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Drawing Disabled Characters - Blog Posts

nameless5766

1 month ago

Digital canvas titled "How to: drawing characters with paralysis on their face" with "since I barely see it and would like to see more" written underneath. It features three colored drawings of different characters with various kinds of facial paralysis, labeled "ones that look more like this", next to a drawing of a heavily exaggerated character with cartoonish facial paralysis labeled "and less like whatever this is". There is a diagram in the corner of all the cranial nerves in the brain, with half of them scribbled out. The rest of them are labeled "i.e. what happens when any of these get fucked up". In the corner there is the artist's signature "@saszor" as well as "by: someone who has it" written out.

Second digital slide. It's titled "basic information". Underneath is a spectrum colored from dark green to red, with the dark green end labeled "works perfectly" and the red "complete paralysis". The light green, yellow, orange, and light red middle is labeled as "some degree of paralysis. It's not a 0:1 thing". Below that are 4 very simplistic drawings using the spectrum's colors to show different kinds of paralysis, including Moebius syndrome (complete full face paralysis), trochlear nerve palsy (both eyes being mildly affected), Bell's palsy (half of the face being slightly affected) and "multiple (me)" with the forehead, mouth, and eyes being labeled in different shades. The text around the characters reads "All these people have some kind of paralysis on their face. Before actually drawing a character, you need to pick what part of their face is paralyzed and how much. Having your whole face completely paralyzed is really rare. Weakness on one side of the face is the most common. You probably saw someone with it since it's very common after a stroke". Another block of text in the corner reads "If you have a simpler artstyle, paralysis of the eyes and/or mouth is the easiest to show. Jaw or forehead are more subtle (usually)".

Third slide, titled "Ok, but how do I draw it? (With asymmetry, mainly)". There is a drawing of a man with Bell's palsy, captioned "I will be doing examples showing unilateral (one sided) paralysis to showcase this since it will be easier to show the differences". In the top right are two drawings, one in anime style and other in a western cartoon one. The text box reads "While I encourage to try out multiple options, focus on the features that are more important in your artstyle. Big eyes? Focus on ptosis. Big mouths? Focus on lopsided smiles, etc. Otherwise it can look out of place". The main section of the slide is titled "Upper third of the face". There are simple drawings to accompany the text. It reads "paralysis on the forehead: it looks like one-sided botox essentially. The wrinkles will be weaker or non existent. Paralysis of the eyebrow: moves less. It rests lower than the other eyebrow and can have a crease under. Eyelid paralysis (arguably the most common one): generalyl affects the upper eyelid. It rests lower and has less or no movement". There is a drawing of a pair of eyes, where one is so closed the iris is invisible. Text reads "Note: paralysis very frequently comes with strabismus. Severe ptosis+hypertropia can look like the eye is just white. The iris can be hidden like that". Another text box to another drawing reads "it does get a bit trickier in angles that don't show both sides of the face; IMO focusing on strabismus+eyebrows pointing down is the easiest way to get it across". In the bottom left is a diagram showing different eyes with increasing severities of paralysis. Text reads "As a rule of thumb, more severe paralysis = eyelid rests lower. Here you can see how much of the eye could show".

Fourth slide, titled "Eyes specifically since people tend to put more detail into them than the rest of the face". The "First step" has 2 characters with unaligned eyes, titled "Step 1: give them strabismus (easy)". Below that are examples of eyes with strabismus, captioned "literally just draw the eyes to be unaligned. Inward, outward, up, down, etc.". Step two is titled "Don't make it into the most unfunny joke possible (very hard)". It shows two characters, one having a very exaggerated strabismus and the other having a more realistic one combined with a falling eyelid. The first character is crossed out, and is saying "I'm stupid because I look weird haha (laugh)", while the second character has the checker mark and is saying "I have a personality trait that is not related to having an eye condition". The text below the step 2 reads "Not every person with facial paralysis will have strabismus but a lot do and I never see that in drawings". In the bottom right is a designated square with a character who has significant hypertropia and slightly red eyes. The text reads "rarely, people will be unable to close their eyes rather than the other way around. I meant to put it on the previous slide but I ran out of space".

