@artbohemian Ah! Well with all that in mind, I say: you be patient with me and my super whiteness, I'll be patient with you and your super cis-ness, and together we'll prevent eachother from embarrassing ourselves publicly and being unintentionally hurtful because of dumb ignorance. We'll be unstoppable.

(And super quick correction, on that note, it's "transgender" not "transgendered". I'm not ~entirely~ sure why, I think it's a grammar thing? But regardless, that's a thing I've seen people scream at other people for, despite being the most innocuous mistake. Definitely not worth screaming about, but the internet is gonna be the internet.)

And I dunno. I'm still frustrated with myself. Like. I somehow had three characters and TWO of them were trans, but all were white. The probabilities there are fucked, haha. You let me off the hook, so I guess I will as well. But like you, I'm definitely always worried I'm gonna do a bad job. Guess it makes it easier to just subconsciously stick with what you know?

It's good to hear I didn't fall into the trap of making Lady masculine in that way! I had it in the back of my mind that I didn't want her to be imposing or intimidating, that veering too close to the awful cliche of angry black woman, which in turn veers toward the masculinity you speak of. (The other thing I had in mind was looking up hair references. I know that to be an irritation, artists drawing smooth straight hair on every black character. Still not confident in my abilities there, haha. But then, I'm not confident in my ability to draw hair at all.)

I'd noticed that about Rook! You used "they" or "their" or "them" in a specific way that made me realize, "ah cool, they're prolly non-binary or otherwise trans or something!" And by "based off me", you certainly mean "the fucking dorkiest forever", hahaha. I'm excited to see/learn more!

And man. That "we women will always be sure we pose in a provocative way" brings to mind the frustration that comes with looking for references. Just for my own edification, I once drew dudes using stock photos of women, and vice versa, and just...nothing makes it more clear, haha. I should do more of those...that was fun.

@Ashly

(sorry this may be confusing and equally as long, my thoughts started to run together at some point)

I actually wish I could show this within a drawing, rather than having to kinda say it, but currently I have two transgendered characters, one of which is the rook! I actually based the rook off of a Japanese transwoman named Ai Haruna. I haven't drawn her more feminine appearance (except in doodles), but sometimes I feel a little nervous that I'm misrepresenting trans characters since I'm personally not, but I've always done my research. That was why I found the castle concept more interesting for the rook. Why would she pick a less human form for herself when everyone else did (that exception being the knight, i think, but his case is different, too). I think being open-minded about gender and sexuality is an important part about being a good artist, so I try not to stray away from these issues. On a side note, some of the rook's personality is based off of you. (I think you're totes adorbs okay! <3<3<3)

race and gender are always tricky issues, but here's the perspective of a mixed black/latino girl. it's very obvious to me when an artist thinks than there can be no other way for a woman to be beautiful other than to be skinny and white and i can say that that isn't the way you draw your characters. i never noticed they were white, because i felt like i was looking at a piece of you. (or rather, like you said, that was just the extent of your mental-drawing base)

to me its especially painful to see more skilled artists (especially if they're male) repeatedly draw only two types of women and the quickest way to set me off in a seething rage is for those women to only be exclusively drawn in some sort of sexually appealing fashion. like don't worry! we women will always be sure we pose in a provocative way just for any men that may or may not be looking! :)))

you are already light years ahead of a vast majority of boring white male artists by noticing that all your characters are white. including different colors, shapes, and sizes, i don't think is a requirement initially, but an important part of good character design (penbee is v good at illustrating amazing character design!). I don't really advocate the "make every character (insert race) for the sake of being (insert race)", but i also hate the "every character is white because people will find them more attractive and likable because they are white". seems like it would be hard to know where to draw (lol literally draw) the line, but i can usually tell what someone's intentions are within a piece of work.

for me personally, i always make it a priority to include black women within my work because i grew up without those black women in my favorite tv shows and it would've meant the world to me as a child if i had've seen more. the funny (well, i guess, more terrible) thing about black women is that they are often considered more "masculine" than the pretty white counterparts, and it all leads back to the standard of beauty, you know, blah blah...grable grable...but that's my choice to include part of my experiences into their character, it's not a requirement.

final note, please do let me know if i may say/do something that may not be respectful and/or impolite or may misrepresent the trans-community!

