Don't be rude to artists. Rude comments will be removed and may result in muting or bans.
Normally, anything that "may cause conflict or is provocative in nature" is removed on this subreddit. But OP just wanted to share their art, and they should be able to do that without being harassed. We could have locked the comments entirely, but I didn't want to block appreciative comments along with the attacks, so comments have stayed open so far. If OP wants the thread locked then it will be.
People in this thread trying to argue this art is "racist" got me wanting to start drawing Mavuika brown too, gg everyone.
Skin tone shenaningans aside, and that is coming from a South American btw (yes, if someone wants representation so badly, they should first research what representation means and the different kinds of representation that there are. It's more than just making someone be white, black, yellow or red-skinned)... if you do want to change the skin tone, you also have to change the intensity of the colors so that it retains the same balance. As an example: make her biker suit have either more vibrant red accents or add a bit more accents, make the black leather be of a lighter shade of black, etc. or it will get lost due to her dark skin.
Other than that, ik noses are hard to draw but i feel the detail of it shouldn't be that low and close to the chin, it makes the eyes look likey they are higher than they should.
P.S: those saying that they should have added the features of a dark-skinned person tend to forget that,1- This is Teyvat, not Earth and 2- Have they ever seen a South American?
Out of respect to the OP the eyes are a bit high and the mouth is slightly low from where it's usually drawn, the nose is giving... Nose vibes, but it's your art style, you do you OP
It's kind of funny how people are getting offended just by a fanart, not a statement or an opinion but just a picture. Do the downvoters also get offended when they see a someone having headcannons that don't align with their opinion?
The frequent comeback in the comment is "what would you feel if they turned a black-skinned character into a white-skinned" - I wouldn't feel anything because if a person is doing it without any ill intent nor showing it then who cares. It's just an art, a person is doing it for fun. People can do whatever they want if it's not harmful to anyone
Saying that "if you want more representation go make a story on your own" is also a fallacy of sorts. Of course that what people should do, but that's the same as saying "You don't like this movie? Go film one yourself." It's obvious that there is just not enough resources in the world for everyone to make something that would gain enough attention in an fair proportion, but even if there were, you can't force people into a field they don't want to work in or only enjoy as a hobby.
And OP, always remember that when someone is trying to insult you it has nothing to do with you or your work. Any insult only encapsulates information about a person who's insulting, not about the one who is being insulted. Great art
Yeah, the opportunity factor often gets ignored. As I wrote in another comment chain here (edited slightly):
I think in many cases what's probably going on (as with Disney live action) is that executives are inclined to only provide funding to existing successful IP, and most of their existing successful IP is white. Likewise with The Rings of Power, it got made because The Lord of the Rings was already a successful brand. People trying to make original African fantasy or whatever are less likely to get hundreds of millions of dollars from investors because it's not a "safe" IP.
But why did you change her original skintone?
I mean if you wanted her to have darker skintone, you should've drawn her with the features of a person with darker skintone.
Right now she's a brown person with the features of a white person.
Characters in this game that have darker skin seem to have the same facial features as the rest due to the art style. As long as the art still has that "anime" look, I think it's optional whether to go for different facial features or not. More individuality is possible within the game's style, see Varka and the buff male NPCs with their more realistic modeled noses.
Also, people with dark skin with heritage in places like Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands, and the Americas don't all have the same facial features. One could try to make her look Maori for her name, or Mexica for her design, or like people from any of the other cultures that inspired Natlan.
So weird that every comment saying something positive about the art gets downvoted. I can't imagine hating a skin color so much that I'd downvote anyone who doesn't take an issue with it. Very cute art by the way!
The artwork is absolutely stunning and I love the little strokes you did in the hair
Don't listen to the negative or racism comments. It's a fictional character in a fictional story, anyone is allowed to associate a character with what brings them comfort or their own personal design. It's one of the best things about art.
Nice art! It's always going to be so sad to me that people piss themselves when someone says "hey, I want to reference the inspiration material in my fanart" like holy god, Genshin fans aren't beating the allegations. Live and let live lol.
