Alright, I think I got what I needed, thanks everyone!
So the reason I made that poll was because (looks left, looks right)… I don’t really make my (brown) characters’ palms lighter 😅.
I know, I really should. But I never considered why that was the case for the longest time, even though in the back of my mind I knew that’s how our palms be. Then I saw this portion of a “How to Draw a Black Lady” comic a long while ago on Pinterest:
I guess this comic clicked something in me and other Black artists that shared similar experiences; these cartoons be traumatizing us 😭😭😭😭😭😭.
As you could guess from the name, “Mammy Two Shoes” was an antiblack caricature that was often Tom’s owner (?) or a personal nanny (?) in some Tom and Jerry episodes. We hardly saw her face, so all we got from her is that she was loud, big, mean, and practically had literal paws for hands 🫤.
This seemed to be common amongst other cartoons that featured minstrels (Looney Tunes, Disney). When caricatures weren’t wearing those bright white gloves as they did in live minstrel shows (often to contrast against the pitch black skin), the animators would have these Black characters’ palms be extremely lighter than the rest of the body’s skintone. Which yknow, can happen to an extent, but it’s the way they are drawn with the hard cut of the two colors that bothered me (Like how Two Shoes’ looks. There’s no blend!). Anime also did this a lot (See Mr. Popo). I’m sure it still does.
Black artists have made plenty of tutorials on how to properly color in Black people’s hands, but idk, it just never seemed right when I do it 😔🤙🏾. I do wonder if it’s cuz I’m still on my art journey, and as of now my style is more on the cartoony end. I did notice some of y’all mentioned if it’s a simplistic or cartoon style, you avoid doing so. I hardly draw the wrinkles and folds of the hands in my art, so maybe my brain is unconsciously associating that with Two Shoes’ paw hands 😒.
Still, it’s that same trauma these cartoons be projecting that have us struggling to give our characters red lipstick, toothgaps, or even certain Black hairstyles. And with the way folks treated Annie from Sinners and that statue of the fat Black woman, that trauma if left unchecked can turn into internalized bigotry real quick.
I‘ll get there eventually, but I think I gotta become more confident in my shading and highlights if I hope to get a better sense of the way I color my characters.
Not all art styles necessarily need these traits if their white and nonblack characters are hardly detailed either. Needless to say, animators and artists still gotta be vigilant in this stuff. Like even in the comic, I get yucks with the Steven Universe lips style, cuz it often can easily become donut lips from what I’ve seen. Which, I mean -
Theatre as we know it today was not widespread in the Middle Ages and was used more for church purposes (passion plays). Art in the high court, on the other hand, was not comprehensible to commoners, so the profession of folk entertainer was established for a variety of purposes.
Minstrels were seen at fairs and markets; they made the rounds of taverns and were even hired by wealthy merchants or nobles. The minstrel’s repertoire could include singing, playing musical instruments, juggling, staging scenes or narrating humorous stories.
The themes of their work were mostly light and cheerful, but often included satire or criticism of political conditions, whether coming from the minstrels themselves, or paid for by an employer and tailored to their intentions. Most of the minstrels had no employer, they belonged to the margins of society and had to get by from day to day through alms.
Musicians enjoyed a bit more respect and besides entertainment, their music could also be used during religious services. Popular medieval instruments included flutes, trumpets, shawms, as well as lutes, harps and drums. Their performances were mostly improvised, but early musical notations also began to appear at this time.
There were both, professional musicians employed at court or churches and travelling musicians playing in markets and at celebrations. This craft was predominantly pursued by men.
TRIVIA
— The training of musicians took different forms, depending on their specialisation. While itinerant groups of performers often taught their craft to their children in family businesses, minstrels employed at courts were also responsible for their patron's children's musical education. In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance Meistersinger groups developed from Germany to Italy and Bohemia. As confraternities of artisan craftsmen they would practice music in their free time, studying the “old masters” of the minnesang and grade each other in regular competitions, so-called "singing schools". Perhaps in turn inspired by the old minnesingers' “minstrel schools”, held from at least 1300 onwards: Similar to trade fairs, minstrels from all over Europe would come together once per year, usually during Lent, to connect, discover and recruit new talents and, most importantly, to bring new songs back home. The Limburg Chronicle, likely written by the scribe Tilemann Elhen von Wolfhagen between 1378 and 1398, documents how these schools would both influence the prevalent musical style and spread outright "hits" all throughout the German lands.
Much more competitive than this medieval ESC, minnesingers would frequently engage in song battles too, though the most famous of them probably never actually took place. The Wartburgkrieg or Sängerkrieg (Wartburg War, Singer War), a collection of songs anonymously written in the 13th century and featured in multiple chronicles and almost every song collection of the Middle Ages, is said to have unfolded at the Wartburg Castle in 1206. Legend has it that these songs were sung by six famous minstrels in praise of Count Hermann I, the Landgrave of Thuringia, though the tale quickly ends in slander, calls for execution, black magic and the summoning of demons. Interestingly, some of the minstrels who allegedly participated in this war, like Walther von der Vogelweide,
Wolfram von Eschenbach or Reinmar “the Old” von Hagenau, were actually employed at Count Hermann's court at some point, and produced provocative songs there, both about their patron and about each other.
His financial accounts show frequent payments to jesters, acrobats, minstrels and dancers (including, in the last instance, a certain Matilda Makejoy). They also record the charming fact that every year on Easter Monday the queen's ladies-in-waiting would try to catch the king in bed, and he rewarded them with a ransom if they were successful.
You ever wonder why everyone and they mama has a harp in ME? It's ALWAYS a harp, maybe once or twice you'll see a flute like with Daeron and Ecthelion...but nine times out of ten it's either a harp, your voice or a flute. (I know they mentioned a fiddle like once in the Hobbit but I don't think anyone ever played it IIRC). Maglor had a harp, Fingon had a harp, Finrod had a harp. I think fuckin' Glorfindel had a harp too....OTHER INSTRUMENTS EXIST, JIRT!
I decided to make my life super hard xd And try something with much more details than what i usually do. I liked doing it but it took super lots of time :`d Maybe i ll be able to do it faster next time.
Minstrels rehearsing at the Hungarian National Association of Construction Workers headquarters, Budapest, 1973. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.
