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Even back when I was making my Ethnic Skintone article (shameless plug, yep!) I noticed there was not a lot of sculpts that reflected a diverse amount of cultures and ethnicities. BUT in addition to that problem the other problem is that in the mini painting/ sculpting/ designing hobby, we're all about exaggeration and contrast- so when does wanting to include other facial features become a caricature of those features and set back what you were trying to do?

Of course, now a days we have 3d printing and any independent designer can put out heads compatible with multi-part kits. But traditionally, I didn't see a lot of other ethnicities in the mini ranges, except historical and even then it was mostly the small re-enactment museum pieces.

So, I guess my question is where does wanting to share in a culture and show inclusiveness and cultural misappropriation and racial insensitivity clash? I sure don't have an answer, so please discuss!

I'm guessing here.

I would imagine the historical figures market will have some significant ethnic diversity, and so would imagine that fora specific to those markets might cover this topic.

On the other hand, in a games setting where xenophobia is one of the themes of the setting, and 99% of MY figures are non human (including helmeted space marines), the question seems moot.

I suppose that if I were to paint - say - an Indian force from the days of the Raj, I would want the sculpts to be of good quality (avoiding over exaggerated features), and I would want my paint job to be a decent quality.

I’d guess when it comes to ethnic features sculpted at 28mm, the line between “good job” and “Al Jolson” is a super fine one. Especially as skin colour by no means defines what features you might have. Because we’re a super diverse lot.

But we can look at GW’s more modern sculpts for pretty ethnically ambiguous features, allowing the painter to do more or less what they want. That I think is a decent way forward. Don’t aim for a given look. Just sculpt a recognisably human face and carry on.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But we can look at GW’s more modern sculpts for pretty ethnically ambiguous features, allowing the painter to do more or less what they want. That I think is a decent way forward. Don’t aim for a given look. Just sculpt a recognisably human face and carry on.

I loved this about the Aquila Pilot from BoM; I've painted 2 of them with totally different skin tones, and they both work fine!

I think that the new-ish SM variant heads from Forge World are a great example of showing attributes of different races without going into caricature territory:






Whoever designed them has clearly got some talent

That’s exact what I’m getting at.

The sculpts themselves aren’t aiming at a given ethnicity. Rather focussing on crisp detail and that.

The rest is up to the person painting them, to take the sculpted detail and add slighted exaggerated highlight and palette as they see fit.

The ones with the masks are kinda a cop-out, but then I saw the later ones and the eyes give a better impression.

True story: Me and my best friend in high school were playing Mordhiem (read: I forced him to play with me) and he wanted his Reiklander leader to look like himself, and he is Jamaican. I Didn't have anything that really looked like him on the sprue, so ended up using a Chaos warrior head that was bald (as he was at the time) but then he requested dreadlocks and the green/ yellow/ red/ black color scheme. I cringe now because that Chaos head is SO much bigger than the normal human body- it'd be like putting a Primaris head on a Firstborn or Imperial Guard!

First off: thanks for that article you shared. I read it a couple of times in the past and didn't imagine I would meet the author.

On the topic: I am also sometimes a bit... lets say conflicted. I have an african/arabic themed IG regiment thats supposed to be from a feudal/feral world. They are fun to paint but I often hope that this doesn't come across as demeaning.

Regarding modelling options: there are some quite nice examples. Puppetswar for example dies some excellent sub-saharan african heads. Ghost archipelago tribals have features that remind me a lot of Maoris and there are multiple tin figure producers that get the faces pretty good

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

Even back when I was making my Ethnic Skintone article (shameless plug, yep!) I noticed there was not a lot of sculpts that reflected a diverse amount of cultures and ethnicities. BUT in addition to that problem the other problem is that in the mini painting/ sculpting/ designing hobby, we're all about exaggeration and contrast- so when does wanting to include other facial features become a caricature of those features and set back what you were trying to do?

Of course, now a days we have 3d printing and any independent designer can put out heads compatible with multi-part kits. But traditionally, I didn't see a lot of other ethnicities in the mini ranges, except historical and even then it was mostly the small re-enactment museum pieces.

So, I guess my question is where does wanting to share in a culture and show inclusiveness and cultural misappropriation and racial insensitivity clash? I sure don't have an answer, so please discuss!

I saw that article years ago, many thanks for writing it as I found it very useful painting infantry from a range of regions and periods, Japan, ancient Egypt, southern Africa etc.

I think the trouble with a lot of models tends to be the overly exaggerated nature of pretty much any facial or body feature required for it to be noticeable quickly shifts into cartoon land as such features tend to actually be quite minor IRL when you look at them and really colour ranges is about all you end up with.

