ok so, im trying to make this character, and her face claim is this beautiful woman right here, but when i got to "complexion" i drew a blank on what to put. I have searched everywhere for ways to describe her skin colour without either a) just saying "brown" or "light brown", b) using foods. I don't want to just say brown or light brown because its commonly used and i want to be a bit more descriptive, you know? and i'm avoiding food descriptors like wildfire because its offensive according to quite a few sources i've read.
so, what are some descriptors you guys would use? don't be afraid to put descriptors for all skin tones, so maybe we can get a list going!
so, what are some descriptors you guys would use? don't be afraid to put descriptors for all skin tones, so maybe we can get a list going!
Using just "light brown" isn't as far as i'm aware offensive.
Or "medium complexion" maybe?
But that might not be clear enough as a lot of people default to "everyone is white" regardless so you often have to be SUPER explicit.
These days I generally tend to just go with "brown" or "dark" (which might be problematic depending on where in the world you are too) or just specify their ethnicity to give a rough idea.
It's tricky though if you're whitey whitey (I am pancake batter beige lol) and I hope we get some more descriptors from people better suited to answer this, but ultimately, from all i've been able to establish, often it's just way less of a problem to keep it simple and straightforward.
I mean when you think about it, how many words do we use to describe white people? There aren't really many and they generally aren't overly creative. Pale, ruddy, sallow (white, pink and yellowish respectively) and how often do writers really actually bother to do anything more than that? If they do it at all. I can't remember the last time I read a white character's skin tone actually described to be honest.
I suspect that often we overthink non white skintones, i'm pretty sure just being simple and straightforward is the least offensive way to do it but maybe someone has something creative.
I mean I fully support the use of "beige" and "pink" for white skin but that's more me being facecious lol. I've decided in non visual media i'm totally assuming everyone is non white unless a writer specifically states otherwise as a protest against the "everyone is white by default" nonsense. I think if everyone did that it might convince writers they HAD to describe their characters, not just single out the non white ones to the audience.
I remember a while ago there was a makeup brand that created loads of tones but only the darker ones had food names, so social media suggested new names. People of course tried to come up with non food names for the dark tones but a few of us decided it was way funnier to rename the paler ones "Strawberry milkshake" "milky tea" and "mashed potato"
hahaha.
I'm a horrible person i'm sure.
Anyway, i'm gonna watch this with interest as i'd love more ideas for how to describe my uh.. rather many non white characters in a manner that's not super white and ignorant.
Or "medium complexion" maybe?
But that might not be clear enough as a lot of people default to "everyone is white" regardless so you often have to be SUPER explicit.
These days I generally tend to just go with "brown" or "dark" (which might be problematic depending on where in the world you are too) or just specify their ethnicity to give a rough idea.
It's tricky though if you're whitey whitey (I am pancake batter beige lol) and I hope we get some more descriptors from people better suited to answer this, but ultimately, from all i've been able to establish, often it's just way less of a problem to keep it simple and straightforward.
I mean when you think about it, how many words do we use to describe white people? There aren't really many and they generally aren't overly creative. Pale, ruddy, sallow (white, pink and yellowish respectively) and how often do writers really actually bother to do anything more than that? If they do it at all. I can't remember the last time I read a white character's skin tone actually described to be honest.
I suspect that often we overthink non white skintones, i'm pretty sure just being simple and straightforward is the least offensive way to do it but maybe someone has something creative.
I mean I fully support the use of "beige" and "pink" for white skin but that's more me being facecious lol. I've decided in non visual media i'm totally assuming everyone is non white unless a writer specifically states otherwise as a protest against the "everyone is white by default" nonsense. I think if everyone did that it might convince writers they HAD to describe their characters, not just single out the non white ones to the audience.
I remember a while ago there was a makeup brand that created loads of tones but only the darker ones had food names, so social media suggested new names. People of course tried to come up with non food names for the dark tones but a few of us decided it was way funnier to rename the paler ones "Strawberry milkshake" "milky tea" and "mashed potato"
hahaha.
