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 angel of ecstasy wrote:
There are no dark skinned humans in 40k because you have not painted any. So it's your fault, OP.

HA! Okay, back to work.

Who cares about different shades of brown, when you have red, green, and blue skin.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Who cares about different shades of brown, when you have red, green, and blue skin.

Burn the Heretic!

Because white nerds making toys for white nerds. Also, there is a strange idea that white male is the default and everything else is a variation, hence the only non-white characters (the Salamanders and the White Scars) are single token units that are distinguished by their race.

I like to think that there is a planet of purple skinned people making Space Marines.

AnomanderRake wrote:as well as Inquisitor Toth (black dude) in one of the Dawn of War games

"... CRUSH you under my INQUISITORIAL BOOT!"

That guy was like the Inquisition's Samuel L. Jackson. <3

Sigvatr wrote:Furthermore: WH40k is game. A game mostly played by...
...white people. It's easier to identify with people of the same skin color. Thus you sell more stuff.

This also ties into the explanation on why there are no female Cadian models.

angel of ecstasy wrote:There are no dark skinned humans in 40k because you have not painted any. So it's your fault, OP.

Exalted.

In the fluff, non-caucasian's do exist. It is heavily implied that the Salamanders are supposed to be of african descent and the white scars are of asian descent. As for the armies themselves, well, its largely up to the painter, although I'm willing to guess that a part of the problem is that due to naming conventions of paints, it is easier to find a good flesh tone for lighter flesh than it is for darker flesh. Plus in the case of space marines the only time I WONT give a model a helmet is when I am doing a conversion on an HQ unit and I want to differentiate between a normal dude and my Librarian (its not just the lack of a helmet, but it helps illustrate that he's different).

Quotes from the other thread:

Kroothawk wrote:Here a black skinned Space Marine:

Here a red skinned Space Marine:

Here a yellow skinned Space Marine:

Here a brown skinned Space Marine:

Kroothawk wrote:Also has to do with the fact that the Japanese theme is covered by Tau (blue skin!), the noble savage theme is covered by Kroot, the wild and brutal low tech theme is covered by Orks (green skin!). Kislev Flesh is perfect for East Asian skin. My Dark Eldar have dark violet skin.

Puppet Wars offers Native American Heads for Space Marines ( http://www.puppetswar.com/product.php?id_product=32 ).
Basicks offers (IG?) Rasta heads ( http://basicks.eu/shop/product.php?id_product=206 ).
Kromlech offers SM Samurai heads ( http://www.ebay.de/itm/Kromlech-Cyber-Samurai-Heads-/150654434534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2313b43ce6 )
Dragon Forge is offering Afro-American heads: http://dragonforge.com/Painting%20service/for%20sale/conversion_parts.htm

Because the artists are lazy.

I think it's ridiculous that the game is so oblivious to the existence of racial/ethnic groups other than Default White Boy, but the misogyny (more invisibilty of women than poor treatment, although there's plenty of the latter) bothers me more. I can accept that GW are provincial without noticing. Maybe they just live in an area without many minorities, and don't really think about non-white people. But it's pretty dang difficult to go a day without interacting with a woman in some fashion, so their invisibility (or relegation to the Sexy Factions) is more troubling.

I haven't done much to address the racial issue myself. Both my human factions (GK and IG) have zero skin showing. It is in my Guard regiment's fluff, however, that around 40% of their line infantry are female. It's just impossible to tell under the greatcoat, armor plates, and respirator.

Those dragonforge heads are pretty snazz. wonder how they scale on guardsmen bodies.

Bludbaff wrote:I think it's ridiculous that the game is so oblivious to the existence of racial/ethnic groups other than Default White Boy, but the misogyny (more invisibilty of women than poor treatment, although there's plenty of the latter) bothers me more. I can accept that GW are provincial without noticing. Maybe they just live in an area without many minorities, and don't really think about non-white people. But it's pretty dang difficult to go a day without interacting with a woman in some fashion, so their invisibility (or relegation to the Sexy Factions) is more troubling.

