how to NOT whitewash piper mclean
(in honour of piper's fanon birthday and indigenous history month in canada (happy celebrations! stay safe ❤️))
2026 and more and more artists draw piper looking like spray tanned white girls en route to coachella again (i fully blame rick riordan, not the artists themselves). below are a few tips on how to draw her respectfully (aka looking like a tsalagi/cherokee girl)
before we begin, i HEAVILY suggest reading this post. it contains a lot of helpful information on why and how piper herself is not accurate and/or good representation of and for native people in general and tsalagi/cherokee people specifically.
okay, here we go, the basics (some art tutorials on how to draw native people are linked to each topic for even further info):
NO feathers. NO hippie headbands (older fandom dwellers will remember this one)
hair: dark brown or black
eyes: brown or black (ignore the books pls)
skin: BROWN. not red, not orange. not grey-ish (i've been around for a long, long time)
as for face shapes, you can draw her with a rounder face and softer cheekbones/nose, it's not exactly mandatory to draw piper with super angular and sharp features
you basically want your pipers to look similar to these two examples i made using picrew:
from art: tsalagi/cherokee women painted by tsalagi/cherokee artist sharon irla:
from real life: tsalagi/cherokee actresses (from left to right: elizabeth frances, jamie loy, nathalie tomasik)
okay, you've read all the way here and now you're itching to get drawing our best gal? great! buuuut before you do though, just a couple more things for you to take into consideration (it's important info, i swear):
has your piper art ever looked like any of these: x and/or x ? if so, it's definitely time to change that
some colour chart comparisons for easy visual aid: "colours ppl have used to draw piper vs colours i got from photos of native ppl"
do you like giving piper pretty accessories like jewelry? here (and read the tags too pls)
some of my personal favourite fanarts of all time 😍 (bc i love beauty and bc even more references):
first row: x x x
second row: x x x
third row: x x x
fourth row: x x x
i hope you've found this post helpful, i made it in the hopes that people will read all these older posts that have been lost to the fandom over time. and bc accurate and positive artwork of piper, in this case, and other characters of colour, in general, will always be important and necessary (and highly appreciated). and please never forget to listen to native/indigenous people when it comes to piper's representation ❤️
(for more info on representation as a whole in the pjo-verse see this post)
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