I'm a horrible person i'm sure.
Anyway, i'm gonna watch this with interest as i'd love more ideas for how to describe my uh.. rather many non white characters in a manner that's not super white and ignorant.
Just about any color you try, folks will have varying ideas about what it actually looks like. That said, to just throw some various browns out there...
Sand, tawny, bronze, golden, taupe, amber, mud, ash, dusty, chestnut, various woods, umber, burnt sienna, ochre, various stones...
Perhaps try looking up a color thesaurus?
Sand, tawny, bronze, golden, taupe, amber, mud, ash, dusty, chestnut, various woods, umber, burnt sienna, ochre, various stones...
Perhaps try looking up a color thesaurus?
Novalyyn wrote:
Sand, tawny, bronze, golden, taupe, amber, mud, ash, dusty, chestnut, various woods, umber, burnt sienna, ochre, various stones...
Ben wrote:
yesssss
To expand on these, another method I'll use is searching for makeup palettes, those tend to have creative color names. I've tried to expand on the my use of better descriptors too, like instead of describing my OC as "dark" I applied "rich hickory" eyes and "deep umber" skin.
Swarthy, bronzed, wan, marble, lily-petals, roseate, hale, rubicund, roscoe...
i’ve tried using the “writing with colour” tumblr but really they don’t help me much. nothing there really made sense and they only gave one example of ACTUAL skin, so i had no idea what words to actually use for one skin colour. but thank you everyone else who gave me some words!
Hmm, honestly I don't have anything to poetic for your specific photo, since in my opinion that woman is quite light, and there are white people with that exact same skin tone, so honestly I feel like you could use many of the same descriptors. Light brown could work, but just the typical brown definitely wouldn't for that woman's specific skin tone. If anything I would personally probably describe her skin tone as 'a very light brown with peach undertones' maybe once for the description and once in an RP but then stick to 'peachy' or 'tan' any other time.
Coming from someone who reads a lot of books and rps with characters of color, I get irritated when skin tone is referred to in some poetic way like 'deep umber' or 'dark olive' constantly. I prefer that to be used a couple times but then the author/writer just stuck to 'light brown/medium brown/dark brown, light tan/medium tan/dark tan.
I was gonna toss a skin color comparison with terms chart your way but I see Ben already did hahah. It's the most popular and well put together one.
Coming from someone who reads a lot of books and rps with characters of color, I get irritated when skin tone is referred to in some poetic way like 'deep umber' or 'dark olive' constantly. I prefer that to be used a couple times but then the author/writer just stuck to 'light brown/medium brown/dark brown, light tan/medium tan/dark tan.
I was gonna toss a skin color comparison with terms chart your way but I see Ben already did hahah. It's the most popular and well put together one.
please, if you have skin colour charts, then do show them bc that link never helps me c:
Gregory wrote:
please, if you have skin colour charts, then do show them bc that link never helps me c:
Yeah I was going to put the exact same one Ben put. Honestly, any others I have found say the exact same things just a little less. That one is the most descriptive one I have ever seen and it's the one I used with my books. I can try and root around for something that gives more skin to word examples though...
*roots around*
okay yeah no, I couldn't find anything that didn't have 'food' descriptors in it. The link Ben sent is honestly the best. I would probably for your current character, put the tab with the tumblr link on one side, picture of that character on another tab side by side and scroll down through the colors until you find ones that look similar and use those descriptors. ^-^
If you're having trouble with that I can go through and do a run through and do it for you and drop all the descriptors I find for her skin tone from that link, just let me know.
In key with Lib up there- what about looking up foundation shade names?
Fiebs wrote:
In key with Lib up there- what about looking up foundation shade names?
These tend to be very bland or names of food. The words beige, honey biege,
dark beige, tan, sand, latte, chocolate, and expresso and are 99% of foundation shades.
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