At some point "ignorance" of obvious trends has to be called out for what it actually is...racism. No excuses.
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This Nessa (from Pokemon SwSh) whitewashing controversy is kinda blowing up in the art community right now
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
I don't know enough about art/coloring/shading/etc. to really have an informed opinion on this one way or another.
I will say that after looking through the thread and seeing the examples of the art of Nessa, as well as other black Nintendo characters provided by DigitalOP there DOES appear to be a bit of a problem is regards to the lightening of their skin tone in fan art. I doubt any of it is intending to be racist, hell most of these artists probably didn't think about it at all, but unintentional racism is still racism, and I can't fault anybody who has a problem with it.
Whenever a white or Japanese character is portrayed by a racial minority in cosplay/fanart/etc. there's always a vocal population decrying "just make your own character." Then, when we actually DO start to get some dark skinned/black representation, people turn around and make em white/light skinned. Shit's stupid.
I will say that after looking through the thread and seeing the examples of the art of Nessa, as well as other black Nintendo characters provided by DigitalOP there DOES appear to be a bit of a problem is regards to the lightening of their skin tone in fan art. I doubt any of it is intending to be racist, hell most of these artists probably didn't think about it at all, but unintentional racism is still racism, and I can't fault anybody who has a problem with it.
Whenever a white or Japanese character is portrayed by a racial minority in cosplay/fanart/etc. there's always a vocal population decrying "just make your own character." Then, when we actually DO start to get some dark skinned/black representation, people turn around and make em white/light skinned. Shit's stupid.
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Okay, so a lot of people seem to think "but wait, this character doesn't look white to me...?" is a proper response to an accusation of whitewashing.
It isn't.
The impulse to make a character some percentage lighter, to minimize features not traditionally associated with whiteness/white-dominated beauty ideals, all this passes as whitewashing.
"Oh, I'm not going to make her white or anything, but I think she looks prettier with lighter skin!" That is a classic example of whitewashing. Colorism is a thing.
You're going out of your way to portray yourself as shockingly dense.
A thorough OP, 500+ posts, and even without all this it doesn't take much imagination to see how whitewashing in fan art might be a worthwhile subject of discussion.
I literally started a stop timer about 45-60 seconds after they revealed Sonia and waited for the first lewd drawing of her to come across my twitter.
It took about 10ish minutes...by 3:00PM, Twitter was fucking flooded with them.
As a self-identifying nerd and self-aware 'weeb', I find it both hilarious and fucking horrifying how "efficient" waifuism has gotten in nerd culture. Every time a new female character gets revealed (or shit, just a new design of an existing character) the internet hive-mind effectively says, "Well shit we just GOTTA draw her in like 20 different pieces of lingerie and participating in at least 10 different sexual fetishes! HURRY!"
I feel like Nintendo girls have it the absolute worst though, because they get the full brunt from both Eastern and Western fan-artists.
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They got her all types of tan and red. Its an interesting discussion because it seems most artists go for the light brown, tan, and red and don't even think twice about shades of melanin because the black coloring is "just enough" to show she's a black character right? Shinobu is def a lot darker than these arts and its odd to tell artists how to make their art but there def needs some attention to be paid to skin tones.
Comparison to a accurate Shinobu
This practice of whitewashing is indeed very annoying.
I have no problem with certain artists getting chewed out for it.
I have no problem with certain artists getting chewed out for it.
Doesn't surprise me that a Japanese artist would whitewash like that, Japan isn't exactly a country known for being very respectful of black people.
As a brown person, I'm not offended by the image in the OP. However, there are a couple examples linked that are a bit more egregious and "lightwashed". Anyway, it's difficult to persuade artists to gain a new perspective on matters such as these without seeming antagonistic. For the most part there didn't seem to be much malice, aside from the later trolls, so I'm glad people like the character I guess. Just my two cents.
Good looking out, homie! This is on the docket next paycheck.
That's how 90% of her fan art is, and why I couldn't include even the G rated images referenced in the comparison earlier because most of them were dodgy.
Its a good thing Luty Chan is here to tell people when to be angry.
"not everyone uses an eyedropper" is kind of missing the point when every artist worth a damn uses reference images, and Luty seems to believe that a person has to literally be pale white for whitewashing to apply.
He kind of proved himself wrong too, since no variation of a blue overlay layer is going to make her skin pink like the fan art in question, quite the opposite in fact.
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Thought I'd post my Shinobu fan art (drawn as a magical girl), I was conscious of whitewashing and made sure not to lighten her skin when I drew it-
There's pics of Dratini "spreading" itself on a bed. I can see you being surprised by the lighter skin color but sexualizing ANY character shouldn't surprise you if you've been on the internet before.
Having seen the rest of this guys portfolio, i'll say right now you don't want to back this horse.
The image in the op looks like a lighter/brown skinned person in a low light environment, she's definitely a lighter tone than in the official artwork, but I don't think it was intentional on the artists part though ( or at least I hope so); I think a lot of artists, even seasoned ones, don't understand how to render dark skin or how it reacts to light.
