So, this entry probably isn’t going to be very organized so forgive me for that ahead of time.

Most of you know that I work as a children’s illustrator and I went to school for Character Animation at Cal Arts. Being an African American artist you face a few different walls of BS. You’re expected to like a certain type of art and draw certain types of characters and do certain types of stories. Being a black kid that was raised in a predominately non black area, I hated those expectations. So much so that in certain situations i’d go out of my way to contradict them. My most common theme in my art is mythology. I was raised on Greek Myths, The Lion The Witch and the Warddrobe and Brian Fraud. So my taste in terms of the racial portrayal of my characters tends to be white.

A few months ago, I read an article about the creator of Scott Pilgram, Bryan Lee O'Malley that really forced me to look at myself. In this interview he essentially say that when he saw his comic on screen being portrayed by mainly white characters (Bryan is White and Korean but looks more korean), he had the shocking realization that all of his characters were white and that people of color were underrepresented. He explains his thought process behind creating the character and how little he thought about the actual race of the characters. He just designed the characters and they just happened to look white because he was raised being told that race wasn’t an issue.

Reading this interview I was shocked to have that harsh realization that I have been doing the same thing. I’ve designed characters for my own personal projects-most of which had a fantasy theme and none of the characters were black. There may have been some characters that were vaguely ethnic, but if they were, they were mixed and that was part of their storyline and identity. I remember I had an old project where I forced myself to have a person of color as a main character but I never felt as invested in the story because of how I was trying to frame his ethnicity in a way that wasn’t necessarily ‘black’.

Was he black? Was he Native American? Was he Indian? I had no clue but it frustrated me and made me less inclined to use the character. (cringing at my old art, i made this when i was 16!!) So I guess in a way it was 'easier’ for me to just use white characters and I guess in the back of my mind, they were more 'relateable".

I’ve been working on a book for the past few months. The main character is supposed to be a mixed child. I was super excited about this project as I have become more aware of the lack of POC representation in media. The book itself is revolutionary but it’s revolutionary for its inclusion of a black main character! However… when designing said character and going back and forth with design ideas I found myself a little disappointed in what we actually ended going with. I sent the author several designs based on real children that are mixed black and white. Most of which look visibly black like most mixed children would as black people tend to have dominant genes (dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes). I threw one in that looked, I would say, mostly white. Looser curls, lighter skin, a medium sized nose etc. Guess which design we went with? Now I guess I could have just not designed that character, but it seemed to be what the client wanted and I gave it to them. I’m ultimately happy with the character but part of me wishes we went with one of the other choices as they were more visibly mixed race.

I find myself more and more frustrated with the lack of black characters in Cartoons/Illustration. When I was working for Fox Animation, the only african american character we made were ones that were twerking or acting 'ghetto’. They showed up as a joke and they were never dignified or presented as educated. They were always punch lines and I guess that really rubbed me the wrong way especially knowing that most of the directors and the people behind these ideas are white.

I was going through a mermaid phase recently and I decided to do an illustration of a black mermaid. Mostly because it was requested from a youtube subscriber of mine, but also because I realized how little we actually saw black mermaids and how little they are represented in art.

When I posted this illustration, it received an overwhelming amount of support. I was absolutely astonished. Not only that but people kept saying “YEMOJA”. I was like “what is that??” and then someone explained it to me that yemoja was an “orisha”, a spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of god in the Yourba religion. Suddenly there was a whole new world for me to explore in my art. Gods and Goddesses that were BLACK that represented significant figures within a culture of people that look like me. I spent hours reading and listening to videos of people express their admiration for these figures and I have been inspired ever since.

I never liked feeling like I had an obligation to draw black characters.. I hated that when I was young, my family members would ask me why i wasn’t drawing a black person and when I did they’d tell me that they didn’t look black. But I understand that need and that desire now. To be able to see yourself reflected and to be able to identify with a character that looks like you.

My boyfriend has been reading a comic called Rat Queens. It’s an awesome fantasy based comic book with characters designed by a black artist named Roc Upchuch There’s a beautiful strong black female character (who happens to be an atheist!) named Dee and just SEEING her made me happy and gave me strength as a black female artist.

This year has been a big one for me in the art department. and I am inspired now more than ever to use black characters in my illustrations. I’m glad that so many amazing artists have helped me open my eyes to recognizing the beauty within myself and I hope one day I can inspire other Black Artists to do the same and to recognize that we should be the ones making stories about people like us and we should be the ones making art celebrating blackness.

I was inspired to make this post as I’m in the midst of working on an illustration for Earth Day:

I can’t wait to show you all how it turns out. :)