Patroclus is Black. I have spoken.

🧊 Ice 🧊| 🔥👌🏾Grown, Black, & Geeky 👌🏾🔥 |🍵I share everything here, check my 📌🍵 | pfp a gift! 🎨 header by ssiggss

[patrochilles-or-bust]

Fic Masterlist | Squidgeworld | AO3 | Bluesky (fic/art only)

Updated version! I ain't ever gone play that guitar, might as well remove it.

If you are looking for my character design and racial sensitivity blog, please go to @creatingblackcharacters! This is my main, where I relax and post strong political opinions. Stay at your own will 🤣❤️💕.

[creatingblackcharacters]

For the MBC Maia from Monster verse <3.

She's a vampire and my favorite NPC!

I think this might be the first pixel art! I appreciate the blush that you gave her 🥹

[creatingblackcharacters]

For the challenge:

Blue from Deltarune

(I posted it on my blog with the "melanin beam challenge" tag but forgot to @ you, sorry)

Oh this is just lovely!!! So dynamic, so clean!!

[maefaeve]

another submission for @creatingblackcharacters’s challenge !!! (also a redraw of this drawing)

[boy-icky]

Character 1: Spider Queen! 💜💚

Posting my art for this year's Melanin Beam Challenge hosted by @creatingblackcharacters !!

I'm going to be posting each character I did separately, so here is today's character: Spider Queen from Lego Monkie Kid! 💜

I finally got around to watching LMK recently and promptly became obsessed with it, so I decided to draw some characters from the show for this challenge! I went with Spider Queen as one of my characters because she is very underrated in my opinion, and her VA is also a Black woman, Kimberly Brooks! (who voices a ton of well-known characters, including Sky from Arcane and Stormy from The Winx!) I liked Spider Queen's character a lot and she deserved better tbh

More design details below:

In the show, Spider Queen has long, straight hair that is kept under her helmet. For her redesign, I ditched the straight hair and decided to turn Spider Queen's helmet into her hair and have it styled into the shape of her helmet, with the front of her helmet becoming a sort of headpiece instead. I also have a doodle above of what she'd look like without the headpiece on so you can see the whole hairstyle better!

Everything else was largely kept the same, minus the change in skintone from purple to brown. I also made an edit of her in the Lego Style from the show itself. I'm very happy with how she turned out!

Thank you for hosting this challenge again, Mrs. CBC! It was so much fun to redesign the characters I chose! I can't wait to post tomorrow's art too and see what everyone else has been making! <3

[rubykgrant]

Third picture for the @creatingblackcharacters Melanin Beam Challenge! I was really excited to work on one for Yu Yu Hakusho, a long time favorite anime (and also the reason I finally discovered manga that wasn't filpped/re-printed). I immediately had plans for Yusuke and Botan, but then I decided to go for another full-cast redesign (or at least, all the main characters. family members of Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei not pictured her are indeed Black and Japanese as well~).

Also, I have to give a little shout-out to @moosopp-art who has drawn OCs from Daybreak/Sunshine Boy as Hiei and Kurama, these chibi edits/redesigns here aren't identical, but I was definitely thinking about Marcus and Cog while I worked on this~)

(Yusuke was fairly easy to redesign, his hair has a thicker texture and styled with a fade. I didn't realize he would end up so adorable- but even though he's got a tough-guy attitude and a reputation as a punk, who winds up fighting literal demons, he's still a 14 year old with a funny side, and having a genuine sweet smile doesn't make him any less strong. for Keiko, I was thinking about some of the hairstyles I saw with different music/movie stars in the 80s/early 90s, so she has her hair short, with an a-symmetrical part, with lots of tiny curls. while all these characters are now Black and Japanese, for Keiko and Yusuke specifically; as they grew up, the a-hole adults around them would wrongfully judge Yusuke before he even started misbehaving... and perhaps that even added to it. despite the divide other people tried to impose on them, Keiko never let that interfere with how much she cared about Yusuke. this negative double-standard is even more harsh with Hiei and Yukina; they're twins, but he was immediately rejected by their community, while she was accepted- Hiei also gave that negative energy right back to world for a long time, but along with the others, he literally becomes one of the most important people in MULTIPLE worlds, helping to save the existence of billions. they're MORE than "good enough", and they didn't have to somehow "stop being who they are" along the way. for most of these kids, this is something they all have to kinda deal with in the backgrounds of their lives.