ADB recently remarked the absence of women in the franchise is somewhat weird, which is why he makes it a point of including at least one in every BL story of his. Where they are mentioned in GW fluff (pretty much only Sororitas, Assassins and one or two Inquisitors afaik), it's done good, but it just does not happen very often. I have also heard it said that Andy Hoare was the "driving force" behind SoB in the studio, and nobody else cared even a little.

Large parts of society are still stuck defaulting to the "white/caucasian male human in his 20s or 30s", perhaps even without noticing it. Just look at who most video game heroes are.



To be honest, I recently got into the Battletech franchise (thanks to MWO) and started reading their sourcebooks and novels, and it's refreshing how female characters as well as different ethnicities are actually not a big deal there; they just "exist" and do not even stand out in any way. In fact, here's a quote from one of their releases, and a little test for ya:

Texina Waco
Rank: Star Colonel
Born: 3201 (26 in 3227)
Born to a MechWarrior and an exotic dancer, many expected the outgoing young Texina to follow in her father's footsteps. Surprising everyone, she was accepted to the New East Hartford College of Combat in hopes of joining her mother in the Third League Defense Force. [...]

In combination with the full text of this character's background, it actually took me a minute to "get it", but that only goes to show how we are prone to a sort of defaulting as well.

That is not to say that a certain degree of racism and even mysoginy may not have its place in a setting, and such things exist at specific places in Battletech as well. What is confusing in as far as 40k is concerned, is that at times the books go out of their way to make it clear that an entire population is afflicted, whereas on the other end it still only ends up being white males in practice (painted studio models, artworks). An example for this would be Cadia's 100% recruitment ratio.
There are certainly worlds in the Imperium of "Man" where racism and sexism are practiced as part of their culture, which I am totally fine with - unfortunately, GW also seems to subconsciously extend this to every other place by simply omitting folks. Once in a while, however, you get to see an exception, such as the Warrior Women of the world Xenan (duh) or the black Seraphim from the Codex artwork posted earlier.

I think that any change to this ratio will be depending chiefly on the individual members in the studio team. It could very well be that it's still a sort of "boys club" where it's as simple as people just forgetting that there are other folks aside from white men. At least I would not want to suggest any sort of malicious bias for now. That would be the same as claiming the D&D writers are racists because drow = black etc.

I painted my necromunda gang dark skinned (they had some white hirelings) and some said that was racist. I also gave eschers crew cuts and added them to my orlocks. I was shooting for max diversity.

Redacted by Mannahnin.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Uh...


Uh...

Guys?

Please, tell me I'm not imagining this.

The guy in the center of the bottom row...

Obama.

I said it.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

Uh...


Uh...

Guys?

Please, tell me I'm not imagining this.

The guy in the center of the bottom row...

Obama.

I said it.

You know, now that you point it out, I do see the resemblance.

Top left is the bad guy from Demolition Man I forget the character's name ..

And yes, the other head has a certain similarity..

 Zande4 wrote:

 Somedude593 wrote:
racial diversity is not going to be a strong point in a universe that focusses on the wholesale slaughter of millions and grimdark death millions of years in the future.. also which codex are you referring to? if you look at the IG codex there is a black dudes on pgs 15, 38 and an asiatic horseman on pg 44, also all spacemarines in the salamanders chapter are black.. dont know about WHF though.. im tired of people trying to make this argument paint them that way if you really want it so bad

Yeh pretty much this ^

Also Talarn Desert Raiders are middle eastern. Also I'm pretty sure GWS encourage you to make your own Chapters and Regiments where you can pick anything from armour colour to skin colour, weapon choices to special characters and so much more...
This thread will derail fast as its usually viewed as people going out of their way to get offended.

