Avoiding creating token characters

13

Comments

  • Joe WebbJoe Webb Posts: 837
    mjc1016 said:

    And something else that hasn't been mentioned at all...

    Why constrain one's self to reality?

    You want a bunch of Korean farmers in Kansas, as long as you can come with a why (like this isn't the 'real' Kansas or the current timeline or whatever) then, as the creator of the render, there is no reason it can't be done.

    It boils down to what YOU are envisioning...and the only person you have to satisfy looks back at you when you are brushing your teeth.

     

    It's nice to see all the cheerleading for creativity and originality from the group that is fairly well represented in the store and already has the maximum amount of convience already afforded to them.   Just saying.

    My point is that even within a 'well represented' group, there is way more variation than what could EVER be put in the store...it's just too much.  Learning how to take a few basics (yes, when those don't exist, it's a real problem) and vary them enough so everyone doesn't look like Jango Fett is a needed skill set.

    Well, we are talking about people, after all. Models of people the community wants. Some of us would like to have more choices - never an unreasonable desire in any consumer industry. Look at how ground-breaking Mr. Tuvak was, adding Spock ears to an African-American actor. If you want to have Korean elves/Vulcans/whatever, its better to start with a good, solid Korean model.

    "it's just too much" - I'm not understanding that. Its not a negative to have a virtually unlimited field to work in. Personally I'm saying I would plop down good money to have access to a fraction of the models representing European based faces and bodies in other ethnicities.

    It would be perfect if I could make them myself - not only would I be happy with my images I could make a little dough on it. But if I could do that then why would I buy nearly any character offered on this site? I just need a basic model, some morphs and a D-Former and off I go. And yet I still get characters.

     

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715
    mjc1016 said:
    nicstt said:

    +1

    I'm thinking it's a cultural (as in the internet and folks predeliction for convenience, and not related to any race,ethnicity or anything i've missed) thing; you suggest folks stop doing one click, and progress to three or four. :)

    Genetics is a wonderful and mysterious thing.  A few years ago my sister had the DNA test done to 'help find your ancestors' and it came back that we (my siblings and I) are about 56% British Isles/Ireland, 41% Eastern European (mostly Russia) and that final 3% Italian, Balkans and Native American.  Now out of that mix, we have a wide variety of skin types and tones, hair colors and types.  My wife is a mix of German, Scottish, Balkan and Native American ancestry.  

    We have a pale skinned, freckled, red-headed daughter...who unlike 90+% of the rest of those with similar skin/hair, when exposed to sunlight develops a nice tan, as opposed to 'boiled lobster'.

    There can be no 'tokens' when everyone (unless you are a clone or identical twin) is pretty much unique...or everyone is a token.

    Convenience is nice...but isn't part of being an artist expressing your own view/ideas/vision?  Why rely on someone else's?

    I agree; I buy Daz figures cause I can model cars; people, not so much.

    And then there is the time factor. But it is why I alter skins, and the various textures and seldom use more than 10 or 20% of the included morphs.

    I create my own, and do create my own items, but for someone just starting out they are great, but personally I don't see the point, if that is all one ever does. But, it doesn't matter if others follow their own visions, not mine. :)

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    nicstt said:
    mjc1016 said:
    nicstt said:

    +1

    I'm thinking it's a cultural (as in the internet and folks predeliction for convenience, and not related to any race,ethnicity or anything i've missed) thing; you suggest folks stop doing one click, and progress to three or four. :)

    Genetics is a wonderful and mysterious thing.  A few years ago my sister had the DNA test done to 'help find your ancestors' and it came back that we (my siblings and I) are about 56% British Isles/Ireland, 41% Eastern European (mostly Russia) and that final 3% Italian, Balkans and Native American.  Now out of that mix, we have a wide variety of skin types and tones, hair colors and types.  My wife is a mix of German, Scottish, Balkan and Native American ancestry.  

    We have a pale skinned, freckled, red-headed daughter...who unlike 90+% of the rest of those with similar skin/hair, when exposed to sunlight develops a nice tan, as opposed to 'boiled lobster'.

    There can be no 'tokens' when everyone (unless you are a clone or identical twin) is pretty much unique...or everyone is a token.

    Convenience is nice...but isn't part of being an artist expressing your own view/ideas/vision?  Why rely on someone else's?

    I agree; I buy Daz figures cause I can model cars; people, not so much.

    And then there is the time factor. But it is why I alter skins, and the various textures and seldom use more than 10 or 20% of the included morphs.

    I create my own, and do create my own items, but for someone just starting out they are great, but personally I don't see the point, if that is all one ever does. But, it doesn't matter if others follow their own visions, not mine. :)

    Pretty much the only time I've ever just used one character dialed straight for a non-test or "this figure just came out" render it was Lucian 7... on G3Female

     

    oh and I suppose this has eva dialled in 100%

    Though there's a few other morphs too

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175
    edited December 2016
    j cade said:

    Take the TV Show Friends.