I have some Imperial Guard from a few years back, there are a couple of mid and a couple of darker tones among them, there would have been more but I got fed up with accusations of "tokenism" over them, these the normal Cadian models where not a lot of skin tone shows anyway at which point I gave up - my intention was just "these are ordinary people in a world of insanity" and when I looked around me at the time ordinary people came in different skin tones, so thats what my army had

I then ran head first into people who cannot see a "thing" without trying to read into it far far more than was intended, and outright to refuse that their position may not be correct.

since then the only non-western tones I have used have been for ranges where doing anything else would look wrong.

for individual sculpts, I quite like the Forgeworld alternative heads, they have a lot of character while allowing quite a range of painting schemes without looking too cartoony. I think however you run right into the same issues those who want realistic female models find, make them realistic and in general you also make them very hard to tell from anyone else in battlefield suitable clothing so it purely comes down to paint and at best maybe hairstyles and then becomes ground that sadly these days is harder to walk on.

pity really, there are some amazing models out there and an amazingly diverse range of stories that can be told throughout history, and thats before you run into fantasy worlds.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
So, I guess my question is where does wanting to share in a culture and show inclusiveness and cultural misappropriation and racial insensitivity clash? I sure don't have an answer, so please discuss!

In the world we live in, I doubt there will ever be a simple answer to this question. I also doubt that there's any easy all-purpose answer you can settle on, make your minis that way, and be absolutely certain that no one anywhere will ever find your choices problematic. So if you want to ask, how do I do racial diversity "right" so that no one is ever bothered and everyone thinks I'm doing it perfectly, the short answer is: you can't.

But if "perfect" is impossible, it's equally obvious that representing race, however subjective that is, can be done better or worse. Broadly speaking, I think whether a given sculpt - I'm talking physiognomy, not the color of the paint you choose - of a non-Western person is a caricature or not comes down to the talent and intelligence of the sculptor who made it, and whether or not they they were trying to sculpt an individual person of a certain ethnicity, or "a Black guy." If it's the latter, and it looks like it's the latter, that's not good, and certainly not indicative of a great deal of thought, experience, or subtlety. In literature, part of how non-Western characters written by Whites are received comes down to whether they're well written as credible individuals, or written sloppily as lazy stereotypes. (I did say "part." Obviously there are many other complex issues involved.)

As for whether what you're doing with your miniatures counts as "good" representation or tokenism, that's always going to be something other people may call into question, rightly or wrongly.

I was once asked by a fellow (White) gamer how inclusive / diverse my miniature collection is. I told them truthfully that I didn't quite know how to respond to that, because the vast majority of my miniature collection consists of monsters, aliens, demons, and robots. To be honest, I generally find humans depressing and boring, and when I do like minis of them, they tend to be fully armored and wearing cool helmets, to the point that they look a lot less human and you usually can't tell their race anyway. (Bareheaded Space Marines always seemed a little silly to me, as if they're deliberately broadcasting to enemy snipers, "guys, shoot me in the head!") In my view, most of my collection is effectively non-human and non-racial. But that person decided that my response rated "terrible" on some diversity / representation scale. I call bs on that. Is someone who always fields Tyranids doing a "terrible job" on diversity, or do they just really love insects and H.R. Giger? Do entomologists and roboticists pursue their careers just because they're all escapists desperately trying to avoid dealing with messy and thorny human racial issues in their work? Come on.

All that said, eventually I will get around to painting up some non-helmeted humans, and when I do, I'll have some non-Western people among them, which reflects my own family and circle of friends in real life. If someone wants to say that that's horrible tokenism on my part, well, O.K.. I can't stop them from feeling that way, and they have a right to their own opinion. But as far as I'm concerned, it's also their problem. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with them or worrying about it.

As a relatively poor painter, I learned long ago that any effort was better than no effort at all.

I also learned that no matter the effort, it won't be enough for some people.

So, I don't worry about how people judge my effort; whether that is painting quality, representation, what have you.

I paint for an audience of one.... me. If I am satisfied with it, that is good enough for me.

Removed.

In general - I think it can be a bit of a cop-out for a sculptor to claim "we just don't want to sculpt anything but models with highly western facial features and hair because we don't want to be offensive". GW has been hitting a very consistent high quality with the way this should be done for a long time now - They include a variety of different facial features on their models, and it lends the ability to paint many different features in various color schemes to have a believable member of any given race, rather than just like - the old 3e era space marine scout kit where absolutely every member of the squad has an identical Tom Brady Face.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think the key as a designer is not to go in saying "and this figure is going to be intended to look like a black man". It's just to look at things feature by feature - say - the natural variation in human noses - and just go into your kit and make sure you've got a pretty good variety of thin noses and flat wide noses and more rounded noses and slightly more protruding noses.

And like, honestly, at miniature scale youre going to be setting eye shape, nose shape, mouth shape and hairstyle and that's gonna be mostly it...