Fifth slide, titled "mouth and smiling". There is a simple drawing of a man with bell's palsy smiling, there are red lines illustrating how the smile is lopsided and pulls towards the nonparalyzed side. There is another "correct/incorrect" demonstration with the incorrect one, labeled "not how faces work", having their face essentially halved, with one side smiling widely and one actively frowning, and the correct one, labeled "it just pulls to the nonparalyzed side", smiling normally on one side and having a neutral/relaxed expression on the other. The incorrect one has additional text box: "if it looks like the ancient Greek theatre mask, stop. I couldn't do this really downward frown on my paralyzed side even if I wanted to. You need to be able to move your face for that...". At the bottom of the slide are two drawings of the same character smiling; he has bell's palsy in one but not the other, highlighting the differences. The text reads "There are other things that can also be affected but smiling is the main one, especially for drawing. What is not affected are like, jaw muscles. Someone can have problem with that as well but it will be from something else". The rest reads: "A lot of people will overdo smiling so that other people can actually tell they're smiling and essentially do a really wide smile on just one side of the face. So things like gums showing, nose skewing to the side, lower eyelid going up, lip being thinner on the smiling side, etc.". There is a colored disclaimer "also a disclaimer (in case that's not clear): not all people with facial paralysis have it visible on their eyes. I do it here so that you can easily tell which side is supposed to be affected".

Sixth slide, titled "have fun smile emoji". It features a Hindu woman in a powerchair, a Black man walking with a cane, a Brown girl posing, and a white guy looking stern. The first two are captioned "Most people have facial paralysis because of a stroke/traumatic brain injury and a lot will have other disabilities". The girl is captioned "Some people are born like this also. You can draw people with facial differences as pretty people BTW, it's allowed". The last character is drawn with a straight line scar going through his eye. He is captioned "if you're giving your scarred OC #3743 this fuckass scar then at least give them nerve damage like get real LMAO. He would not be fucking ablebodied". While the main drawing doesn't show the character with any sort of paralysis, there's a smaller one where his eyelid and eyebrow are clearly paralyzed. There is another box of text in the corner reading "We are also just normal people and yous on;t have to name your OC with bell's palsy some combination of "half-face" or whatever the fuck".

[ID in alt]

Tutorial on drawing characters/OCs who have some sort of facial paralysis. It doesn't cover all possible variants because I was using mirror as my main reference lawl

Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

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disabled representation I haven’t drawn in ages lol But this is still super helpful for designing characters!!! drawing disabled characters

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cannottthinkofagoodname

7 months ago

For reference 🩷

first slide, titled "how to draw some burn scars" with "some" being underlined. The text under reads "3rd/4th degree mostly, because most people on this website apparently never seen a burn survivor." below that is a red box with text reading "(all caps) all scars are different! (end caps) there is no one correct way to draw a scar. this is more of an overview than a step-by-step tutorial".
the right side of the slide has three drawings, each showing a person's forearm. The text above them reads "there's many types of scars, actually". The first one shows a hypertrophic scar, with the text "draw a darker patch of skin and shade underneath to show depth. notes: it sticks out a bit, it can be slightly discolored (darker), it's not really this bright red color that people draw burns with, it interacts with the rest of the skin - you can see it pull skin inward".
The second one shows a keloid scar, with the text "it sticks out a lot, much more discolored, it can be red, pink, purple, it doesn't with the rest of the skin as much - it has sharper, more defined edges". The third and last arm shows a severe contracture with the top of the hand resting on the forearm, with the text "burns make skin contract; scars affect range of motion (ROM) and can lock or limit movement, they afect all areas of the body vbut are most visible on the neck, joints, and hands". There's a fourth additional drawing showing a man's torso; he has a lighter burn scar on the far side of his ribcage, with his arm seemingly fused to it above the elbow. He has visible body hair but is lacking it on the scar itself. The several notes around it read "healed scars can also turn lighter; a burn scar has a tendency to pull surrounding structures* inward, here it makes a contracture. *-not only skin. scars affect cartilage (like in ears), nipples, etc. also notice the lack of hair on the scar".

