This is a bit weird, but I wanted to ask about the skin-tones of your main characters.
Why did I want to make a topic of this? Because I was curious and need to get it off my mind.
So, what is the skin-tone of your current or recent main characters? Are they lighter or darker than your own? Are they technicolored (has a fantastic color) in skin-tone?
I want to know because I am weird and make no sense sometimes.
My Turn:
My main characters in my Project Trio are Black if they existed on Earth, but Aeris would be mixed yet still have some hints of Black in her.
So, Jorildyn, Demetrius, Nicholas, and Isilynor are darker than me in skin-tone. Aeris is a little bit lighter than me and Mal’gel is even lighter than Aeris and me.
I’m working on a romance isekai shitpost where one of the love interests is madly in love with the girl who broke his arm. Except for Fuji, who is a yamato nadeshiko type character, Hasu and Tsubaki are on the tanner side.Tsubaki is just naturally darker skinned due to her Brazilian heiritage while Hasu is just sun-tanned from being outside a lot. Not Nagatoro dark but still noticably darker than normal.
One character is described by the other as being surprisingly tan for being so blond, and that he therefore must spend a lot of time at the beach. The other is only described as being attractive in the typical fashion of the day, with unpowdered long hair tied back in that regency pony tail they typically wore. Skin tones are up to the reader to decide.
I hate describing characters too much because I hate the way I have to mentally erase so many of the features other writers describe to me. I just let the reader create the character they want to envision. If they want to imagine people of color, there’s nothing wrong with that, and if they default to white, then that’s historically typical too. Skin tone isn’t relevant in this particular book since it doesn’t really even take place on Earth. I imagine most readers just insert their favorite movie star/pop singer/etc. into books anyhow, eh? ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
Gosh, I felt this in my very core! Like all I know is that they are human or humanoid.
So, when I describe a character physical feature, another thing is that the way I picture them in my mind is stark different from my explanation. I also don’t want to go in so much detail in explaining their looks.
Like okay we get it and I get it! They are pretty or pretty average looking, who cares about it unless it is plot relevant of some kind.
This is Shree. Her fictional country is based off of India. She has darker skin than some of my other characters. She’s one of the protagonists of Their Posthumous Lives duology.
And this is Anastasia. Another protag in the same duology. Her fictional country is based off of Russia. She’s pale.
Ah I halfway expected that it would be like a polar bear who have white fur and black skin. So I guess that would make all of Pinti’s kind orange-skinned.
The guy wouldn’t even have a chance to do it to her. She’s trained herself to hear the subtlest sounds of threats. She’d disarm him in seconds. Also Kattalunae are pretty intimidating to Humans. They’re like giant feline beasts.
Krista: Fair skin with a permanent tan, European / Slavic heritage, born and raised in Israel (Negev).
Polanski (Krista’s mother): Fair skin with a permanent tan, Russian mercenary, lived in Israel for the past 28 years.
Wolff (Krista’s father): Fair skin with a permanent tan, German mercenary with aristocratic lineage, lived in Israel for the past 28 years.
Karen: Olive skin, Israeli-Mizrahi heritage.
Leon (Karen’s son): Olive skin, Israeli-Mizrahi (/ Ashkenazi*) heritage.
*Zorik, Leon’s father, has mixed European / Middle Eastern heritage. Zorik’s exact family history is unknown, but his parents were from two families of giants…some mountainous regions where the ‘typical’ adult height is over two-meters…
…Honourable mention to… Ashley (the main character of my first story): Porcelain-white skin, a full albino with Polish / Ukrainian (Ashkenazi) heritage.
Most of my main cast are either Black or Brown (6/10 characters) (which is very different from my own). One member of the main cast is blue, and the last three are White.
As for my side characters, supporting characters and background characters, there are a lot of different colours in there because there are a lot of different species. My artbreeder folder is very colourful
