips and rounder eyes.
• There are always exceptions, so don't be scared to get creative. (One of my closest friends is of mixed North Indian and Native American heritage, and they have bright green eyes!)
• Always use references!
Resources for this include:
Artbreeder - Great for learning how faces work in general. The portrait option allows you to use artificial intelligence to change features and experiment with features distinct to certain ethnicities.
Line-Of-Action's Faces & Expressions Tool - Lots of face references from real people.
• It should go without saying, but avoid stereotypes and racist caricatures.
|| Color Shifts
- • For people of color with darker skin, tones change depending on the body part. Lighter colors can be found on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. This is important to keep in mind when drawing such characters.
• Take caution not to make this coloration too light! While the example here would still probably be acceptable, having too great of a contrast can be more reminiscent of minstrel shows than an actual person of color.
|| Hair Texture
- • Humans have a lot of really great hair textures, and each one can be styled all kinds of ways!
• Be careful not to draw coily-haired characters with curly hair.
• Hair types are a great thing to add to anthro characters for some diversity. I personally have seen a few fursonas with dreadlocks and I really realyl love them.
• Again, references are your friend. There are thousands of search results for any hair type and style you want.
Resources for this include:
Hair Texture Chart
As always, if you have any questions or think I should add anything, let me know! And never let me hand letter this much ever again.