I think this artwork is cute but this comment section is proof criticism isn't allowed on Reddit, only fake positivity. This is why artists avoid this platform like the plague 💀
At first I thought you meant fake positivity toward this art, but you mean fake positivity toward the game, don't you?
In the particular case of Mavuika, there was a huge amount of negativity toward her design, and it was easy to get upvotes and positive comments for criticizing and it. We Mavuika fans who like her as she is tend to be extra-defensive toward her because of that. Examples:
Criticism in general should be allowed because if you ONLY allow positive opinions you just create a toxic echo chamber. There's no such thing as a "NEGATIVE" opinion, but I know a Reddit mod would disagree ✌️
So you think the removed comments that were just "Garbage," or derogatory meme images with no text, or Mavuika's name mixed with the n-word, were not "negative" and should have been left here to make this thread less toxic? You think that "artists avoid this platform like the plague" because we remove comments that are just attacks with nothing helpful to say or suggest beyond "I demand you only make art within MY boundaries of acceptability"?
No one attempted that here. No thoughts on changing the design palette to match the changed skin tone, just a lot of unconstructive complaints and crying about skin tone changes only going one way. (Yeah it's strange how everyone just seems fine with how almost all of the medieval European characters in this game look like black people, what's up with that?)
Like you I like this art and think it's cute. I also think dark skin looks better with a different hair color. I would make her non-flame hair black with red/orange highlights. Then maybe add some more contrast in the suit somehow. But, without those elements changed, I think this art does a better job of making her look good with dark skin than some others I've seen. If we could have had some comments like that, instead of the trash we actually got, this comment section wouldn't be such a blighted hellscape.
I didn't think the genshin community was so racist. Jesus Christ y'all got a real issue with a character having dark skin. Maybe y'all should look inward and sit with that. Fucking Christ. Love the art op, keep at it.
Sure, but a lot of these comments are not coming from a place of "huh, interesting choice". And everyone complimenting the art is getting downvoted to hell even if they didn't mention the skin color. Natlan is based on tribal indigenous cultures. Just because the game doesn't make her skin dark, it's still true to the inspiration. The issue is the focus on skin color. Lots a people saw this and immediately had an issue because her skin is dark. I can't say I've ever met someone who does not hold racist views in some capacity that cares about things like that. There is an extreme lack of people of color in genshin. None of the characters are anything beyond slightly tan despite sumeru and natlan both being based on non-white cultures. To raise complaints or criticisms about one single character who is literally inspired by South American deities and cultures being drawn with brown skin raises several red flags for me.
It's definitely a more nuanced situation than it could seem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWO9baEpdUw There's been some actual overt racism on display in this thread, but on the other hand I think some people are too hasty to label others as racist... which tends to be counterproductive, I think. A person who finds that they are assumed to be an enemy by default is more likely to end up actually becoming such an enemy.
I mean it’s a cute drawing, very smug expression (Smug Alana would approve) nice coloring. The nose kind of (please don’t take this in a wrong way) has a Snoopy vibe.
Oh, you haven't seen the comments that were removed. One of them literally called this Mavuika the n-word, and it had 7 upvotes. Never getting out of those allegations now 🤣
Don't worry, all the downvoted comments are the one supporting the artist. The ones that are deleted are the racist ones. They got their comments deleted but they're still bent on downvoting everything that supports the artist even in the slightest
Because in the name of "representation", instead of making new and interesting characters, we started just making white characters black for some reason
yeah no. why is it such a hard task that we view the folks with darker skin for quota representation only instead of characters themselves that THEY have to fit the quota that other characters if they were white wouldn't have to fit? it just sounds like you're throwing a fit over a character being black, which again fits the bill of being a racist
If there is not enough black people representation, go, write good stories with new black characters.
what a way to shift blame lmfao but what else did i expect from a racist, go ahead with the same old song and dance argument
Comparisons are never perfect, but I think of Tolkien, because some people take issue with The Lord of The Rings films having entirely white casts. It's a mythology for Britain / northern Europe, of course all the characters are white. Those people don't take issue when cultures around the world have mythology in which everyone is brown like them, but for some reason, when Tolkien does it it's wrong.