 Talking Banana wrote:

I was once asked by a fellow (White) gamer how inclusive / diverse my miniature collection is. I told them truthfully that I didn't quite know how to respond to that, because the vast majority of my miniature collection consists of monsters, aliens, demons, and robots. To be honest, I generally find humans depressing and boring, and when I do like minis of them, they tend to be fully armored and wearing cool helmets, to the point that they look a lot less human and you usually can't tell their race anyway. (Bareheaded Space Marines always seemed a little silly to me, as if they're deliberately broadcasting to enemy snipers, "guys, shoot me in the head!") In my view, most of my collection is effectively non-human and non-racial. But that person decided that my response rated "terrible" on some diversity / representation scale. I call bs on that. Is someone who always fields Tyranids doing a "terrible job" on diversity, or do they just really love insects and H.R. Giger? Do entomologists and roboticists pursue their careers just because they're all escapists desperately trying to avoid dealing with messy and thorny human racial issues in their work? Come on.

That is an insane question and an impossible standard. Why not follow it up with, "how diverse is your miniature collection's creators?" Why can't we just like what we like?

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

Even back when I was making my Ethnic Skintone article (shameless plug, yep!) I noticed there was not a lot of sculpts that reflected a diverse amount of cultures and ethnicities. BUT in addition to that problem the other problem is that in the mini painting/ sculpting/ designing hobby, we're all about exaggeration and contrast- so when does wanting to include other facial features become a caricature of those features and set back what you were trying to do?

Of course, now a days we have 3d printing and any independent designer can put out heads compatible with multi-part kits. But traditionally, I didn't see a lot of other ethnicities in the mini ranges, except historical and even then it was mostly the small re-enactment museum pieces.

So, I guess my question is where does wanting to share in a culture and show inclusiveness and cultural misappropriation and racial insensitivity clash? I sure don't have an answer, so please discuss!

It doesn't.

As to your fantasy point that " You noticed that there are not a lot of sculpts that reflected diverse amounts of cultures and ethnicities"... I call BS.
've been playing games for over 50 years. There have always been diverse miniatures and characters in every game, not that the current crop would know any better.

Games are games. Art is Art. You put what you want in there and if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.
Caricature is an artform. Using different cultures, hyper exaggeration, and insensitivity are part in parcel of Art. if there is something stirring in the grey matter, it comes out, for good or ill. You don't have to like everything. it has always been there. If you didn't see it, that's your problem.

Along with that-

Art is not pretty, it is a child of creativity, if it goes in uncomfortable places, so what, all the better.

Games and miniatures can be what they want. Just because you have a vocal minority that cries loud about it doesn't give it any less worth.

Back in the day, we had GWAR as a tabletop game. If you know who Gwar is, you know what I'm talking about. Back in the day, we had Golgo Island. Back in the day, we had Spinespur. Cowboys and Indians, Necromunda had the old pointy head Cawdor's, We've had more then our fair share of "Princess" fighter minis, We've seen Asian, and African fighters with superimposed features, and we've seen all sorts of big titted lizard women. etc.etc.etc.... In the end, Pulp, Horror, Sword and sorcery fantasy, Superheroes, high and low fantasy, and Scifi all have their places.
Like I said, if the game is good, it works, if not, so what.

The tabletop miniature game has had a lot of pedigree stemming from the saintly to the demonic, from the mighty to the mundane.

As to gaming- It's not my job to be "Inclusive". What happened with me was that I joined the Firm. The group of Historic gamers were the worst. When you got taken to task by old guys, you know you got a slap. I earned my stripes by learning the games, painting the hell out of my stuff, and as I got accepted into the fold, bringing others along by helping. I didn't come into a 100+ group and tell them to dance to my tune. You earn your place into the group, you aren't given it by color quotas, and diversity hire. It's bad enough that that is jammed down our gob like it is a written and stone imposed law. You earn your place into any group. EARN being the key word.

You walk in, get your balls busted, get pounced in game, and get slapped a few times if you do something stupid. THEN, as you continue to produce and improve, and bring out the best in others by competition.

I personally don't want just anyone walking in off the street, just to join the club, burn it down from the inside, and then walk out as the house burns to the ground, as they go to the next house. If you belong, welcome. If not, Have a nice day.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
I noticed there was not a lot of sculpts that reflected a diverse amount of cultures and ethnicities.

Why should these things exist in the first place? What role do they play? Are they important of the context of the game/universe being portrayed? I'm going to say that outside of historicals, they won't be.

"Is my Guard army diverse enough?" seems like the least important thing to think about when they're all being eaten by Tyranids or Daemons.

Why should these things exist in the first place?

It's nice to have figures that roughly represent how humans actually look? You're asking "why should we have options in our models".

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:
It's nice to have figures that roughly represent how humans actually look?

And they don't now?

