#thatsjusttips

[creatingblackcharacters]

what are the correct uses of people of colour and which ones are to be avoided?

Okay. Grammar lesson!

"People of color" is a noun. So use it as a noun.

"I am speaking about people of color."

People who are of color. People. People is a noun.

It is not, as the Internet likes to use it, an adjective!

"POC characters!" is the color blind racist equivalent of "colored characters!"

Do you want to call me colored? Is that the racism we really want to use? Old 1960s racism? Shall I go to the colored water fountain next? I'm sorry- the POC water fountain?

If you are talking about all non-white people as a group, use "People of Color".

"White people are used to being the default- which is why they get to be White and the rest of us are People of Color. The Other."

If you are talking about a specific group of people, and you KNOW that, then SAY their group and NOT "people of color".

"I am not just a person of color, I am Black. Antiblackness is about Black people, not all people of color. Otherwise, I'd just say racism. Words have meaning!"

Further resource:

Find definitions for over 300,000 words from the most authoritative English dictionary. Continuously updated with new words and meanings.

[creatingblackcharacters2]

Step by Step: Twists & Braids

Note: There are plenty of wonderful Black artists that can do this far better, and you all should go follow and STUDY them!

First step: USE YOUR REFERENCES! Just to break down and draw this little sheet took me multiple references and about an hour of drawing and redrawing to really do it properly. It took practice! It's going to take practice, and well-drawn Black hair deserves practice! Commit to your Black characters!

Okay. Next step, the simplified way, i.e. how Ice does it:

Twists:

Step 1: Draw two curly lines.

Step 2: Draw curved lines from one 'corner' of one line to the next 'corner' of the other line. It should be moving down, as hair is twisted downward!

Cornrows (on scalp!)/Braids:

Step 1: Draw a zigzag

Step 2: Draw two curly lines, slightly off-center to one another. You want each 'point' of the zigzag to correspond with a corner of the curly lines.

Step 3: Draw straight lines between the point of the zigzag and the corner of the curved lines. They're gonna look like pentagons. The 'butts' of each pentagon should be curved, since that's the braid.

Tbh, what makes Black hair really shine is the depth and the LIGHTING that goes onto it. Also, my partner has asked/demanded everyone to remember that when drawing cornrows there should be HAIR connecting it to the scalp!! The hair is attached to the root! It's not just bald in between each cornrow!

[creatingblackcharacters]

I’ve got a lot of anxiety over accidentally being racist because I grew up in a pretty white area

Would you give advice on how to unlearn any possible subconscious racism? Am I just overthinking things?

Baby's first introduction to their Whiteness, by a White Person. And if you can stomach that, then you can get into the books and resources by Black people that won't take the time to soften it for you, because you should know that we shouldn't have to do that. People do things differently; I am a lover of nonfiction books that teach me about things that I may have learned about in another resource I read. I like to find book lists; I started with the SPLC's Summer Reading list back in 2022 and kept going from there.

But, if you aren't a reader (which makes me deeply sad but some folks aren't) just being around Black voices helps. Even on here, as much as Tumblr decimated the Black presence on here, there are still plenty of Black bloggers that you could follow and simply LISTEN to. Watching media featuring Black people BY Black people. Listening to our music and being willing to give it a chance, actively telling yourself that the biased thoughts you have against it are probably racist. Even reading my lessons here and then applying it to your critical thinking when you watch regular media will help.

Antiracism takes time. There's no easy solution. You practice it every single day!

[creatingblackcharacters]

I feel like what would help many of you understand Black hair is acknowledging the equivalent humanity in the actions of us taking care of it the way you take care of YOUR hair.

For example, if you wash your hair every morning or every night. Whatever happens to you that day, whatever you have planned, you work around having to wash and dry your hair. It's routine. It's a regular part of your day. You don't think of it as "oh well I guess I can't do this activity because it's not the right style".

It's the same deal with us. It's not a Sims character fashion choosing screen, where I pick Hiking Hair for Hiking and Swimming Hair for Swimming. It's not always a "oh, I don't have Hiking Hair, so I guess I can't hike". You modify your hair as necessary around your schedule.

