@triaelf9 / triaelf9.tumblr.com
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John by @rosenkranz-does-things
Alecto by @c-rowlesdraws
Another prophecy fulfilled…
I love indui's so much... please look at it...
Guys! You both have good points! Yelling won't make those points any stronger! ^_^;
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(This is part one of two lessons, with this one focusing on how our hair itself! The next lesson will encompass how to incorporate its existence into your writing. It'd be a massively long post otherwise.)
So! Black hair. Black hair is a CENTRAL, ESSENTIAL part of our culture and identity. Writing and drawing it means understanding the vulnerability and trust that comes with access to it, and yes, it is racist to suggest that ‘it’s just hair’ when our hair serves such an important role in our history and art. I already wrote a mini-lesson and ask on the topic, but being aware of what our hair looks like, and what means to us, will help you to understand why we care that you put in the effort to get it right.
We are not a genetic monolith! However, for the sake of this series, we are focusing on 3C-4C, because 1) it's most likely to be seen in life and 2) least likely to be seen in popular art! When you are creating your characters, consider the style and care for THESE textures. I will get more into this next lesson.
Let's get into SOME of the hairstyles!
“So, what’s the phenomenon behind the Afro? Well, it’s our hair in its most natural form, but that’s only part of the phenomenon. It’s a way to fight the status quo without saying a word.”
-Ebony Magazine, The History of the Afro
When nonBlack society hears ‘afro’, they think completely picked out, Black power imagery, political statement. And it was, and is! But in actuality, afros are just the natural hair growing out of a Black person's head. The same way your hair grows out of your head. Our texture. Even my hair is not allowed to be ‘hair’, it has to ‘assign’ my Blackness; my distance from whiteness. Imagine, the hair growing out of your head being automatically associated with how you should be perceived. Just by existing, it is making a statement in a Eurocentric society.
There are SO MANY TYPES of braids and ways to wear them. If you can imagine a design, I bet there's a Black braider that can do it!
CORNROWS ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY BRAIDS! Internalize this! They may be used in the same style, but they are NOT INTERCHANGEABLE TERMS!
Braids are considered a protective style; that is, a hairstyle designed to let our hair 'rest' and grow without having to manipulate it. If you have a Black character that's constantly on the go and/or doesn't have time to focus on their hair, and you want an accurate, more true-to-life experience for them, braids can be a crucial part of character design.
(Yes, while that link has plenty of examples, it was also self-indulgent. Locs are gorgeous, Black men with locs are gorgeous!)
"Locs vs Dreads": As someone in the loc community, there’s been a push to refer to the style as ‘locs’, rather than ‘dreadlocks’. Some people with the style will not care, but others take it very seriously, so it’s something to keep in mind. There’s a societal stigma behind having locs, that they’re ‘dirty’ or ‘unkempt’ or ‘lazy’ and that is NOT true. Locs are beautiful, and they take far more effort than people seem to want to believe lmao.
Locs, though there is currently a positive revival, are still highly discriminated against. Kids have been expelled from school and even have had their hair forcibly cut off to be allowed to participate in sports. Many places won't hire you if they think your hair is 'unprofessional' or 'dirty', especially if you're a Black woman. To consider yet another example of the hair that grows out of my head 'dirty' is extremely racist.
LOCS ARE NOT BRAIDS!!!!
Locs are also a protective style, albeit a much more permanent one, and one that comes with a long history and culture behind it. Many Black people consider the biblical story of Samson to be a man with locs, and that our locs hold power within them. That not just anyone should be allowed to touch your locs. So, if you're interested in mythology and powers, that might be an intriguing way to go, that would be possible if you had a Black character with locs!
The lack of awareness and concern about our hair isn't just a fan or amateur creator experience. It is ubiquitous in the professional media world. Black actors, actresses, and models have discussed having to do their own hair when working, because no one would properly care for it on set if it wasn't familiarly white. It’s admittedly grown better- however! After decades of not having options other than ‘stereotypical afro’, ‘box cut’, and ‘white people hair’, it is LONG PAST TIME to stop settling for the bare minimum in Black character design. We can tell when "one of us" (with some sense, at least) wasn't in the room to make decisions in popular media.
If you were curious about the lesson title, here's a current example of what I'm talking about in video games. Tell me if you see a pattern:
This style? The Killmonger? We seent it!!!! It has become the “hairstyle to show I understand the exaggerated swagger of a young Black teen” option, the "I know the Black people!" go-to, and frankly, we are all tired of it. Okay it was cute on Ekko. The Black Delegation DEMANDS the professional video game industry pick something else! We have SO MANY DIFFERENT HAIRSTYLES!