for Kurama, I gave him thick braided locs that still follow the original "shape and flow" of his hairstyle, pulled into a larger braid behind his head before letting the lengths fall down his back, a little darker at the tips. Hiei's hair is done in thick, wide coils that all have a distinct shine to them. Kuwabara was fairly easy, I changed his skin-tone and features slightly, and added more definition to his curly hair, plus a gradient to show that he dyes it a bright orange/red up top. Botan was a lot of fun, I love her so much! she's one of my favorite anime girls ever, so I wanted to do her justice; her hair has a thicker texture and is a darker blue at the roots, she has little bairds trailing down by her ears, and several more tiny braids where he hair is pulled back into a ponytail. finally is Koenma, who doesn't have a lot of details, he was already a chibi-baby, but I still wanted to convey certain things in this redesign, so he's got some little finger coils sticking out from under his hat.

I wanted to give each character a different brown skin-tone, a different texture and style to their hair, and different defined shapes to their mouths/noses, while also still keeping it sort of in the style of the source)

[butterscotch-goat]

here's a Sidon from BOTW gijinka/screenshot redraw for @creatingblackcharacters 's Melanin Beam Challenge!!

[creatingblackcharacters]

This is my first submission of the three days! (I'm trying to post on my page but mobile is being ornery of course, so you may get a tag from me too lol)

I couldn't pick which one I liked the most so I'm just posting in the order I drew them. Partner picked this character :)

ALL MIGHT!!!!

I love that you changed his eye color too, stop 🥹🥹🥹 this is awesome!

[artofpandarson]

The Watson-Parker Family made for @creatingblackcharacters's Melanin Beam Challenge!

[m-s-justice]

using @creatingblackcharacters Melanin Beam Challenge to have some fun redrawing sprites. I've been so busy with other stuff it was nice to see my itty bitty bug again

[droodlebug]

Did my favoritest Momo from Breath of Fire 3 for @creatingblackcharacters Melanin Beam challenge <3

[baytadax]

Guinan (Star Trek)

My contribution to the Melanin Beam Challenge by @creatingblackcharacters (I have learned so much from your blog thank you!!)

Also a nice addition to my collection of Star Trek women.

Close-up photographed under a different light

[stoatunquote]

Some Foolymes for the @creatingblackcharacters Melanin Beam Challenge!

[mimitay-art]

Submission 1/2 for @creatingblackcharacters 's Melanin Beam Challenge 2026 - Qifrey from Witch Hat Atelier!!

Another favorite manga of mine became the Big Popular Fantasy Anime this year so it's a perfect series to demonstrate how Black characters can look in an anime/manga style as the protagonists!

Qifrey's an excellent teacher and extremely skilled witch, he's also full of Secrets and Mysteries that I will not spoil. He's been through so much and deserves this life he's built with the atelier.

(I'm torn on his hairstyle though, I went with a twist-out but I think leaving it natural would've accomplished the same thing since it'd look similar here. idk idk as long as his eye is covered)

[mimitay-art]

Submission 2/2 for @creatingblackcharacters 's Melanin Beam Challenge 2026 - Olruggio, also from Witch Hat Atelier!

His look is inspired by this cosplay by riverjmv on instagram, they did SUCH a stellar job and the locs work so so well for Olruggio! Please check out River's stuff, he's a great cosplayer.

Olruggio's a very kind person even if he won't admit it. He builds contraptions that bring comfort and joy to people....he also needs a goddamn vacation cuz he's like perpetually exhausted from working all-nighters (which is why a lower maintenance protective style feels like a good fit for him)

Thank you for doing this challenge again Ice, and happy birth-week!!!

[the-hope-gnome]

Second submission for the Melanin Beam Challenge by @creatingblackcharacters with a Black Audrey Horne

I'm much more proud of this one, might go back and redo the agent cooper one entirely

[creatingblackcharacters]

Scooby Doo gang for your Melanin Beam Challenge ♡ Scooby Doo is probably the piece of media nearest to my heart so of course it had to be them for this drawing.

🎶WHATS NEW SCOOBY DOO🎶

🎶WE'RE COMING AFTER YOU🎶

🎶WE'RE GONNA SOLVE THAT MYSTERY!🎶