     

    Where the frak were all the non-white people?

    In NEW YORK CITY?

     

    Still more realistic than their freakin appartment space. good lord

    That place was like the inside of Mary Poppin's handbag. Or Hermione's if you prefer ;) LOL

    Laurie

    Post edited by AllenArt on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,085

    My approach is usually looking to skewer tropes or just go for something atypical.

    So if I come up with an interesting look for a black guy (like I did earlier today), I think 'ok, now I need a scene.'

    Instead of voodoo priest, jazz musician, or street tough, I think of other stuff, like 'hey, maybe he's a wizard. Or a space explorer.'

    So now I'm rendering a scene of a black guy in a spacesuit haggling with an alien.

     

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    AllenArt said:
    j cade said:

    Take the TV Show Friends.

     

    Where the frak were all the non-white people?

    In NEW YORK CITY?

     

    Still more realistic than their freakin appartment space. good lord

    That place was like the inside of Mary Poppin's handbag. Or Hermione's if you prefer ;) LOL

    Laurie

    I think it was bigger than the Tardis...

  • PetercatPetercat Posts: 2,321

    My personal take? I just don't care about diversity that much.
    I base my characters on people that I know.
    I guess it helps that I know a lot of people.I have a black female Federal agent because I happen to know one.
    A Nordic gay Executive Protection expert because I know one.
    Lots of Russians. Goths. Whites. Lots of smart kids, as well. Most of them are good, capable people, because that's who I know.
    A few idiots, too.
    When creating a scenario that needs, say, a whorehouse madam, I ask myself "Now, who do I know?"
    Natural diversity without trying for it. (Yes, I do know a whorehouse madam. Don't ask.)
    And yes, my main Martial Arts expert is Asian, because the real one that I know is.
    Sometimes it just works out that way.

    Some stereotypes do bug me, like the standard clueless, ineffective white male father. But that's just me.
     

  • takezo_3001takezo_3001 Posts: 2,023
    edited December 2016
    wolf359 said:

    "I want diversity in my stories and art but I do not want to make token characters. I do not want to have a character just to represent a group"

    So .. Don't thencool

    Im curious as to why "diversity" matters in  ones personal Fictional stories
    Every one has a natural built in tribal bias towards their own cultural and even social economic demographic.

    When its comes to my animated  films I dont spend a single moment soul searching over wether all "groups" are repesented.
     

    I say just tell your stories  with whatever characters you personally prefer as you will never please every "group"...never !!

    I once Showed some early Clips of my  Marvel Comics based animated film project to a another Black person whom I have known for over eight years.

    ( I am Black as well ,NOT "African" - anything,  Just Black.. born in Northern Virginia  USA)

    My "African American"  Friend  became a little incensed at the absence of "our people" in the Lead Character roles.

    I politely directed him to the DAZ,& Maxon website And Told him feel free to Aquire the Software and  SKILLS that I have and Make his own
    Animated films with whatever "ethnic " Characters he desires.

    Actually, this is changing amongst the millennial population, much more than the boomer/gen X generation of blacks that I've known...As they're getting pretty fed up with standing on the outside looking in, thanks in large part to youtube and the Internet as a whole as I'm seeing a large renaissance burgeoning amongst black 3d/2d artists! Hopefully this trend will continue! 

    Also, I'm pretty sure the OP was commenting towards the 1940s trope in which blacks are mainly represented as voodoo and witch doctors, though to be fair they were trying to capture the historical cultural specifics of each ethic group featured. And they are making a serious attempt at representing differing people, with the PAs naturally picking up the slack, hell, it is much much improved since the days of V1-V3, that's for sure!

    FWIW, Latino is a culture, an ethnicity, not a "race". Every "race" has a Latino component. There, I said it, now to watch the flames. >gdr<

    Not so much here, as this forum is pretty much flame retardant! 

    Post edited by takezo_3001 on
  • ServantServant Posts: 765

    When Joss Whedon was asked “So, why do you write these strong female characters?"

    He answered "Because you’re still asking me that question."
     

    I think you can replace "female" with pretty much any "token" character in that question and the answer would still apply. Avoiding creating token characters is simply a matter of not treating them as token characters. Flesh them out. Give them a strong foundation (history, quirks, etc.). Sometimes it will happen that your supporting characters become more interesting than the main protagonist when you do it right.

    Now, when I say "simple", it doesn't mean it's easy. Personal perspectives, values, and biases will come into play when creating and writing characters. It's in your hands on how you balance these elements to produce strong characterizations.