Not universally. Infinity is pretty good about it, GW finally started having more options for humans on the sprues in the last year or two.Even they often struggle with the fact that humans come in a variety of heights and builds.

Is it paramount that I get tall and short people in the squad? No, but it would be a nice thing to have. That also includes non-humans, which get almost no variety at all beyond maybe hairdos and facial expressions.

It's a complete non-issue for the vast majority of customers. Most people feel no need to see themselves represented in every piece of fiction they engage with.

We'd have to have some way to test that assumption, which is not really possible given that gaming media always depicted the core demographic as the default option.

Getting a good variety in the industry is both nice, and important.
And I want to see the diversity and what people come up with when that is provided and possible.

For me I like that I am finally able to get more women in miniature, that don’t just exist for some weird fetishisation.
Infinity is great for this industry, Warmachine I think was great as well and some others.
GW is getting there, malifoux looks fantastic as well for its diverse cast of models.

So I can imagine it’s a lot for people to see representation of their backgrounds in the hobby as a whole in some place.

 BertBert wrote:
It's a complete non-issue for the vast majority of customers. Most people feel no need to see themselves represented in every piece of fiction they engage with.

I'm unsure about that. Space Marines are the most popular army, and arguably that is because it is easy for the average 40k player to feel represented by Space Marines. And even outside Space Marines, Imperial factions tend to be more popular IIRC as they are easier to empathize and feel represented by Imperials than by Xenos factions.

It's pretty sad that in some ways sci-fi/fantasy miniature gaming is only now having the conversation that comic books had in.. what.. the late 60s or 70s?

Twenty years or so ago I was a GW shop staffer and I remember a kid in his early teens, young black kid, wanting to start an army. He picked up an old Salamanders box that had been on the shelf forever (I think it was either tail end 2nd edition or 3rd) but, I think was unique, in that islt had the Salamander marines painted as African ethnicity on the studio box cover. I remember thinking that it was cool that he could pick up some miniatures that he could identify with. I guess it's the same as kids picking up Black Panther, Blade comics or whatever, there is a certain desire to transpose our own fantasies onto the little plastic men, be they superheroes, 7ft tall brain eaters or whatever else.

So I'm glad GW and others have now started painting a broader spectrum of races and creeds into the official studio minis - it doesn't do anything to harm the imagining of the universe, and if it means that even a few kids (or even adults) can enjoy the hobby it can only be a good thing.

Be careful with what you wish for. If you ask for more diversity/cultural representation, be ready for the backlash. 'Play it safe' can absolutely be a thing.

I got told by a girl I worked with that me having 'viking-themed' or 'mongol-themed' (you know, space wolves and white scars) was cultural appropriation and I was a very bad person for doung it because I had no rights to either culture. Can only imagine what she'd think about my minotaurs (genocidal spartans) ot other hypothetical forces (samurai-marines etc)

That does sound kinda funny, not gonna lie, i'm glad you could be amused by that kind of sillyness.

That was a cool story, but the only model without a helmet on the old Salamanders Tactical Squad box was white...

 BertBert wrote:
It's a complete non-issue for the vast majority of customers. Most people feel no need to see themselves represented in every piece of fiction they engage with.

That's a very bold statement without evidence and that clashes with the majority of research into representation in media, which pretty much invariably shows that people really do want to see themselves in media (see, for example, an entire special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on Media and minorities in multicultural Europe).

Of course, if you mean it's not a concern for the vast majority of present day wargames/GW customers? Well, the cast majority are white men. If you're the default character, you're unlikely to give representation much thought.

nfe wrote:

 BertBert wrote:
It's a complete non-issue for the vast majority of customers. Most people feel no need to see themselves represented in every piece of fiction they engage with.

That's a very bold statement without evidence and that clashes with the majority of research into representation in media, which pretty much invariably shows that people really do want to see themselves in media (see, for example, an entire special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on Media and minorities in multicultural Europe).

Of course, if you mean it's not a concern for the vast majority of present day wargames/GW customers? Well, the cast majority are white men. If you're the default character, you're unlikely to give representation much thought.

Also, if the vast majority of customers do not find representation to be an issue and don't care about seeing themselves, then they should also be perfectly fine with changing the models to increase representation. In which case GW loses nothing by increasing representation in their models and artwork, and potentially gains new customers who do want representation.

Also lets not forget that in lore many of the factions do have natural high representation. Imperial Guard have had women and different cultural and genetic backgrounds for decades. It just never translated to the tabletop.
GW today has way more resources and plastic understanding. Heck look at AoS (the smaller mainline game) and Warcry - there's over a dozen forces that each represent different flavours of "marauders" in the army.

Heck even historically GW did what 3 or 4 different styles of Imperial Guard army and could well tap into that again; only taking things further and having different style of sculpt to represent different racial backgrounds not just different uniforms and such.