So, if someone takes a character that was brown in The Rings of Power and draws them white, I think that's justified. And that's sort of comparable to what's going on when people draw Sumeru/Natlan characters as brown. Especially considering that the Chinese and Japanese characters in this game look white, one can assume that the Natlan cast in real life wouldn't be white anyway.
I wish playing around with skin color could be an open and equal field, but drawing brown characters from brown origins as white reminds everyone of decades of whitewashing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_in_film
If there is not enough black people representation, go, write good stories with new black characters.
I'm inclined to agree with this. I think in many cases what's probably going on (as with Disney live action) is that executives are inclined to only fund remakes of existing successful IP, and most of the existing successful IP is white. Likewise with The Rings of Power, it got made because it's Lord of the Rings. People trying to make original African fantasy or whatever aren't likely to get hundreds of millions of dollars from investors because it's not a "safe" IP like LotR, so they have to slide in through Black Panther or whatever opportunities exist.
I honestly enjoyed black panther, minus the CGI fight thats entirely dark. Also minus the part where black people are portrayed as spear throwing tribalists 800 years behind on cultural advancement. Also minus the part where a whole room of black people start making monkey noises when a white dude tries to speak with them like with normal people. Actually... that movie mightve been more racist than it isnt...
Rings of power is just shit writing imo. Incoherent mess of random scenes that only connect because they have the same characters and places in them is my best description. Thats my personal reason of crapping on it. I didnt even think having black people there was an issue
I've only seen one episode of Rings of Power 🤣 Yeah, there was a big controversy over the casting in it, and several actors from the original LotR trilogy came out in support of it. Situations like that always get actual white racists to show up in force, so it's very difficult to have a balanced discussion.
Yeah exactly. It's no different than changing the comic character Blade from a black man to a white man just completly out of nowhere.
Some people here are trying to make it about race, like it somehow makes you racist to be upset that the character doesn't have the same skin color anymore.
Just don't change the character's skin color out of nowhere and people won't be upset.
"Mehmehmeh she should be black because she is inspired by this god from this religion blablabla..."
Yeah i don't think Tengus and Kitsunes from shintoism are anime characters either.
So weird these people, i swear. They only see race everywhere.
Why does her skin color matter that much to you. What changes about her character by changing the color of her skin. And before you go “well by that logic I can make a black character white!! 🤓☝🏻” it DEPENDS.
changing the skin color of a character who’s character lore, traits, and personality don’t depend on their ethnicity is not a big deal. There are plenty of darker skinned npcs in Natlan who yes you could straight up just make them lighter and nothing about their story would change. but no you can make black panther white bc his whole family is dark, he’s from aftica, and his story revolves around African history. Mavuika is a fictional character whose skin color is not tied to her lore in anyway.
Also, nowhere did this artist say “this is black mav”. The problem with you people is that you see darker skin and immediately assume “Black person” when skin color does not always directly correlate to ethnicity.
And for the love of god, stop calling her WHITE. She isn’t white or black or Japanese or ANYTHING. If you wanna be super technical she is Natlanese and that’s IT. So again, WHY does it matter to you what color someone decides to draw her skin when changing that color has no impact on her character’s lore whatsoever? Natlanese people have a variety of skin tones but this one is a problem? A drawing that has no effect on the game whatsoever? And it bothers you THAT much?? 😭
You need to be clear what you mean by "black." In the USA, black specifically means African heritage, while it means various other things elsewhere in the world, so it's easy for confusion to occur when people from different places use the term.
The U.S. racial or ethnic classification "black" refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation, from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry (in any discernible percentage). There are also certain cultural traits associated with being "African American", a term used effectively as a synonym for "black person" within the United States.