I've seen so many people who have very little understanding of lighting/shading and color theory shitting on artists for this stuff in the past that I almost want to say that people who don't know these things shouldn't be allowed to have this discussion. Artist just picked a palette and ran with it. She doesn't look white. They didn't "erase" any of her features. Seeing people turn this into a white-washing argument is pretty frustrating.
why are you guys terrorizing these people who want to whitewash! to have them learn they'd have to do something unthinkable. look at non-black pictures for reference or some shit or worse...practice
A scary amount of people in this thread seem to think "whitewashing" means "portraying as white".
It has nuanced meanings, but the underlying principle is that artists find dark skin ugly and can subconsciously (or deliberately) lighten the color of a character's skin because they think it's more attractive...
... EVEN
IF
YOU
CAN
STILL
TELL
THEY'RE
NOT
WHITE.
If you do not comprehend why using unnecessarily lighter skin tones to represent dark-skinned people is problematic, take some time to read into the issue and its effects before saying "color palettes".
It has nuanced meanings, but the underlying principle is that artists find dark skin ugly and can subconsciously (or deliberately) lighten the color of a character's skin because they think it's more attractive...
... EVEN
IF
YOU
CAN
STILL
TELL
THEY'RE
NOT
WHITE.
If you do not comprehend why using unnecessarily lighter skin tones to represent dark-skinned people is problematic, take some time to read into the issue and its effects before saying "color palettes".
People really bringing out colour theory with this lmao? Funny how everyone and thier mother is suddenly an illustrator versed in colour and lighting when a black character is drawn white. Anyone backing the 'pastel' or other nonsense as an excuse are showing their ass.
This artist draws almost exclusively very light skinned girls of questionable age in suggestive art, so its hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. The only other girl thats not pale is this one who looks tanned and has a very similar skintone. Ill admit they're very good at using color, and I doubt they weren't conscious of the decision to make her look similarly tanned.
Word, as an artist this whole thread is fucking embarrassing. The real controversy here is people thinking its okay to harass artists online about their content and "fixing" other peoples art as a sense of moral superiority.
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From what I've skimmed that's 70% of the thread.
ERA has a pretty bad track record with discussing colorism/race-related issues in media so this doesn't surprise me.
Only the artist knows their original intent, and may have just failed at an accurate portrayal.
At least the canon design is very clearly dark skinned. Pokemon has been quite good at diversity lately but Japan as a whole has a lot to learn. There's still too many "evil person has dark skin, but when turned good they are white" or "lets make a character based on the middle east and its mythology yet are white"...
At least the canon design is very clearly dark skinned. Pokemon has been quite good at diversity lately but Japan as a whole has a lot to learn. There's still too many "evil person has dark skin, but when turned good they are white" or "lets make a character based on the middle east and its mythology yet are white"...
Nessa's skin is a certainly a byproduct of the color palette the artist chose........and that choice involved making her skin tone lighter, it can't really be debated;.Nessa is darker in the promo art despite it having stronger lighting than the fan art in the op. I'm just trying to figure out whether it was a malicious choice, or just a byproduct of not understanding how light interacts with dark skin.
This one I'd actually say isn't that bad for most of them, at least compared to your previous examples like Marina. Doesn't help that the original game has her with inconsistent greyish skin and the fanart you posted has her as a more realistic dark brown.
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They got her all types of tan and red. Its an interesting discussion because it seems most artists go for the light brown, tan, and red and don't even think twice about shades of melanin because the black coloring is "just enough" to show she's a black character right? Shinobu is def a lot darker than these arts and its odd to tell artists how to make their art but there def needs some attention to be paid to skin tones.
Comparison to a accurate Shinobu
This is probably a mistake they didn't take in account. It is a palette choice, just not the correct one. Which makes it also white washing.
There's a fine line between choosing a slightly different skin tone than the official artwork on a stylistic whim and making a character 20 shades lighter because you can't be bothered to depict someone with dark skin.
It's the excuses that really piss me off with these things. No one ever wants to own it.
It's the excuses that really piss me off with these things. No one ever wants to own it.
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Dude the whole thing is a mess. God damn this could of been a teaching moment for that artist but fuck I do not think they will take to heart any real criticism now.
The thread replies are... well not heartening at all.
She doesnt have lighter palms, and even if she did that's not something that only happens with tanning.
That's what I said. I should clarify I meant the original art from Game Freak.
That Warhol comment is complete nonsense imo. The fanart in question isn't even remotely in the Warhol style or anything close to it.
There are a lot of anime style artwork where a character has dark skin but is Japanese, similar to characters with blonde hair but are Japanese. It's usually quite obvious if a dark skinned character is meant to be of African descent or a blonde haired character is meant to be of European descent. When I look at this character she looks black, of African descent. Not dark-skinned Japanese. That's what I see at least.
There are a lot of anime style artwork where a character has dark skin but is Japanese, similar to characters with blonde hair but are Japanese. It's usually quite obvious if a dark skinned character is meant to be of African descent or a blonde haired character is meant to be of European descent. When I look at this character she looks black, of African descent. Not dark-skinned Japanese. That's what I see at least.