so much (for) stardust

Me: Ok...? Lead the way then.

Brain:

Equiping an armor tutorial

The Swedish torch is good for an efficient and contained fire, it’s controlled and good for cooking over and produces less light and heat than other fires. It can be difficult to keep going once you burn through the original log

The teepee is your traditional campfire. Good for heat and light not great for cooking, burns through fuel fairly quickly

The star fire is one of the slowest burning and not well protected but provides an even heat good for slow cooking and is excellent if you have limited fuel and need the protection a fire can provide

The lean to is a compact and efficient fire that evolves into a dense and hot bed of coals. The structure creates a good source of air flow which can help damp wood burn. A slightly better cooking fire that isn’t as bright. It also provides protection from wind on one side

The platform fire is incredibly hot and will create a very thick bed of coals but it doesn’t have a lot of air flow and is a little harder to get started.

The log cabin is big and bright and has lots of air flow which again is good for damp logs. You can also use this structure to start a smaller fire in the middle while drying out bigger logs. This fire will crumble into a messier bed of coals that don’t produce particularly even heat for cooking.

The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun

I grew up with this book, which is frickin’ enormous, and it was endlessly fascinating to young me to pour over the side by side comparison of events taking place concurrently under different headings and in different parts of the world.

Or if you want something you can put on your wall, there’s this:

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500

✨️with a special focus on colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure✨️

And sometimes fanfiction is, ‘Watch me do a fucking KICK FLIP off this cool sentence!! Also here's some sex'

“Where is the light coming from?” “The same place as the music.” Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer of LOTR

How & Why It's A Problem

If I had to summarize the frustration I have with this topic in one image, I'd use JeCorey Holder's (queer Black creative!) meme:

Now here's the thing. I'm not saying you have to be a master at lighting. I'm surely not. Hell, I still play around with lighting in my art in ways that aren’t the ‘most realistic’. You can’t ask me the technical explanations behind ‘color theory’ or 'contrast' without me doing some more reading. However… I don’t think anyone needs an art degree to understand this point:

We should be able to SEE your brown skinned Black characters!

I brought this up in my lessons about skin tones and blushing, and it applies with lighting as well. If all of your other characters have focused light and shadows, so should your Black characters.

However, this does NOT mean making them lighter-skinned!!!!

It's not funny nor logical at all to suggest that they somehow can't be seen like your other characters when you’re the one creating the piece. It's like a classic fifth-grade racist joke, “You blend in at night”. Har-de-har.

I was once rudely told to my face (well in the DMs) that a Black character that was completely Europeanized looked like that “because of the [sepia] lighting”. So I'm going to give you all, gracious readers, an example to show that that's not true.

This is Ana Flávia, Afro-Brazilian model! Gaze upon her beauty! Notice how in both of these filters, Ana did not, in fact, turn into a white woman! Because, my friends, that is not how that works! At all!

Here are some other examples of Black people in non-color lighting:

None of these people vanished from the frame just because there was no color. They didn't have to paint on lighter makeup to be captured by the camera. What do they all have in common (in this example)?

Lighting!

Now let’s discuss different ways to think about and potentially try instead!

What I want you all to keep in mind, is that the art you’re painting:

And I know that's silly right, like yeah no shit Ice, we knew that. BUT my point here is don’t be afraid to study photography, theatre, and staging for ideas. They actively work with light! It’s why I share so many images of models; it’s purposeful, focused staging of light with many of these compositions!

Brown-skinned Black people- brown-skinned people in general- GLOW in the light! Our skin reflects environmental light! There’s so much opportunity to play with that, and you can see different examples in those mediums.

Here are a couple articles of lighting in film focused on Black actors.

When lighting a person with dark complexion, the answer is not LIGHTENING THE SKIN, it’s understanding how light reflects off of dark skin.” -Nilah Magruder

Nilah Magruder (Black creator!) has an ENTIRE, thorough and wonderful essay on the topic, far better than I could give! She incorporates the use of cameras, lighting, painting, and more- so rather than be redundant here, I'm going to spotlight (ha see what I did there. It's okay, I know I'm funny) her and her explanation.

Incorporating Blackness in Color/Colorful Lighting

@dsm7 has an excellent and short visual explanation of how picking certain colors will lead to washing out or whitewashing Black characters, and how certain lighting and backgrounds (think the black and white photos on brighter backgrounds) will change the way their skin tone looks.

@nicosbighead has one of my favorite images on here, that shows how many different colors can still be used to convey the image of Blackness. Notice how all those pinks still worked?

@gaksdesigns has a beautiful picture here that I feel utilizes the light in a very minimal yet effective way to show highlights even on a palette that's fully brown.

This article approaches from a lighting perspective via filmmaking, but essentially Sade Ndya suggests instead of increasing the amount of light, change the color/lens of the light based on your character’s skin, as well as for the circumstances of the scene. They'll remain vibrant that way, and you’ll still capture what you need.

I know one way I do this on CSP (I think I’ve mentioned this but I can’t remember) is to use the Add Glow tool with the same or a similar shade of the character’s brown skin tone as a highlight under natural light, or maybe use different colors or filters depending on the sort of light on their skin at the time.

Here’s a reddit about it too, just because I know y’all value Reddit on here, and someone else discussed the topic that both Nilah and Sade discussed.

Is It Intentional?

There are going to be times where you intend for the light to be minimal. Maybe it’s a style choice. That should still show purposeful composition. Here’s an interview with famed Black director Ava Duvernay discussing the intentional darkness on Black actors in the prison scene in the movie Selma. To show that they're both trapped in prison AND that Martin is temporarily low on resolve- it's a part of the story that's being told.

I'm always talking about this: there is a difference between intention (and following through), and neglecting to think about it at all. And neglect isn't what we want, because often we can tell visually when it is- when an artist simply did not think to do it for one versus the rest.

Sidenote, on Youtube in the suggestions after Ava's interview, are also plenty of videos discussing lighting for dark-skin as well- why not take the chance to look?

Conclusion

We do not lack for light! We aren’t flat and lightless when you see us in life. It's actually a pretty awesome part of being brown-skinned. If you’re giving proper, flattering lighting to everyone else, give it to us as well. Study and experiment with ways to highlight brown skin.