second slide, titled "how do burns look like (for people who draw them but don't seem to know)". there's an arrow labeled "not like this (heart)" leading to a drawing of an anime girl with half of her skin being plain red and no other changes. text box below her reads "'don't worry man I watched ATLA when I was 14' type OC", with the following noted; "the Red, has fingernails despite 3rd degree burns, has eyebrows despite 3rd degree burns, has hair despite 3rd degree burns, eye is totally fine it's only fire LOL, nose and ears also fine, why is it red, more flexible than your average abled person, why is it red". below is a disclaimer reading "(one or two is fine, but why is it always all of it? burns do things, especially one as seveer as implied here)". the right side of the image shows pictures of body parts with burn scars on them, the first being a hand with a severe contraction in the fingers. the burn and contracted joints are labeled on the image. next to it is a drawn comparison between a non-burned hand with stretched out fingers, and a burnt hand with curled fingers. photo under that is of a pair of feet being held by a hand. the link below goes to "SurvivorNotVictim.com/Scar-Photos". my added text reads "not red! the scars mostly show through texture and tissue damage" and "no toenails". next to that is art of a scarred leg from the mid-calf down, it has visible skin pulling, no nails, and discolored patches of skin. text reads "some pinkness/redness can show, but it's A) not going to be a consistent color, B) other aspects of the scar still show up. Remember the body is 3D and skin pulls accordingly (more or less); scars form toward the ankle because it sticks out". at the bottom of the image is a portrait photo of Marzieh Ebrahimi, an Iranian woman with a chemical burn on one side of her face, smiling. Text next to her reads "a scar can be more defined in one place and less in another (forehead/chin); the skin is darker and less saturated, not red; Marzieh's scar is more visible because of her eye and nose than the discoloration". Next to that is a simplistic portrait drawing of her recreating the picture. Note reads "just some darkening of the skin, lighter and darker lines to imply skin pulling, and attention to some basic effects of burns (e.g., scar on eyebrow ridge = no eyebrow) looks more like an actual burn than the red paint thing".

Third slide, titled "skin grafts". On the right is a photo of a white woman posing with her scars visible to the camera, the source is linked as SurvivorNotVictim.com/Scar-Photo. Text reads "one of the most common visible kinds of skin grafts is the mesh one", with an arrow pointing to the woman's arm, where her skin has a mesh pattern. There is a drawn comparison of non-burnt skin and skin with the mesh graft for comparison. Text box reads "it leaves a specific kind of texture in the skin. Grafts sometimes have stronger highlights than other parts of the skin (you can see it on both photos)". Under that is a photo of Kenny Matthews (@IKenDawg), a Black man with burn scars. There is a text box on the right that reads "skin grafts will usually be thicker than the rest of the skin and thus can stick out; they can be discolored (both darker or lighter, more yellow or red, more/less saturation, etc.) and have a visible start and end. It applies to all skin colors BTW". Below that are two portrait drawings, one of a Black man with a large, darker skin graft on his cheek, and a white woman with yellowish grafts on her jaw and nose.

Fourth slide, titled "nose and eyes". The left side features various nose drawings, while right and bottom show different kinds of eyes. The text in the nose section reads "Usually if nose was visibly burned, it will be seen on the nostrils and septum". The first nose drawing shows someone with pale skin and nostrils pulling strongly downwards. Second one shows a person with darker skin and fourth degree burns; his eyes are covered by skin and the external parts of the nose are largely gone, leaving the red internal part visible. Text attached reads "With very severe burns, the external part of the nose can be removed. In this case the nose will be red because the insides of the nose are red". Third drawing shows a white man with burns below his eyes; his septum is completely gone, and the nostrils pull to the sides. Attached text reads "Nostrils can also pull to the sides, making the nose wider. Sometimes the septum will be absent if burns were severe enough. That generally causes some degree of asymmetry". Last nose drawing shows someone with a lot of keloid and hypertrophic scars on his face, with one of them formed around their nose. Text attached reads "Nose can also pull to one side. The constricted nostril can then be very flat". There's a simple sketch underneath that shows a nose with symmetric and asymmetric nostrils from below. Eye section. The first text box reads "Eyes are not affected as often as you'd probably assume (mostly because blinking and all) but eye damage is frequent in chemical burns (as opposed to thermal)". First drawing features a darkskin person with burns on their forehead and around their left eye. The skin pulls their eyelids upward and to the side at a 45-degree angle, resulting in the red of the eye showing on the sides. Attached text reads "Eye pulls out and up, so the red parts show accordingly. The eyelids themselves are stretched, eye is fine". Second drawing is of an Arab man with a chemical burn on the left side of his face. He's missing his eyebrow and eyelashes on that side. He has ptosis and his actual iris is blurrier while the white part is redder. Text reads "Here eyelids pull down so the eye looks like it's drifting up". Third drawing shows a person with tan skin and severe burns. They have no hair of any kind, and their nose bridge is significantly pushed to the side. Their right eye is wide open with a red shiny eyelid at the bottom, their iris pointing extremely outward, and blood vessels showing. Their left eye looks very small with swollen eyelids and partially opaque iris. Text reads "The redness you can sometimes see is a result of chronic conjunctivitis, it's not an open wound situation. Here the right lower eyelid is missing so it looks like it's red and shiny. The left lower one is turned outward and it causes corneal scarring, which results in parts of the eye looking white(r) and the eyelids to swell". The bottom section features four eye adjacent conditions and their characteristics. The first one shows a person with one of their eyes missing and an empty pale-red socket visible. It's titled "Enucleation". Text underneath reads "If the eye is as badly damaged as in 90% of OCs with burns then they will get it removed. Despite popular perception there is quite literally nothing 'gore' about an eye socket. The redness/whiteness is the same thing as on your eyelid when you pull it. The empty socket has a much smaller opening and is very flat in comparison to a full socket. If the character has a protruding brow ridge, the shadow will fall on the whole area". Second one features a dark-skinned person's eye, which is brown with a white spot on the lens. Text reads "Cataracts is a condition of the lens, so it affects the lens by making it to appear clouded. Causes blindness". Third one shows an eye of a pale person; it's slightly red with blood vessels visible and the irid is blurry with a large opaque spot in the middle. Text reads "Corneal scarring causes pain, red sclera, and the opaqueness that can happen over the whole eye, not just lens. Also causes blindness".

