♡ Stephanie Brown ♡

Real fandom racism is watching the darkest characters get boxed into the specific outsider pov trope over and over despite them being a core member of the cast. it's watching everyone have in depth headcanons for every character but them, denying them the complexity their counterparts get. It's them getting written out of their own plots, receiving little to no audience sympathy when they ARE complex, and, most importantly, watching them get cast in the same exact role when shipping comes in

but all this isn't loud, it's quiet and unnoticeable unless you've had to watch it play out with every favorite character you've had ever since you were ten and started engaging with fandom. it's repetitive, uncreative, infuriating and worst of all NOBODY WILL LISTEN WHEN YOU POINT IT OUT because you're just imagining it and they're not touching you. I've been making my own content and I've seen how people will go out of their way NOT to engage or engage specifically only to discredit a character of color.

This list stopped updating a while ago and probably isn't reflective of the complaint above, but it also illustrates the point well.

I especially recommend looking at Tim Hanley’s gendercrunching blog posts, which offer an in-depth look at what creative roles women have filled at both DC and Marvel for a decade plus worth of comics.

Both the post on editorial’s treatment Stephanie Brown (which is what this is a screenshot of) and the one on Cassandra Cain are also excellent.

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free, mostly teaches anatomy and how to draw people. But does have art talks and teaches the basics.)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard and teaches you everything)

Aaron Rutten (free, tips about art, talks about art programs and the best products for digital art)

BoroCG (free, teaches a verity of art mediums from 3D modeling to digital painting. As well as some tips that can be used across styles)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free, teaches digital painting and has classes in Spanish)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price. Mostly teaching character designs and simple backgrounds.)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney. Mostly nature art)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Sinix Design (has some tips on drawing people)

Winged canvas (art school for free on a verity of mediums)

Bob Ross (just a good time, learn how to paint, as well as how too relax when doing art. "there are no mistakes only happy accidents", this channel also provides tips from another artist)

Scott Christian Sava (Inspiration and provides tips and advice)

Pikat (art advice and critiques)

Drawbox (a suggested cheap online art school, made of a community of artist)

Skillshare (A cheap learning site that has art classes ranging from traditional to digital. As well as Animation and tutorials on art programs. All under one price, in the USA it's around $34 a month)

Human anatomy for artist (not a video or teacher but the site is full of awesome refs to practice and get better at anatomy)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

📝As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. If you want to go fancy Michaels is always a good place for traditional supplies. They also get in some good sales and discounts. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are usually more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates. Galaxy, Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, or Chromebook device. )

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99 usd, IPAD & IPHONE ONLY)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, animation and more. Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Aseprite ($19.99 usd but has a free trail, for pixel art Windows & macOS)

Drawpile (free and for if you want to draw with others)

IbisPaint (free, phone app ONLY)

Medibang (free, IPAD, Android and PC)

NOTE: Some of these can work on almost any computer like Clip and Sai but others will require a bit stronger computer like Blender. Please check their sites for if your computer is compatible.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

All the photos on this tumblr ad the animal photo reference site I run is another resource available for artists to use!

hi, not at all! i understand why a lot of people have the cass using asl headcanon, or even see her as mute, but to me its just a complete misunderstanding of her character and often comes from a place of racist stereotyping instead of genuine representation.

cass is not mute. she didnt know any spoken language growing up. she grows up only reading body language and her brain processes body movement as a language on its own. sign language is its own language, (and for the sake of simplicity im going to be refering to asl), but cass had no basis of a language, so asl would be incredibly complicated for her to understand (in her early batgirl days at least).and we do see when she does learn how to talk, she enjoys talking (albeit short and stunted sentences). shes likes being snarky, she likes being sarcastic, she likes making jokes and finally explaining how she feels about things, and even in the new 52 reboot, she really enjoys reciting shakespeare with basil karlo. she didnt have a choice in these things growing up, david took it away from her, but now as batgirl and with people like babs + bruce shes able to learn and express herself.

a lot of people who dont know much about cass will see that she grew up not knowing how to talk, and jump to "well, shes mute" because its the easier option to portray instead of her fumbling her way through a sentence or trying to understand the way she talks. they read that she knows body language and will portray her using asl because they misunderstand both her disability and asl as a language.

there are ways to write a cass who knows asl, and i do think its something she'd learn eventually as a way to communicate silently on missions or in a tough situation, but a lot of people aren't writing about it in that way. when im scrolling ao3 for cass fics, im trying to find cass fics written by people who read cass comics. its why i have soooo many tags filtered out that dont even have to do with cass. a huge majority of fics that have the mute cassandra cain or cassandra cain uses asl tag is fics where cass is only a secondary character, if that. ones where she'd only show up to hug her brothers and sign that she loves them and leaves the story.

and since i couldnt really find a way to transition into this, im shoving it here. there are a lottt of (mostly unintentional, but still harmful) racially stereotypical headcanons in the batman fandom, from tim drake being east asian because hes super smart and often meek in fanon, to jason being latino because he was poor and angry. but cass, being an asian girl, and being portrayed as silent and docile (fanon cass's entire character being about loving her brothers, being bruces favourite, how she could never disappoint them, how she gets along with all of them. etc) is just. racist. the people who write cass like this are tryinggg to insert diversity and representation into their works but it just comes across as gross and uninformed.