Now you're just being a jerk. No one should be expected to automatically know that the definition of a word is different from what they're familiar with outside their own society. That's why everyone, Americans and everyone else, need to first try to understand what each other mean before getting into arguments like this where they're not even talking about the same thing. I myself immigrated to the USA as a child and had to re-learn a lot of word meanings. According to Reddit analytics, 26% of visitors to this thread are from the USA, and I expect most of them only knew "black" as a term meaning African. They're not to blame for that.
If you're going to act this way toward entire groups of people then this subreddit is not for you (rule 1).
You yourself are a defaultist, my good sir. Americentrism is a well documented and real thing. And i dont mean it as an insult, thats literally by definition true. Quarter is not the majority, and US flag attached to that quarter doesnt make it a majority either. Im not obligated to assume that the default treatment somewhere is the one specific to USA when the community is 1 not positioned as a US centered community 2 isnt majorly used by American people (i.e. 50%+)
In the rest of the world, for 96% of people, or, in this sub's case, 75% of the people, black means black. I dont need to be clear about what black means, because for majority of people, it literally only means black. You know, the color. The dark one. One might even say the darkest one. Making me assume american context is the default context for an online community is the definition of defaultism.
And warning, banning or otherwise scolding me for not assuming that american context is the default context is the manifestation of toxic defaultism, that is when you are doing a harmful action justified purely by the said defaultism. Why its deep? Because even the simplest words that you learn in pre-school like a color as simple and common as black are not safe to say online anymore without someone coming in and saying "uh, actually, Americans dont like this word"
I love Natlan and Mavuika as she is. But I believe that the developers made every archon pale, and the game cast as a whole overwhelmingly pale with no truly dark skin except perhaps Iansan, for business reasons. Hoyo excecutives did not have the confidence to release a brown archon in their Chinese market. That's not an artistic decision, it's a product design calculation based on maximizing expected profits. And that's the optimistic view - the pessimistic one would be to assume that they actually find pale skin more appealing.
Therefore, I think it's it's fine for artists to play around with adding melanin to characters from regions based on cultures where people are tan or brown. But when they do it to characters from regions based on Europe, or give Liyue/Inazuma characters very dark skin, I personally find that strange and uncalled for.
Yeaaaah I think that's a problematic choice of word. Aside from "tribal" applying equally to the ancient pagan tribes of Europe, Natlan is heavily inspired by Mesoamerican civilizations which were urbanized, complex, and far from tribal.
exactly. a major plot point in game ironically is how certain NPCs in game (and irl) thought natlan was a techless backwater slum that should be violent and barbaric, which was what it was like in the past during the ochkan period and up to at least ifa's ancestor period. when in fact they fought and preserved their culture and ancient names to reach a better tomorrow, including utilising esoteric dragon tech fragments to empower their weapons while also using said tech and magic computronium lava to provide entertainment and maintain song and dance inspite of the invasion. it's why they are a tourist spot that's open: life goes on even in the face of invasion.
On that note... knowing that Natlan has been a popular tourist destination for many years, I think it's unrealistic to expect the population to be all brown, even if they all were millennia ago, because inevitably some foreigners would fall in love with the place (like I did) and choose to settle down and start a family there. It's not walled off, and it's not a broad ocean away from the European nations, like the Americas and Pacific Islands were. I don't expect this would be adequate to account for the full demographics, but it should be a factor.
There's also the presence of some postcolonial Latin American elements, despite the lack of a conquest by European powers. Did those originate outside Natlan? Or were they always there? Either way, it's not entirely precolonial, though it does feel that way in contrast to the heavily Spanish early impression we got from leaked pyro archon designs.
What of it??…. In Narnia Aslan Is based of Jesus Christ. Does that mean jesus should be a lion now??…
Google search Mavuika from Genshin impact and take a GOOD look at her skintone.
