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AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I tend to think it's just because white skin contrasts more than black skin and is easier to paint to a good standard (at least I find it is, others may not).


Anyway, I tend to feel complaining about equality in sex/race at the end product is the wrong way to go about it. We should be focusing on why there aren't more black/asian/female/whatever in game/miniature design studios, not worrying about why there aren't more black/asian/female models.

I think it is easier to paint white skin using GW paints ranges because they don't really make other skin tones. They make earthy browns, and they used to make 'dark flesh', but that was more of a tanned colour for shading purposes.

I'm inclined to agree that we need to examine why there aren't more black/asian/female/whatever in game/miniature design studios, but I think part of that problem is that there is very little representation for them in the hobby as it stands, and thus little to draw them to play the game (never mind move towards an artistic role in a studio).

It is basic that we paint what we want. And there is diversity in the galaxy. We have photographic evidence

Here we have a female Ork - a rarity, yes, but Gwendyln Gutzmass is living proof. Behind her is her personal
plastic surgeon. Miss Gutzmass is wearing a Needlemek skirt in Russian beige, accessorized with a Gak skin vest.
We believe she is asking for the keys to the Lexus.



Next we have an example of ethnic diversity within the ranks of the Ork mobs



Two Blud Angel scouts on watch duty



A truly dark Eldar Talos

Why aren't there any coloured folk?

Because the game was written by middle class ENGLISH whiteboys who went to an ENGLISH public school. You write what you are familiar with.

More of an unconscious omission than a conscious one. It just didn't occur to them since there weren't a lot of non-white gamers who played their game back then.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
Why is almost everyone obssesed with "diversity"... Does it really matter?

Yes.

Actually, that strongly depends on the country you live in. It is not an issue in much of Europe.

I wonder how people get the idea there are no dark-skinned people in 40k. They are in the BL novels and with the miniatures it just depends on how you paint them.
But most importantly, I think it has to do with the way sci-fi works. In most sci-fi, 40k too, worlds and societies are incredibly monotone and unvaried. A planet has only one single biome (forest planets or desert planets), it usually is a single political entity, its people all speak the same single language and all have the same culture. And since everything is the same, it also makes sense to have the whole population look similar, rather than to depict the hundreds or thousands of different cultures, languages and peoples that would realistically evolve on a single world.

-

And heres my personal answer.

Who cares

If you want black Orks, PAINTEM BLACK if you want fething asian woman imperial guardsmen then have at it.

Keep in mind these heads are often smaller than the end of the average pinkie finger, trying to sculpt on subtle features in the face that tend to vary slightly would have to be done very obviously. This would result in almost cartoon like and offensive heads. That's the explanation i heard anyway, and I would not a like a catachan that looked an ethnic character from a mid 20th century Warner brothers or Disney cartoon.

Think of it like the reason that most old European christian works depict the people of the Bible as white, the artists painted what was around them, white people. GW is a british company that does its sculpting in britain, the miniatures are painted like generic british people.

One could ask the same question about blond models, there are very few I have seen that are painted blond by 'eavy metal.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
Why is almost everyone obssesed with "diversity"... Does it really matter?

Yes.

Actually, that strongly depends on the country you live in. It is not an issue in much of Europe.

Australian and British universities have been infected with it but other than that its a VERY American mindset.

As for GW there is a VERY obvious lack of diversity, not because of a lack of black/asian/female models but because there is only a single chest in the cadian line, maybe two different heads and all of 3 different legs. The models are just crappy. Then the painting is the same problem, they have a VERY limited line so there will be the one set of 3 paints to do Caucasian skin and then tough luck, buy Vallejo and you'll have some choice. Actually while you're at it Vic minis and Dreamforge have some great female models.

Partly it's because it's a lot harder to shade darker skin, but they have done dark-skinned Catachans before. They don't do faces modeled to look like non-caucasians because they are worried about being accused of stereotyping. At least that's the reason they gave when they got this question at an event years back.

