I recently finished an illustration of a dark-skinned warrior wearing loincloth and tribal body paint, as instructed by my client for his fantasy game world. I like how it turned out, and I want to add diversity to my portfolio, but now I'm super anxious about posting it. I know that appropriation vs. appreciation is a big issue in some countries and I have no way to figure out if this artwork (or any I make in the future) is possibly offending someone, or totally fine to post. Any thoughts?
These kinds of questions are VERY hard to answer without seeing the art so here’s a few steps to take if you’re concerned:
1—Is the image objectifying or does it have agency? In other words, does the character look like they are in control of their own destiny or do they look submissive, or like an object for other people to control. This more often comes up in sexy/pin-up images, but it applies in general as well. are you portraying the character as someone who probably has a story of their own, or are they an object for others to use? Are you respecting the characters you are creating? Respect for the source material is the basic difference between appropriation vs. appreciation.
2—Show it to some people of the (race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, etc) that you are depicting. If you don’t have friends of that manner of person, ask genuinely online in an art crit group (there’s tons of them on facebook and discord, try to find a diverse one) - but no matter what people say, don’t argue with them, just accept all the feedback that comes, and see what the ratio of ok-to-not-ok it is as a whole. It’s really important to make sure you’re not missing something historical or important that you might not have known about. A good example is how brands can “accidentally” make things look like Minstrel Show imagery. Many European artists do not know this history and accidentally use these extremely racist images as reference, not realizing there’s a whole history there they’re unaware of. In publishing, we ask for “sensitivity reads” and this is kind of a “sensitivity view”.
If you make it past #1 & #2 you’re probably in the clear. Remember, this is not about saying artists and authors can’t depict or write about other kinds of people, it’s about making sure a) do it accurately and respectfully and b) they don’t take advantage of the community they’re trying to portray.
—Agent KillFee