Apart from their dress, how do you work out that they are all middle eastern? Al Rahem has a certain stereotypical look but normal guardsmen don't look any different from cadians. The old 2nd edition codex even has drawings of a tallarn and they are white in that. Having said that I am definately in the camp that there is ethnic diversity represented in 40k.

Bludbaff wrote:
I think it's ridiculous that the game is so oblivious to the existence of racial/ethnic groups other than Default White Boy, but the misogyny (more invisibilty of women than poor treatment, although there's plenty of the latter) bothers me more. I can accept that GW are provincial without noticing. Maybe they just live in an area without many minorities, and don't really think about non-white people.

Ok, so I'd hardly call Nottingham 'an area without many minorities'. It's pretty diverse.

I think the problem is, as people have said, is a lack of representation of different skin tones rather than a lack of existence. The Black Library novels regularly mention characters with different skin tones, and often with combinations of physical features that don't exist today (dark skin and white hair, for example). The Horus Heresy series alone has a good number of non-white characters, mostly amongst rememberancers. It's just that their ethnicity is mostly mentioned as an aside and then never mentioned again, since it's kinda irrelevant that far in the future.

Regarding sexism, that's a different matter. We're talking about a world where most of humanity has regressed into a technologically advanced version of a primitive society. A vast amount of 40k worlds are medieval or similar, and historically, in those societies, women don't tend to do the fighting. Even in our modern day society, women don't tend to do the fighting. While GW fluff says that there are plenty of mixed regiments from worlds that have more equal (futuristic) societies, it's not surprising that in a based-on-historical wargame, there aren't that many female soldiers.

I'd like to see GW redress this balance a bit, but I like the way they were going with the DE - I hope this might continue with Eldar and Tau. Showing the Imperium as 'backward' when compared to more equal 'futuristic' armies...

Even in our modern day society, women don't tend to do the fighting

when you say modern , you want to say modern western society right ?

Makumba wrote:

Even in our modern day society, women don't tend to do the fighting

when you say modern , you want to say modern western society right ?

I'm not sure - is there a modern army in the world that is 50/50 male/female?

 Archon Tobias wrote:
I was showing my friend my codex, and he asked why there where no dark-skinned humans. Hes NZ Moari, and wants to have an imperial guard army that looks like the Moari battalion of the second world war.

All you have to do is create it, their is also a Space Marine Chapter based on the Moari. As already said there is alot of fluff about 'non-white' human armies, just look at the cover of the old Catachan Codex.

Main forces:
Tallarn - middle eastern
Attilan rough riders - mongolian
Catachan - white and dark brown skin tones are present, the only rule is catachanians have to be riped.

What you have to remember is that alot of fluff is based on historical reference (valhallans are soviet forces during the world wars etc.) most of the referenced material occured before most countries were 'multi-cultural' . There is also the fact that the vast majority of players are white so paint their minitures white as they represent him on the miniture scale.

As to WHFB the answer is pretty simple look at a map of the old world, WHFB is literally set in a version of medieval Europe that just so happens to have magic and monsters.

The Empire -germanic
Bretonnian - France
Tillian - the medateranian
The North - celtic/viking.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Even in our modern day society, women don't tend to do the fighting

when you say modern , you want to say modern western society right ?

I'm not sure - is there a modern army in the world that is 50/50 male/female?

The Isreali Defence Force is pretty close


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bludbaff wrote:
I think it's ridiculous that the game is so oblivious to the existence of racial/ethnic groups other than Default White Boy, but the misogyny (more invisibilty of women than poor treatment, although there's plenty of the latter) bothers me more. I can accept that GW are provincial without noticing. Maybe they just live in an area without many minorities, and don't really think about non-white people. But it's pretty dang difficult to go a day without interacting with a woman in some fashion, so their invisibility (or relegation to the Sexy Factions) is more troubling.

I haven't done much to address the racial issue myself. Both my human factions (GK and IG) have zero skin showing. It is in my Guard regiment's fluff, however, that around 40% of their line infantry are female. It's just impossible to tell under the greatcoat, armor plates, and respirator.

