Why are fantasy characters always caucasian?
The Diigitals
Posts: 380
Why every time Daz introduces a new fantasy base character are they some generic Caucasian. Why not take it as an opportunity to not only add amazing diversity to the human characters we have, but to also push these fantasy genres forward by being more inclusive.
Why is it always on the user to change the base to have more ethnic features, why not the other way around?
And even if they HAVE to be Caucasian, can you at least make them more distinctive... a red head, freckles... something!
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To be honest, how much is there ever about the base character itself (as opposed to its bundles) that's "fantasy"? Possibly there's a fang or ear morph, some kind of anatomical add-on or LIE textures, but it's generally small things that could be applied to any character rather than something completely intrinsic to the character (not always, but mostly - Daz largely wants to keep the characters usable as normal humans).
‘Usable’ as ‘normal’ humans is the problem. They’re not usable because we have figures just like them, and content creators have made far superior werewolf morphs.
Daz please take every opportunity to create unique characters from all backgrounds. This world is so beautiful because of how incredibly different everyone is.
There is no need for every single character you make fantasy or otherwise to be slim or muscular.
The reason why I want this is because your base characters are always beautifully made, and it’s a shame to see every time a missed opportunity to diversify them.
I think a dark skinned or Asian phenotype is perfectly useable as a normal being as they represent the majority of human beings so why not have either as the base for a fantasy character unless you are going all out blue skin, reptilian or grey alien.
I see the OP's point!
I think in the case of a "savage" fantasy creature like a Lycan, it's safer to have the character be Caucasian. If he'd been Native American, for example, that could have led to unfortunate implications, as TV Tropes calls it. With mostly benevolent magical species, like Elves, it makes no sense that they wouldn't have racial diversity, though.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've seen a fantasy creature as a Daz base character that isn't from European folklore (to my recollection, the list is elves, fairies, vampires, werewolves and centaurs), so it's not wildly surprising that we see these add-ons mostly with Caucasians. (In the modern fantasy story I'm working on, there is an elf with Japanese heritage, but it's considered pretty unusual - it could only happen through human/elf crossbreeding, which has been a cultural taboo until fairly recently - particularly as far as elves perceive "recently").
I suppose one could argue that it would have been possible to add a kitsune tail/ears or something to one of the Asian characters, but I can't think of many African mythological creatures that are sufficiently humanoid to be a simple modification to something usable as a base character (rather than basically having to be an entirely separate morph)... and that is part of the thing. Maybe there is someone shouting at the screen about some amazing Indian legend that would work brilliantly as a base character, but the artists involved are largely from a Western background, so won't possess that kind of cultural knowledge to really grasp what is or isn't famous legend (or know that they're actually handling it respectfully).
(And as far as the question of "why not have a fat werewolf", or something, the limitations of morph technology mean its massively easier to dial in some "fat morphs" on a thin character than try to morph a fat character to be thin. Morphs are much better at adding than taking away).
Elves can easilly be dark as many of the Britons the Picts apparently were and the fae folk in myths and legends were not described so much as pointy eared as they were as indeed swarthy and dark!
I cannot see why we cannot have a Japanese werewolf or an African Vampire either, I have seen both in movies and no werewolves or vampires in real life.
Hindu mythology would offer a multitude of interesting creatures, the naga just being one of the more known.
All the ancient egypt gods and godesses (there was bast and bastet and horus from Raw art just now) not to forget the sphinx
Anfrican: eg Anansi (has a spider lower part) Jengu is a mermaid type of creature Mama Wata being on the crepier side of that, there is a werehyene thing from Ethiopia, Adze is a vamipiric type from ghana which turns into a firefly
I'm lacking on info about creatures from America, North Middle and South, but I'm certain there are more examples. As well I left out all the asian types (kitsune and what not)
The etymological root of the word "elf" literally translates as "white being". It's from the same root as the latin "Albus" (which gives us the term "Albino").
Sure, make such characters if you want, but mostly I'd say this stuff is just a set of fairly simple morphs thrown in to give a bit of a "hook" to a character that otherwise didn't have much of a theme - which isn't necessarily the way we want them thinking about the few non-Caucasian characters they do in a generation. If they're only going to do a couple of Asian characters per generation, I'd rather they used that as an excuse to provide us with Eastern style clothing rather getting distracted by vampire themed clothing that can instead displace some generic Western fashion in another character's bundle.
Rawart's Anubis is dark skinned, so hey, points to him!
If a white vampire bites a black guy, wouldn't the black guy turn into a vampire and still be black? I don't see that it has to be european folklore as the rationale for non white fantasy characters.
