PaintedRiver

So you might be saying: Lion why a guide on drawing black people? Well young blood it’s because a lot of people cant…seem…to draw…black people..Amazing I know. 

Racist (caricatures) portrayals of black people have been around forever, and to this day people can’t seem to draw black people like they are human. If your artwork resembles any of the above even remotely your artwork is racist and offensive. If you try to excuse that as a stylistic choice you’re not only a terrible artist, but racist too!!! Congrats.

Whitewashing is also a problem. A lot of people refuse to draw black features on canonly black characters. While this example isn’t colored, lightening the skin-tone of a character is also considered whitewashing. So lets start with features!

Now all black people have different noses thats a no-brainer, but black noses tend to have flatter bridges, and wider nostrils. Please stay from triangular anime noses and small button noses. Your drawings should not depict black people with abnormally large noses. (Especially if you do not draw other characters this way)

If you feel like the way you draw lips on black characters is offensive or resembles a caricature,it probably does and you should change it. ABSOLUTELY AVOID PLACING LIPS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FACE. 

Hair is so diverse! Please get used to drawing braids, locs,kinks and coils! If you can learn to draw ringlets and long waves you can learn how to draw black hairstyles.

Add clips! Learn how to draw baby-hairs and never be afraid to add color Pinterest and Google are free my dudes! Also try using square brushes for blocking in coils.

OK THAT’S ALL YOU GUYS

Having troubles with facial angles in your drawing style?

Try a 3D sculpture of your art in your own style in a free program that is simple and very easy to use.

The program is called Sculptris and is a free off-shoot program from Zbrush, that program that you keep hearing about but either takes selling your kidneys or piracy to actually use. 

If you download it and sculpt out a facial model, you can have references for your own work for all of time. No more endlessly searching Google for reference materials or twisting/rotating/flipping a drawing to see if there are flaws. And you can easily edit it to create more facial types. This way, you can make character references for any and every face and facial angle that you can think of.

The program offers mirroring right from the start, so your faces will be perfectly symmetrical. You can turn off the symmetry for things like scars or otherwise. 

It takes a little time. For instance, I downloaded the program on Christmas and, in my spare time, this took a few days of getting familiar with the program (first day) and then sculpting for a few minutes each day, mostly due to my perfectionist nature. And this one isn’t even done. I still have to mold the mouth, ears, and other smaller aspects before I consider it done. However, I was so giddy over the possibilities that I wanted to share this with my fellow artists.

GUYS????

This really useful oh my goodness. It takes a little figuring out, but once you get the hang of it it’s actually pretty easy. Just watch a couple youtube videos. Seeing how other people do it helps you to make sense of it.

freAKIN’ WHOA

Y'all are allow to use references. Like people out here are like using refs are cheating I...

Use references You're gonna look like a fool if you say this shit to someone who like...does this shit for a living

Please for the Love of God has references PLEASE

Anyone who says real artist don't use references don't know what they are talking about

I didn't spend most of my college career learning about art and history of for y'all to be saying this nonsense

My first completed code scarf. The colored stripes, in an ombre of yarns from white to red, say ‘I love you.’

My first completed code scarf. The colored stripes, in an ombre of yarns from white to red, say ‘I love you.’