A quick wiki search will show you that GW is based in Nottingham, a city with large afro-carabbian and asian decendant residents since the 60's.

As to women, 40k is set in a horrendous future were survival is the key, most IG are recruited from males as the women are needed to stay planet side, the main reason is that they are needed to give birth and raise more humans. It is a common sense act by the IG to mostly recruit from men, now you may say that this is sexist and it is because men are being forced to die on a god forsaken planet while women are safe on IoM worlds. When people think of equality they think of everyone should be allowed to do everything equally, it is much better to think of equality as giving equal worth to a person's actions. To the IoM raising a child is just as important as holding a lasgun.

BluntmanDC wrote:As to women, 40k is set in a horrendous future were survival is the key, most IG are recruited from males as the women are needed to stay planet side, the main reason is that they are needed to give birth and raise more humans. It is a common sense act by the IG to mostly recruit from men, now you may say that this is sexist and it is because men are being forced to die on a god forsaken planet while women are safe on IoM worlds. When people think of equality they think of everyone should be allowed to do everything equally, it is much better to think of equality as giving equal worth to a person's actions. To the IoM raising a child is just as important as holding a lasgun.

But that's not how it works as per GW at all. The Imperium doesn't care whether you send them men or women - they care that you send them a specific number of soldiers when the tithe is due. And given how we often read of vastly overpopulated hives etc I have a hard time believing that many of these planets have a problem covering these "man"power needs. Isn't it said that "bodies" is the one resource the IoM has more than enough of?
Not to mention stuff like the 100% recruitment ratio for Cadia mentioned in Codex fluff.

No, sexism - quite likely as well as racism - surely exists somewhere in the Imperium, but that would be a planetary thing and subject to local culture. The "problem" is that the existing background about female IG does not really flow back into the artworks or the models, with rare exceptions such as that one limited edition female Commissar GD mini, or the two girls of the Last Chancers. If Cadia has a 100% recruitment ratio, surely their boxes are the one army where people should expect to see a mixed gender force?
Of course there is another - somewhat more "darker" possibility - that GW purposefully does not produce Cadian boxes with girls in them because then the army would not appear as attractive to a certain segment of the male customers. Considering some posts I have seen even here on Dakka, I could see a mixed gender army be a deal breaker to certain conservatives.

Perhaps the same can be said about skin colours. Of course here you as the gamer can at least paint them differently, but if you look at the studio models and the photos, all you ever see is Caucasians everywhere. This is actually one area where I have to give some Black Library novels or the computer games props for deviating from the studio.

 jah-joshua wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The most commonly-seen humans in Warhammer Fantasy are from the Empire, which is based on the Holy Roman Empire, Bretonnia, which is based on Arthurian myth/medieval France or England, or Kislev, which is based on medieval Russia. The most commonly seen humans in 40k are the many varieties of Space Marines, which barring the White Scars and the Salamanders tend to be based on elements of European mythology/history, the Cadians, which are subject to a lot of jokes about being Canadian, and the Catachans, which are based on American troops in Vietnam. There were few to no black people in any of these situations.

In the lore, however, we do have Araby (Africa), Cathay (China), Ind (India), and Nippon (Japan) in Warhammer Fantasy, and Tallarn (Middle East) in 40k, as well as Inquisitor Toth (black dude) in one of the Dawn of War games, so it's not that there are 'no black people' so much as it is 'none of the poster armies have black people'.

i would agree with everything here, except the Vietnam bit...
there were loads of Black and Latino troops fighting in Vietnam...
it was actually a big bone of contention over there, as it was felt that the white kids with money could all hide out in college to avoid the draft, while the poorer communities all got scooped up and dumped in the jungle...

that said, darker skin tones are a nice change from painting pale skin...
Guard would be the most diverse, but many Space Marine chapters recruit from a variety of worlds and cultures...
Sons of Dorn had some interesting cultural differences between recruits, and gives a good reason to vary the skintones the army...

cheers
jah

Ah, but the black and Latino people in Vietnam didn't make it into a lot of the Vietnam War movies, did they? (The only one who's coming to mind is the captain of the boat in Apocalypse Now) And that's what the Catachans are based off of, popular impressions of Vietnam rather than what actually happened. Full Metal Jacket, Rambo, things like that.