I'll give you an example on the other end (not trying at all; refer to Lesson 1) from one of my favorite games, Hades:
This is my blorbo. My favoritest guy. I’ll fight for Patroclus being Black til the day I die. While I begrudgingly settled in my excitement, I can tell you no one Black with any voting power was in the room at Supergiant when they approved this design. Why? His texture! Locs were such an easy option if they wanted long hair! Locs existed BEFORE Ancient Greece! The man did not have a flat iron while fighting in a war! A good Black designer would have considered that!
To give him a more accurate design, some artists (myself included) lean into giving him locs (one of my favorites is @karshmallow 's Pat; a phenomenal example in caring about your Black characters). It’s something Black fans find themselves doing- redesigning Black characters. That's not something we should have to do at all, especially in media we pay for!
But if you REALLY want your Black character to have straight hair, that leads into the last style of this lesson:
We do have straight hair. But it’s not straight because it grew out that way! It will still look and be thicker! It might be a wig or a sew-in (human or synthetic), it might be flat-ironed (while relaxed? While natural?) It takes effort to get and maintain straight hair.
If you catch yourself thinking this, this is a racist statement. Whether you’re aware of it our not, there is a bias towards Eurocentric/white features in our society, and that includes in our media. When you think “I only drew [this Eurocentric hair texture and style] because I think it looks good on them!” I want you to PAUSE and think about the WHY. WHY do you think that this Black person’s natural features are unattractive in comparison to the white hair texture you gave them? And how hurt might a Black peer of yours would feel hearing that you find their natural features not worth drawing because they’re “not attractive”. It requires approaching your own internal biases, recognizing them, and then working to unlearn them. And that means practice! Using references to draw our hair and styles, and growing used to using OUR features on US!
Me personally, I think if you think drawing thinner hair textures is easy, thicker hair textures should be a BREEZE. I was curious, so I challenged myself and-
(it took me about thirteen minutes total to do ol boy's hair and it's still not right. I'm sick fr y'all don't even know 🤢)
@ackee has a really good art lesson on the how-tos of drawing Black hairstyles. I highly recommend checking it out, as well as following and supporting a fellow Black artist (who is far better than I!)
Finally, an option you can use for painting is downloading Black hair brushes! Vegalia has an amazing array of brushes with different types of curls, locs, and braids at her Etsy store! You can also follow her on social media to see how she applies them, and support yet another amazing Black creative!
I know this was a long one, but you made it! Just keep going. Remember, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
hey fellers
I kept seeing this cold wall/sleep arrangement meme and wanted to give it my own spin, I hope this has been informative.
when u accidentally click a link so u dont release the mouse and kind of slowly drag away from the link. threat avoided. citizens safe. for now.
When you just KNOW there is a Grimoire in there somewhere.
Watch Saltburn, they said. It's a fun class war dramedy, they said.
They definitely did not say about Barry Keoghan's escalating sensual shenanigans from mid-film onwards O_O
Finally compiled the Astarion x Tav comic pages inspired by one such shenanigan that I posted periodically in my Pa+reon chat (and a version of it on Tumblr itself), along with new additions into a whole ass booklet.
Stop them, Talnor!
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The man the myth the legend
There are people around the globe doing important work to achieve the goal of protecting our planet. This Earth Week, check out the work that the Aquarium’s Conservation and Science team is doing to tackle large issues like plastic pollution on both the national and global scale. Check out our earth week page to learn more. Remember, we’re all in this together. 💙
In honor of the Ides of March, my favorite Tiktok
"Oh, not you as well, Brutus!" in that voice is the best translation of 'Et tu, Brute?' I've ever heard.
now i've watched a fair amount of d&d i've started to pick up on the differences between dm style i think
like brennan IS all the bad guys. every game he dms is brennan vs the players. he makes npcs and battles that make his friends throw things at him and he smirks the whole time. he makes them tell him their worst fears and then he makes them do it. and it's awful and amazing and really funny
matt IS exandria. his characters and battles never feel written or constructed, they just feel like things that already existed in the world. it's all about verisimilitude with him, and he's amazing at it. he tends to fade into the background and let the players react to the story and it makes everything he does incredibly cinematic
aabria dms like she's just another player at the table reacting to the story, right up until someone gets lulled into a false sense of security and tries to fool around and THEN she throws a curveball by making them deal with the consequences of their choices. she's like oh you think that's funny?? then i'm about to be hilarious, bitch. and she keeps getting away with it bc she's just that good!
basically, brennan's an evil bastard, matt's the world, and aabria's the queen of consequences
or:
brennan - fuck
matt - around
aabria - find out