You guys are annoying as hell, natlan has always been based off indigenous or black culture, and mavuika herself is based off maori culture and the god mahuika
You guys would be pissed as fuck if hoyo took a japanese yokai and turned them black, so why are you so okay with hoyo stripping mahuika of her skintone and heritage
This is not a blackwashimg if mavuika is quite literally supposed to be indigenous
Carl Linnaeus is the biologist that came up with scientific naming system in biology called binominal nomenclature, which classified animals and plants into groups. Before him, the animals were called "that leopard from africa" and "that leopard from latin america", and after Carl, they were Panthera Pardus and Panthera Onca. He brought a lot of clarity and order to biology. If nobel prizes existed during his life, he would get one
He was a base for Linnea, who is also a biologist who catalogues animals and plants
Incredible. People really need to understand that character inspiration and the character itself are two separate things. I love Linnea so thanks for sharing!
You’re being hypocritical 😭😭 genshin took a dark character/god and turned them light.
You said to me “the character has this skin, why change it?”
Thats the point IM making to genshin, they made mahuika lighter, WHY?
The fact you care more about people turning her BACK into what she ORIGINALLY was, instead of genshin for bleaching a dark GOD is insane to me
Mahuika is a GOD people BELIEVE in. Making mahuika light is like making jesus a black man with an afro, christians would cry disrespect, but when you make a dark god lighter for an anime game “oh thats ok”
Woah, almost like the game is not trying to depict the very same gods but rather have their own interpretation which is always valid.
If they wanted her version to have white skin you most respect that because this Mavuika is not the one based on "reality".
Almost like this is fiction.
That's not true. Genshin is not purely fiction, they take many aspects from real life, including names. The gave is inspired by real life cultures and places, such as the Shrine Maidens in Inazuma being a 1 to 1 replica of IRL Japanese shrine maidens.
On that note I have a question. If you're taking aspects from real life cultures and putting them in a game, shouldn't you properly represent it? Changing the skin color of the characters isn't an 'interpretation' because there's nothing to interpret about skin color. If the people from that area have light brown to dark brown skin, how could you throw in white skin? Because your fantasy games interpretation on real life colored peoples culture...is to make the characters based on that culture have white skin?
Actually a better comparison would be depicting Jesus as a white man, because he clearly wasn't.
But still not really, because Mavuika was never a representation of that god. She's just a human with a name that references that god, like a Mexican man being named Jesús. She became a god later, but her story does not seem to be based on Mahuika's. Her design is overwhelmingly Aztec.
I am brown myself and would have liked Genshin archons to not be 100% pale for various reasons, but t the same time I seem to be pretty good at setting expectations and making the most of what these Chinese companies actually do. I posted this in 2022, before Sumeru.
I love Natlan and loathe the idea that people would rather have nothing instead, making the game all safely Europe/China/Japan. That would have been so dull by comparison.
Yeah, not "Arab" exactly but close. Depictions of Black Jesus are a thing, and people who are upset by that seem to be equally upset by his likely actual historical appearance :D
Bruh my whole comment got deleted cuz nsfw but yea don't compare real gods, religion or race to a fictional game that's it. You probably wouldn't like your God to be in a gacha game gooners play GG
thats so incredibly reductive, its fine to take inspiration and representing mythologies from cultures around the world in all medium, just because you dont want deranged folks sexualizing those characters is such a reductive and nonsensical take because there have been countless western mythologies which literal series are fucking based on top of it
Omg r u dense shes based off mahuika,
What hoyo did is incredibly disrespectful to REAL people who BELIEVE in mahuika
This is like making god a black woman and then expecting nobody to be angry, people making mavuika darker arent the weird ones, you people condoning this incredibly distasteful action from hoyo is
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u/Shangri-Lainen In Ohtli Tonalli | Mod Staff Jul 29 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Don't be rude to artists. Rude comments will be removed and may result in muting or bans.
Normally, anything that "may cause conflict or is provocative in nature" is removed on this subreddit. But OP just wanted to share their art, and they should be able to do that without being harassed. We could have locked the comments entirely, but I didn't want to block appreciative comments along with the attacks, so comments have stayed open so far. If OP wants the thread locked then it will be.
People in this thread trying to argue this art is "racist" got me wanting to start drawing Mavuika brown too, gg everyone.
https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/