I'm sure you could paint a culturally-diverse Catachan army pretty easily, though, they've got a lot of skin showing, so darker skin would create a pretty distinct-looking army.

I tend to look at the lack of diversity as a technical issue more than anything else.

I mean, take the Cadians for example (since those models are really the only "human" models we see painted up too much anymore). Sure, fluff DOES say that all Cadians are born white and with purple colored eyes. Yeah, that explains that. But try to find a comfortable paint that will let you paint Blacks, or Latino, or Asian with a distinct and GOOD LOOKING difference. Especially since you only see about the face, and thats not too too detailed.

The Catachans are different, you could do a more diverse force there but again without making the models paint scheme look awkward....

They're your figures, paint them how you want. My Dark Angels will all be dark skinned thanks to the world they come from.

 dwez wrote:
They're your figures, paint them how you want.

Everytime this comes up I wonder why the OP didn't think of this.

Not going to aruge with anyone so I will just state a few points:
People are too PC .
If there are not many dark skinned humans its because people dont paint them that way, or because they are not marketable to the target audience.
People seem to misunderstand what diversity is: In the above posts there is a picture of a bunch of light skinned characters, some being american, german, russian, italian, etc. Are you trying to state that this selection of characters is not diverse? There are many different cultures, languages, etc represented there.
Lastly, "light skinned" people are a minority on the world scale, so you can say that most humans represented in WH are minorities. Its just because you are viewing this from a western perspective.

I just figured that all the non-whites in the future were smart enough to avoid being used as cannon fodder.

We see this thread once a month, and it always turns into a myrid of weird and wonder excuses, accusations, reasons and theories.

The reason there is no specific reference to skin colour or race in Warhammer is because it does not matter. In the grim dark of the future.. people are worried about chaos and heretics. Race doesn't even enter into it. Where you see a white man and a black woman, GW sees a model. It's not racial ignorance; infact it's what the world should aim to be.. so far beyond the concept of race no one even notices the difference.

Hetelic wrote:The reason there is no specific reference to skin colour or race in Warhammer is because it does not matter. In the grim dark of the future.. people are worried about chaos and heretics. Race doesn't even enter into it. Where you see a white man and a black woman, GW sees a model. It's not racial ignorance; infact it's what the world should aim to be.. so far beyond the concept of race no one even notices the difference.

Yeah, but the difference between ... what, when your books are filled with only one sort of people? At some point, someone is going to notice that (to my knowledge) there is not a single black miniature to be found throughout the entirety of all of the minis painted by GW, and then it gets awkward because even though the thought simply did not occur to the painters, in the end it still comes across like ignorance that not all people on the world look like that. Simply accepting such a "mono-toned" (hah!) portrayal, even defending it, does not advance the cause of making people no longer notice a difference, because all you do is create two different worlds ... the reality outside on the streets, and the 100% white male army in the photos of the books you publish. If change regarding perception of racial differences is achieved via exposure, then GW is a conservative factor in our lives.

It's not malicious - I actually think I would have done the same simply due to the aforementioned defaulting. But I would try to spice up diversity once someone pointed it out to me, and I can't imagine that, after all those years, nobody at GW is aware of how it may look to some. Surely they read forums like these, too?

On the other hand, I would agree that the issue gets blown up a little too much (considering we're talking about a game) and isn't exactly worth multiple pages of debate. I just think it's something weird that would be cool if it'd change.

dwez wrote:They're your figures, paint them how you want. My Dark Angels will all be dark skinned thanks to the world they come from.

Spoiler:

Kudos, looking good - I can only imagine how difficult it was to get the right colour mixed.