@artbohemian (This is so giant, sorry >_>)

That notion about learning about me from these characters is something that made me very nervous about posting these, haha. Because you're right, there are giant chunks of myself among the four. Scary! I think it's why I've put off making characters for so long! And it's definitely why I don't write fiction. That's even worse. I feel like that's just a clear view into my mind. Completely random drawings, on the other hand, is a much more obscured view; makes me feel safe.

You wanted me to share more, haha, so here goes. The androgyny is definitely purposeful. I think I would feel...frustrated?...drawing the two trans women too...something. Haha. Really struggling with words! But like, many of us (most of us?) can only aspire to a kinda lower level of "passing", and I guess I feel it would be a bit of a betrayal, feel like a falsehood to make my first two trans characters look very cis. I feel like Knife Gal will pass well enough and Purple won't really, or that's what I'm going for anyway. Let's me explore a range of stuff there, I guess. (The whole passing thing is more complex and whatever, but stated as I did saves me from doubling the word count, haha.)

And _____ is also purposefully androgynous for a variety of reasons, but on the topic of transness, hmmm... Without makeup, I feel like cis men and cis women's faces look a ~lot~ closer than most think? _____ is generally not interested in the hassle of makeup, the hassle of behaving the way a woman typically "should". Not against wearing skirts, but likes slacks and a shirt and tie. That kinda thing?

So I think it could be an interesting thing to take on, a cis woman who maybe wouldn't "pass" most days, if not for the fact that she's ~is~ cis, which makes her womanhood unassailable. And she's teammate/friend to a woman who looks much more womanly, dresses more womanly, behaves more womanly, partly because she has to "prove it", partly wanting to be those things anyway. If that makes ANY sense. Lady's the most obviously feminine of the bunch, outwardly and inwardly. Her nickname will NOT be ironic, haha.

AND GOSH, this ties a lot into the previous paragraphs. "Typical attractive skinny yet impossibly shapely (often white) woman" is a topic I could ramble about for twenty thousand words, haha. It's so important to me, drawing-wise and life-wise. I try to push back against that in my drawings, which I think (hope) is obvious. I fail with the "often white" part too often, which I hate about myself, and need to work harder at. Even disregarding how transness has affected how I go about drawing women, it's long been brain numbingly tedious and frustrating that people will only draw women this very narrow way.

Like. First off, there are a billion different ways to draw a physically attractive woman, not four, but also, why is that ALWAYS top priority??? Why does it ALWAYS have to factor in??? There are so many ways a nose or jawline or hips or boobs or etc etc etc etc etc can look!!!!!!!!!!!! So many levels of athleticism and fatness and height and attitude!!!!!!!!! So many ways a woman can be clothed in a drawing!!!!!!!!!!!! It's so great!!!!!!!!

Now I'm just ranting and preaching to the choir, haha. I just get so worked up thinking about it. Like. I go grocery shopping and see this stunning variety of faces and bodies and then I open up a tumblr or comic book or whatever and see such narrow range in people. And I guess this kinda ties into our earlier conversation about mental databases, but...that excuse only goes so far, I think! Like. It's hard work but do it anyway, it's vital. Just like it's all on me that my drawings are too white (something that was on my mind in drawing Lady.) It's hard work to improve, to overcome the various obstacles, but so what? That's a thing I like about our little group here. Everyone draws such a fun, interesting range of people. (It's something I especially love about your chess characters!!!!!!)

And I worry about overstepping bounds here, so I'll keep it vague, but you've mentioned "long day" and "exhausting week" and so on. If trading shorter (or more infrequent) rambles would help, OR if you wanna send more, longer rambles, or if there's something else I could do to help, I'm your gal!

oh god i know that feel of drawing a character correctly seemingly effortlessly while doodling, then continuously fucking up when attempting to draw them on command

that aside, what in interesting bunch of characters! i feel like i learned a lot about you from what you just drew. someone once told me that what you draw is a reflection of yourself. sometimes i'd like to believe that. i like how androgynous some of them look, or rather, none of them lean on the particularly masculine or feminine side to me, more like a good mixture of both. that makes things interesting for me to look at. you don't know how bored i get of looking at "typical attractive skinny yet impossibly shapely (often white) woman"

*ahem* what i'm trying to say is, i don't think you should be so hard on yourself, what with all the notes next to the sketches. your work is very unique. i understand that thats probably not so much a critique of yourself, but probably more of mental note when your hand doesn't want to cooperate with the vision in your head.

shit, it's been a long day. i'm deep rambling again.

edit: thank you for the knife, lady, purple, and ___ title. still makes me chuckle