  • TSasha SmithTSasha Smith Posts: 27,246

    I did not mean any particular token character type.   I meant anything just to show that that group is not forgotten.  The character does not have to be black or even human. I guess one could have a token cat in a story about dogs.  How to make the cat a unique character even though she or he is a cat in a story full of dogs.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,085
    edited December 2016

    Here's the render I was working on:

    Another stereotype that's weird is that media in the US often has problems with is the idea of Asian men as attractive/hunky types. Which strikes me as odd, because I find some of them VERY attractive. Go figure.

     

    Starman Haggling.png
    1748 x 1080 - 3M
    Post edited by Oso3D on
  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,931
    edited December 2016

    "My personal take? I just don't care about diversity that much.
    I base my characters on people that I know.

    I guess it helps that I know a lot of people.I have a black female Federal agent because I happen to know one.
    A Nordic gay Executive Protection expert because I know one.
    Lots of Russians. Goths. Whites. Lots of smart kids, as well. Most of them are good, capable people, because that's who I know.
    A few idiots, too.
    When creating a scenario that needs, say, a whorehouse madam, I ask myself "Now, who do I know?"
    Natural diversity without trying for it. (Yes, I do know a whorehouse madam. Don't ask.)
    And yes, my main Martial Arts expert is Asian, because the real one that I know is.
    Sometimes it just works out that way.

    Some stereotypes do bug me, like the standard clueless, ineffective white male father. But that's just me."


    +10yes

    Your creative efforts tend to be based on your personal world view and experiences and yes even your "bias's" and to that I say... ...so what.cool

    I dont care about ones bias as long as they are not being hypocrites about  them or refuses see ones own congnitive dissonance

    Like my Fellow Black friend who was upset that My animated film had no black people in the lead roles.

    While he himself has a young Fantasy asian girl fetish and will have absolutely nothing to do with black women inthe real world or his fantasy entertainment media.

    And while he was puzzled I did not naturally Choose blacks as lead characters in my movie
    He was also Expressed  grave concern that people will be  "put off" by my having  Muslim characters  in the movie,this despite him being fully aware that I am a Sunni Muslim.

    Post edited by wolf359 on
  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,273

    Daz is overdue to release yet another Native American character that looks suspiciously like Sal Menio in Tonka.

  • OK, as the token mod: this is getting into politics, please back off from that part of the discussion.

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,130

    My approach is usually looking to skewer tropes or just go for something atypical.

    So if I come up with an interesting look for a black guy (like I did earlier today), I think 'ok, now I need a scene.'

    Instead of voodoo priest, jazz musician, or street tough, I think of other stuff, like 'hey, maybe he's a wizard. Or a space explorer.'

    So now I'm rendering a scene of a black guy in a spacesuit haggling with an alien.

     

    Parenthetically, I have long wanted Morgan Freeman to play a Gandalf-like wizard.  He's just the right mix of dignified age, irascibility, power, and occasional whimsey. 

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 12,749
    Ostadan said:

    Parenthetically, I have long wanted Morgan Freeman to play a Gandalf-like wizard.  He's just the right mix of dignified age, irascibility, power, and occasional whimsey. 

    I agree, he would be awesome in that kind of role :)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,085

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,772
    edited December 2016

    Timmins is correct- Morgan Freeman did play one. In The Lego Movie. And it was...well, awesome! My little guys have that movie on repeat. And now that darned song is stuck in my head again...

    Post edited by Llynara on
  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899
    edited December 2016
    Llynara said:

    Timmins is correct- Morgan Freeman did play one. In The Lego Movie. And it was...well, awesome! My little guys have that movie on repeat. And now that darned song is stuck in my head again...

    And that's ok, because.... Everything Is Awesome!!!  laugh

    Post edited by Stryder87 on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,772

    Ha ha, *ebul*

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,649

    I have to say, everybody who wants to see more ethnicities represented should make sure they buy Sickleyield's People of Earth series, which is a good way to handle the fact that despite Westerners calling them all 'Asian', Koreans look nothing like, say, the Vietnamese.

     

    Thank you!

    Like it says in the product description, half the world's people live in Asia - that's a LOT of different faces.  I could do a bajillion more if the market would support it, but at the least I'll definitely do one every figure.  I need something to subsidize Faces of Africa (because I want to keep doing those, but they perform much worse).

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,722

    Since we want to be 'proper' here then your solution is easy: eg NYC - look up the demographics to NYC and match them up to the neighborhood in NYC.

    Leave out the tourism part and what they contribute to the seeming ratio of ethnicities to each other, not that if you are any sort of normal person you are keeping count of how many of each ethnicity you see while visiting NYC to prove you pay attention to such things because they are so important to you.

