the thing about tv!sally. the thing is. is that the flashbacks are so clearly from her perspective.
the reason people are claiming that sally would never yell at percy like in ep7 or that she would never show frustration with her child is that in the books -- and the beginning of the show -- we only ever see sally from percy's perspective. and in his eyes? she is an angel, the perfect mother who could never do anything wrong.
but the flashbacks in ep7 are not from percy's perspective, they're from sally's. and she remembers every bit of the difficulties and the frustrations and the almost insurmountable challenges that come with raising a neurodivergent child as a poor single mom, let alone raising a powerful demigod who attracts epic monsters that want to kill him. so yes, sally is, arguably, more 'human' in the show than the books -- because of course she is, when she isn't only ever seen through the eyes of her ride or die son.
I will defend book and tv sally jackson until my last breath and after
I haven't seen any posts about this yet but l've seen some fan art that makes me feel this needs to be said:
Don't forget Leah Sava Jeffries has darker skin when making Annabeth Chase fan art!
She is much closer to Lupita Nyong'o than Zoe Kravitz when it comes to shading, reflection, and complementary color usage :).
Lighting for dark skin is different on light skin. Light skin gets changed by lighting, and dark skin reflects the lighting. Below is a lovely shot of Nyong'o's character from Wakanda Forever in mourning. The filmmakers emphasize the umber qualities of her skin in contrast to the funereal white and (arguably harsh) light across her shoulder below.
Try to pick spots that aren't directly in or near the light, and try mixing 3 or more! You can put it into a color mixer online, or even color pick, lower the opacity, and lay the shades over each other until you find one that fits. And of course, the more 'realistic' you want to go with shading and lighting, the more shades you're going to want to be able to explore vivaciously :D.
Let's take a look at the same 3 beautiful actresses I mentioned at the beginning, with a bad color picked area and a better-ish color picked area. (Please keep in mind, these are not perfect comparisons, as I was not able to find pictures of all 3 actresses under the same kind of lighting.)
Kravitz's has a clear difference between the two, but they aren't too far apart, in comparison to Nyong’o’s and Jeffries’s. Note the dullness in the poorly picked shades as opposed to the better ones. Also keep in mind that while Kravitz has a rosy undertone (at least in that picture - it’s from The Batman, which has stylized coloring) Nyong’o has a slight cool undertone (I can’t pin down quite what, but the picture is definitely not stylized like Kravitz’s).
Jeffries runs more ochre or russet, but neither of those are pink. They are more red than terracotta or umber, but to call Jeffries’s face rosy would be wrong. Err more towards the golden when drawing her.
^^saved an image from a writing tutorial long ago, but can’t seem to find it. If someone recognizes it, I’ll link it.
EDIT: it’s from this post. Thanks @autumnrowancollector ! <3
And also, the darker skin gets, the less likely warm undertones are going to appear. Don't be afraid to use blue or purple or even green on occasion!
Additionally, cool lighting on dark skin is always a win imo.
(I was going to use that picture of Jeffries as Annabeth by the lightning bolt, but then I realized the lighting on her face doesn’t quite match up with where it should hit from that angle, and I realized they kind of just turned everything bluer, so screenshot time!)
(Also if you want another really great live action example, check out anything Aldis Hodge is in, like Leverage and Black Adam)(and of course there’s Spiderverse <3 but I want to post pictures of Hodge)
Now, to here’s a list of more experienced people’s advice:
Black facial features & hair
Shading digitally for a (somewhat) monotone Black character
Stylistic choices and places to start looking for inspiration (besides a search engine).
Coloring Black people’s lips
A better coloration tutorial
Also a nice tutorial for Indigenous skin tones, just in case yall want to draw Piper or use this information for other dark skinned characters :).
TLDR: Don’t make Annabeth pink and pale, make her dark and golden.
Never really cared about the characters looks but I think Percy fits better with blonde hair and blue eyes than black hair and green eyes. Blonde like the sand and blue like the sea. I know he’s supposed to have sea green eyes but I think blue works as well.
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
areudirty
izzy806
gummygunk