Continuation from the previous slide. Last one shows an eye with the upper eyelid fallen down. Text reads "Ptosis is caused by nerve damage more than anything else. It makes the eyelid fall down, but does not affect the eye itself. Can technically make someone unable to see if the eyelid doesn't open". Fifth slide description starts from here. It shows a three-step process of drawing the skin texture. First step shows a patch of light skin, titled "get a base". Second step puts various brown lines of different sizes on the skin, largely going from the upper left to bottom right, spreading out on the right. Text reads "Draw slightly darker lines of various lengths to imply contractures". There’s a second, smaller drawing, first with the lines going in similar direction and the other with the lines all pointing different ways and going over each other. Text above them is "try to keep them going in a direction that makes sense" and "not just random strokes" respectively. Third step adds some shadows and highlights on the scars. Text reads "add subtle shading to show texture changes, can also add highlights". Below that is a small drawing of a patch of skin with a red line going through it; one side is shaded and one isn't for comparison. The upper right has a drawing of a man shown from the back; he has burn scars on his left shoulder. That shoulder is less muscular than the right one, and he has keloids and grafts visible. Text underneath reads "You really don't have to draw 10000 lines to show the contractures. A few smaller and some bigger ones do it just fine. Remember that you can ad keloids, hypetrophic scars, and graft discoloration!".

sixth slide, titled "other things to think about". it features a few different burn survivor characters and the text "no two burn survivors are the same". first one is a Black woman with a burn just on her face and neck, empty eye socket, and no ear, wearing a very wide-brimmed sun hat. note next to her reads "sun protection". below her is a white man with scarring on the side of his head, including two large keloid scars. he's missing a lot of hair on his scalp. underneath him is a drawing of a Latino man with short black hair and contracture scars on his forearm, fusing it around the elbow; he's wearing a large compression glove on his hand. in the center of the image are two women; a South Asian young woman wearing a pastel hijab using crutches with a visible prosthetic leg, and a Black woman with short pink hair and all four limbs amputated using a powerchair. The first woman has no actual burns visible while the second one has her stumps covered in distinct discolored scars, but they're both smiling at each other. text between them reads "burns can result in amputation, either because of the initial damage or infection. sometimes burns are visible, sometimes not so much". under them is a portrait of a white woman scratching her neck with her remaining fingers. she's completely bald with scars on her head, face, and hand. her eye is slightly red with a discolored white part in the middle of the iris. text next to her reads "research actual symptoms of burn scars (like scratching) (like sun protection), etc."

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

Screenshot that reads, "In a 2022 survey of the burn community, Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors found 59% ranked 'burn survivors & the media: changing the portrayal of the survivor' as a top need for support."

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

second way more important edit: How are people seeing this post where I specifically talk about burn survivors being normal, real people, and still tag this as "TW body horror"? Not a single one of these drawings or pictures is a fresh injury. All of them are healed. How the hell would you feel if someone tagged a photo of you as "trigger warning: gore"?

Drawing Disabled Characters - Blog Posts

Disabled people are not your fucking body horror. Grow up.