While looking at some illustration tutorials online, I came across a source which, after explaining how to draw a body with idealized proportions, also provided articles explaining how to draw people based on ethnic origin. The tutorials, written by Joumana Medlej, and found on the cedarseed website, split people into “Human Types”, including a tutorial for “Human types 1: Asians“, “Human types 2: Caucasians“, and “Human Types 3: Africans and Pacifids“.
I found this interesting because most of the time, when taught to draw people, you (the student) are told of the idealized body proportions in depth, and then briefly informed of the fact that all people are different, so there may be variations. Sometimes you are told that women are normally seven heads tall, while men are usually eight heads tall. But there is never ever ever a discussion of the variations in human appearance according to ethnic origin, while the standard drawing guide itself is based off of the ancient Greece classical proportions, and a lot of the how to drawing books picture mostly white models.
I can see why this happens. Quantifying certain physical characteristics to a particular ethnicity or race has the potential of becoming very problematic very quickly. But at the same time, the lack of ability to draw people (accurately) from all different ethnic groups is a large contributor to things such as racial caricatures and whitewashing (barbies with all white features differing only in skin colour, for example).
From the introduction to the Human Types tutorials:
A good knowledge of anatomy is indispensable to draw the human figure, but it is only the beginning. Left to our own devices, we instinctively draw people like ourselves, or to use a world that’s almost taboo, people of our own race. The serious artist or illustrator, though, sooner or later finds him/herself confronted to the anatomy and physionomy of other races – and the need to know how to portray them.
The word “race” has acquired a detestable aura, and for this reason I use “human type” instead (another reason is that I take liberties with anthropological racial classifications to keep things simple and manageable). But what it denotes is something we illustrators cannot hide from. To avoid perpetrating grotesque cultural errors such as ran amuck in the days of colonialism, we need to know what physically defines populations of different parts of the world. As my work often deals with ethnic themes, I searched high or low for some kind of guide but fond none. So I put this one together for anyone who aspires to create characters true to nature and not draw Africans that look like Europeans with dark skin.
Word.
My one criticism is due to the limitations of the medium: a tutorial such as this can’t show the amount of variation in each group, and the one drawing provided for each is not enough visual source material to be (on its own) a functional tutorial. I do think, though, that it is a good jumping off point for being able to draw people accurately from all ethnicities or races, which is something that I myself still struggle with.
equalitymedia 