     

  • AlienRendersAlienRenders Posts: 794
    edited December 2016

    If DAZ or PAs start making latinas, I'm gonna be broke. :) (I'm also including Mediterranean figures like http://www.daz3d.com/fwsa-paloma-hd-for-victoria-7 )

     

    Post edited by AlienRenders on
  • dawnbladedawnblade Posts: 1,723
    edited December 2016
    AllenArt said:

    The one thing we lack in the world of Daz are clear-cut Latino characters. If we get those, then we might have a well rounded cast of characters. Of course, then we could fight over whether the Latino characters should be of the Carribean type (like Puerto Rico) or the Central and South American type I guess. LOL Then I suppose you can research population ethnicities and percentages of you really want to get technical and base your characters on that ;). Me? I wouldn't worry about it and just use what you want ;).

    Laurie

    BD Esther is a beautiful Spanish character for V7.

    Post edited by dawnblade on
  • takezo_3001takezo_3001 Posts: 2,023
    edited December 2016

     

    I have to say, everybody who wants to see more ethnicities represented should make sure they buy Sickleyield's People of Earth series, which is a good way to handle the fact that despite Westerners calling them all 'Asian', Koreans look nothing like, say, the Vietnamese.

     

    Thank you!

    Like it says in the product description, half the world's people live in Asia - that's a LOT of different faces.  I could do a bajillion more if the market would support it, but at the least I'll definitely do one every figure.  I need something to subsidize Faces of Africa (because I want to keep doing those, but they perform much worse).

    Ok...Don't mind if I do, in wishlist for next month's purchase!...IE:All of the people that is!

    Post edited by takezo_3001 on
  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,078

    The legal quote doesn't change the "reality" of the common usage of race. Corporations have also been legally declared as "people". ( http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution ). As far as that goes, there is a fair bit of biological evidence that "race" is an artificial term.

     

     

    Etrigan said:

    http://www.latinpost.com/articles/115658/20160218/official-hispanic-now-race.htm


    The case is Freeport v. Barrella, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 14-2270, 14-2349, 14-4287, 14-4324 and 14-3615.

    I stand corrected. At least under U.S. labor laws. 

    I highly admire that.  You don't see it very often in forums (or the internet in general).

     

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,085

    A lot of things aren't real but are real. Race is one of them. ;)

    (Just went through explaining this to my questioning son for the first time, at age 8, re: Santa)

     

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,130

    'Race' is at best a sloppy way of classifying people by ancestry.  One big problem is that, at least as commonly used, it supposes that there are these archetypal polar 'white', 'african', 'asian' (and perhaps other) 'pure' types of which everyone else is just a mixture.  Problem is, where are these archetypal humans located?  Can I meet one (how tall is the archetypal white male)?  We are _all_ mixtures.  If you put pictures of people on a giant map of the world with each spot showing a local native, you will see a continuum of features, shades, heights, nose shapes, hair texture, and any other traits you think are important (returning to the subject of all this, this is why I think Genesis's 'gene pool' and the recent skin blender tool are so cool).  So, at best, 'race' is a sometimes convenient shorthand for describing someone's predominant ancestry.  But by and large, it is an unscientific social definition that rarely serves a good purpose (and, it seem to me, the only good purposes it has served has been to attempt to undo the damage caused by these definitions).

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,130
    edited December 2016

    A lot of things aren't real but are real. Race is one of them. ;)

    (Just went through explaining this to my questioning son for the first time, at age 8, re: Santa)

     

    Maybe the distinction is between 'true' and 'factual'.  Myths (at least, the meaningful ones) are always true even when they are not factual. 

    "This is magnificent ... and it's _true_!  It never happened, yet it is _still_ true!  What magic art is this?" -- Robin Goodfellow in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: A Midsummer Night's Dream"

    Post edited by Ostadan on
  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,772
    edited December 2016
    dawnblade said:
    AllenArt said:

    The one thing we lack in the world of Daz are clear-cut Latino characters. If we get those, then we might have a well rounded cast of characters. Of course, then we could fight over whether the Latino characters should be of the Carribean type (like Puerto Rico) or the Central and South American type I guess. LOL Then I suppose you can research population ethnicities and percentages of you really want to get technical and base your characters on that ;). Me? I wouldn't worry about it and just use what you want ;).

    Laurie

    BD Esther is a beautiful Spanish character for V7.

    I love BD Esther! So much so that I put her on the cover of my book and am using her as the main character in all my promo art for Black Kat. 

    I can't remember who said something about good looking Asian men, but there are quite a few in the DAZ store and I've certainly known a fair share. And gorgeous Amer-Asian ones too, though I'm not even sure that's the proper term anymore. I married a man who is half Korean, half German and very handsome. Everyone mistook him for Native American and called him "Chief." We had two beautiful children together. One looks more Asian, the other looks Scottish, like me. Go figure.

    Genetics are fascinating and so is seeing how they're respesented in art.

    Post edited by Llynara on
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