If you really want perfectly straight hair, but you also wanna swim, guess what? You got to be willing to modify your schedule to protect it before, or redo your hair when you're done (if a swim cap doesn't work, which in my experience, doesn't). If you really want microbraids to last you the summer, guess what? Everything you do, past that point, will be with the microbraids! If I wanna go paintballing, and I have locs, I either gotta plan for protection over my head or I have to make time to wash it when I'm done. It's not like I just don't go! When I had my afro, it wasn't "oh, but it's not a protective style, what happens if I wanna go-" then I have to take care of my hair! It's a part of my day.

Idk, sometimes I feel like y'all misunderstand our hair like it's a helmet, or an inconvenience, or like something that it would be hard to just... Work into our schedule. It's not. We do what we have to, in order to do what we want to. I know what hairstyles I signed up for and I know what care is entailed alongside it (which is why I wrote this lesson). It's normal for us.

[creatingblackcharacters]

I'm seeing people mention color picking on my post about whitewashing, and while that is very much an option, we must ALSO keep in mind when we're color picking from an original Black character design.... That is also ass!

For example... You know him... You know I love him... You know I hate his design....

If I were to color pick the brown off of this image, say his cheek and his arm, I'm going to get back shades of ashy brown and tinted green. I would be drawing something equally disrespectful with these tones 😭 and I don't think we should do that, personally. Just because Canon is insulting, doesn't mean you have to be- isn't that like, a core fandom mentality?

[Color picker tool]

SOMETIMES, you gotta look at a piece and EXTRAPOLATE!! "Hm... What would be a respectful dark brown skin tone that could work here?" for example:

(yes ik they're the same ones from before lol)

Point is, I'm far more worried about the Black fan feedback and respect than I am about "copying it directly". Personally. 🙌🏾

[creatingblackcharacters]

Proper Brown Skin Lighting: ft my arm

In da club, in da dark parking lot, in da grass at sunrise, in da direct morning sunlight 👍🏾

What didn't happen: Ice changed skin colors!!! 😱😱😱 Nope. I'm the same exact shade of brown in every single one of these images, taken throughout this weekend.

What did happen: lighting and color reflected off my arm! I am The Constant, I am The Work of Art- the lighting must work with ME and MY skin color. Same as you, a respectful artist, ought to be doing with your Black characters!!

[My Lesson on Lighting]

[creatingblackcharacters]

I run a fandom blog that, to my knowledge, seems decently popular. I'm white. Do you have any general advice for ways I can help fight against fandom antiblackness? As far as I can tell, our fandom (the part of it here on Tumblr, anyway) is actually pretty good at not being racist, and the video game itself that we're fans of has several prominent characters who are Black or Black-coded, and a good chunk of the cast of voice actors are Black. I genuinely appreciate them and have made a few posts expressing this, but it feels like I could and should do more, y'know? But I also don't want to come off as performative, because my motivation here really is just for all members of my fandom community to feel welcome and wanted. I'm not entirely sure where the balance is

Platform Black fans, Black voices, opinions that are strongly pro-Black. Make real Black friends. It's one thing to say "oh I love these Black characters!" It's another thing to actually express that you love real Black people.

I call them Barbie Doll Wielders; where people say "look I'm so good with this Black character that I play with and control and doesn't have real opinions except the ones I give them!" But get scared when an actual Black person with thoughts and feelings is in the room. Because suddenly that "love" looks real conditional upon the enjoyment gained from the character.

[creatingblackcharacters]

hello ! i have a bit of a specific question

were locs popular among Black teenage girls/women in the early 2000's ? whenever i try looking up hairstyles from that area amongst Black teenagers, it was mostly straight hair

thank you if you do decide to answer ! and thank you for this blog in general.

I'd say the 90s, not necessarily the 2000s. Natural hairstyles like braids and locs were more popular in the 90s because there was a... A cultural boom of Blackness and Black pride on TV and in media, if that makes sense? That doesn't mean that you can't design a character with locs! Try watching movies from the time period with Black characters.