Skin Tutorial - Blog Posts

vitiligo notes for artists

I’ve noticed that vitiligo has been becoming more common in art, and I think that’s really cool! But as a person with vitiligo, and an artist, there are few mistakes I’ve noticed in people’s portrayal of the condition that I wanna address. 

1. It’s not random. Vitiligo tends to appear more often in specific places, like around the mouth or eyes, the belly button, as well as on the hands and feet. It also tends to be at least a little bit symmetrical.

2. It doesn’t change your eye color. However in some cases it can cause patches of hair to turn white or blonde. 

3. It changes over time. As a kid I had tons of vitiligo spots on my feet and legs, but they eventually faded. For a long time I didn’t have any until I developed a spot above my right eye about a year ago. So if you’re portraying a character at different points in their life, their vitiligo should change too. 

4. All skin colors can have vitiligo. I’ve noticed on Picrew and other character maker games vitiligo will sometimes only be an option for characters with dark skin. Obviously it won’t be as obvious on light skin, but unless your character is a person with albinism it should still show up. 

that’s all I’ve got for now, if I think of more I might make another post :)

How I draw skin Part 2: DON”T DRAW NATIVE PEOPLE WITH RED SKIN!!!! A tutorial

For the first tutorial on how I draw skin, see the post here.

But seriously, I’ve seen too many drawings of Native characters with literal red/pink skin to count so just in case some of you are having troubles with drawing Native people, I’ve provided a guide for you. Please take my swatches if it helps!! and no more red skinned people, please

Disclaimer: this tutorial is mainly about the artistic depictions of Indigenous Peoples in North America, where the slur and redskin caricature originated, but it would still be racist to draw other non-North/Central/South American Indigenous groups like this so…..don’t.

Edit: please stop telling me about how Native people can be pale, I’m a whitepassing & pale Native myself and nowhere do I say people shouldn’t draw Natives pale at all. The “too light” section is about whitewashing Pocahontas specifically. Don’t whitewash brown characters, but don’t draw Natives red either.