That is a good question, but it's not only Daz thing. It's the same thing in most movies too. Like for example I don't recall seeing any asian dwarves or african elves in LOTR movies, but don't quote me on that. I have excellent memory, but it's really short. Oh, at least in Forgotten Realms universe they have drows.
Alliekatblue:
That's silly, they'd turn into an identical white guy!
Mostly these would require extensive geografts or very heavy morphs rather than being minor tweaks to a humanoid shape, so wouldn't really be a base character; you'd get something more akin to the Centaur, which wasn't really so much of a character itself as an add-on.
I suppose we did get the snake tail as an add-on pack for Anneka and Damien (who I'd forgotten earlier - but still, very much daemons as within European folklore), so at least one interpretation of a Naga isn't too implausible, but things like Sphinxes would be more of a stretch.
I'm not saying replace any of the characters that are already Asian or Black, but if you're going to churn out a generic Vampire or Werewolf, can we at least get some diversity in there. Whether or not they are of a different race, or a very different body shape or height.. anything other than Becky 8, but this time she has vampire teeth!
this is the line that triggered me
elf, Drow or Pirotess they are just words
like saying mermaids have to look like Arial
What is the incentive? If you make a "generic" caucasian monster you get the customers that want caucasian monsters (which despite all the vocal detractors is still larger than the rest of the market) and thanks to available ethnic morphs and skins you also have the customers looking for monsters of other ethnicities.
Create a monster of one particular (non-caucasian) ethnicity and you lose all potential customers who are not looking for that particular one. Now of course you could re-capture them, with a considerable amount of additional work (and thus development cost), by making additional morphs to other ethnicities or even to caucasian (so that then once again from there the character can me morphed).
Complain as much as you want but without the support of a popular a non-caucasian base figure it just is not a worthwhile endeavour.
Tolkien elves are inspired by Germanic, Scandinavian (Ljósálfar) and Celtic mythology, and his dwarves are based on those of the Germanic myths. So it's not that surprising that they're described as white-skinned.
From memory there are at least dark-skinned (human) people in the southern part of Middle-Earth though.
Even assuming DAZ can only capture sales with the fantasy base being Caucasian (which, has this really been tested, given that fantasy characters have been Caucasian in the past?), then DAZ still has a chance of including in its bundles some non-Caucasian werewolf characters. Or, flip it around--a non-Causasian werewolf base but with one Caucasian character included in the Starter/Pro bundles.
Anyhow, +1 to OP's point from me.
If you're referring to werewolves, vampires and fairies, it's most likely because the depictions of them on film and in theatre are typically inspired by European legends and folklore. I wouldn't read anything mroe into it than that. There are legends of the same creatures from other parts of the world (the native American story abotu their vampires is an interesting one), but most audiences wouldn't be as familiar with them and they're your customers if you're selling stuff. Familiarity equals a better chance of product desirability.
It's the same reason why the dragons more typically align with European-style dragon depictions, as opposed to Asian ones. The latter are the kind of thing individual PAs modify the base figures for. That's how we got at least one non-Caucasian figure for the Centaur 7 figure (I'm not sure how well it/they sold, however, which might be valuable data for these discussions).
There's usually nothing stopping you from just using the shaping morphs and anatomical accessories and applying them to non-Caucasian character figures. Raw also deserves credit for this product which allows for any character's skin to be compatible, too:
https://www.daz3d.com/natural-fae-wings-for-genesis-8
Personally, I'm sad we haven't seen Reptilian 7 or 8. Or at least had a PA make available an Iray-compatible skin product for it.
I guess it's for the same reason as a voodoo witch is always African.
I mean it's a cultural fact.
For example Anubis is never white.
The question is : Why the PA never propose an alternative ?
A few probable causes:
There are a lot of cool fantasy character in asian mythology and I would love to see them in daz some day.
But the artirst be like:"nah,let made another elven/fairies character,I guess."
would love some drow man-babe-hotties.
Only? And then there's still the issue of the character having to be made. PAs generally don't like to work for free.
So, which PA knows enough about that mythology to do those characters proper justice?
could make fairies with ethnicity
As I understand it, DAZ pays the PAs for DAZ Originals, which the core figures and bundles are. So yes, the PAs would get paid.
I assume some PAs are not research-adverse. I mean, we got a nice hanfu for the Lee 8 bundle from PAs that don't otherwise seem to specialize in Asian clothing.
Edited to add: I don't think the burden of creating non-Caucasian characters should be on PAs, who have to do what they need to do. But I do think DAZ should invest in paying PAs to do some of this work as part of their core figures, because it adds value overall to their program and catalogue.
It doesnt matter how much PA's know about mythology....people will still complain that characters do not match their idea of how things look.
People will always think that they know better than the person who actually does the work.
CrocodileLiu would be great.
God I love this ancient wuxia aesthetics,so beautiful and ethereal.