As for the people saying "it's not a big deal", shouldn't that be "it's not a big deal to ME"? Just because you personally don't care about it doesn't mean nobody should or that the issue is blown out of proportion. Some people would like to see themselves represented in 40k the same way that caucasians can. If you don't share the problem, you should at least be able to understand it. If you think it doesn't matter, why are all the space marines not canonically African women? Because they make the models look like their major demographic, because people like to look at models that look the same as they do. Non-caucasians (at least some of them) clearly want the same thing.

 office_waaagh wrote:

As for the people saying "it's not a big deal", shouldn't that be "it's not a big deal to ME"? Just because you personally don't care about it doesn't mean nobody should or that the issue is blown out of proportion. Some people would like to see themselves represented in 40k the same way that caucasians can. If you don't share the problem, you should at least be able to understand it. If you think it doesn't matter, why are all the space marines not canonically African women? Because they make the models look like their major demographic, because people like to look at models that look the same as they do. Non-caucasians (at least some of them) clearly want the same thing.

I say its not a big deal without specifying 'for me' because while I am sure it is a problem for some people I've very rarely seen it brought up as an issue by anyone in any form of media except for a very small minority that, ironically, seem to be predominantly white and getting offended on behalf of others. I'd also point out very few Caucasians (especially those into nerdy stuff like 40k) actually look anythig like the ridiculously muscular, grizzled, bald, action heroes of 40k.

And, again, with poorly detailed faces how the hell do you even tell outside of how you paint the skin. GWs line isn't great for skin in general but get any other line and you can make anything work.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
Why is almost everyone obssesed with "diversity"... Does it really matter?

Yes.

Actually, that strongly depends on the country you live in. It is not an issue in much of Europe.

You mean yet.

Given the number of people being displaced by violence and lack of resources in Africa and the Middle East, Europe is a prime destination. And most countries in Europe are not integrated very well. A fact that will come to bite you in the ass in the coming decades.

I did research on this topic when I was in the process of getting my degree and what I came back with was that money was the reason for most decisions.

It has been a couple years since I read the paper, but my memory is telling me that the general attitude was that diversity for the sake of diversity was not financially smart. The amount of white males who played the game and invested money into it far outstripped the amount of women or non-white customers by a large amount. There was also some feelings conveyed that marketing and altering an established group towards someone other than those currently invested in it could alienate their current consumer base as they attempted to bring in a more diverse crowd.*

I will look for the paper over the next couple of days and see if I can find it.

*No real numbers were gathered by any people who were spoken with. Everything was opinions and anecdotal. Every person interviewed was anonymous and did not want to be tied to their company in the paper.

GW does paint models in darker skin-tones, like the LotR Haradrim range which is a light brown middle-eastern style (Abrakhan Guard are strangely pale though), and several Uruk-Hai are depicted with quite dark brown skin.

While I understand that people want miniatures that look like them, it makes me wonder what kind of people play Nurgle daemons and Skaven in whfb

I find white people really hard to paint for some reason, and as a white person this amuses me. So when I had my old SM army they were all black and asian.

 General Kroll wrote:
Ok, so I'm not being funny or anything, this is a genuine question, but why are there no black people in the 41st Millennium? I never see any models painted in darker shades, most are a pale white, with some a healthy pink at best.

Have I missed a memo or something?

Vulkan He'stan?

That isn't He'stan, that's just Vulkan.

He'stan is a Space Marine.

I am also not sure if Vulkan counts, given that I do not know a lot of people who are pitch black IRL.

 Talys wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Ok, so I'm not being funny or anything, this is a genuine question, but why are there no black people in the 41st Millennium? I never see any models painted in darker shades, most are a pale white, with some a healthy pink at best.

Have I missed a memo or something?

Vulkan He'stan?

Paint Vulkan with caucasian skin tones and I'd guarantee you his head would be a dead ringer for a white dude.

 General Kroll wrote:
Kind of odd in this day and age isn't it.

Not if you live in the US South.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Basically GW is run by a bunch of middle-aged-to-old white men. There's not necessarily any form of malicious, active racism-- but there is a lot of unconscious bias within their company.

I don't think there's much point saying that you yourself can paint your own miniatures with a variety of skin tones. It's what I and many others do. I think the question is more about why official GW materials don't do it.

I don't buy the excuse that darker skin tones are harder to paint. GW employs professional painters - "it's too hard" is not something they should be saying, and anyway, it isn't even that hard! If I can do it, pro painters certainly can.

It also makes no sense from a fluff perspective. We are talking about the Imperium here, trillions of people. I can walk through the streets of a city of 300,000 now and see people of many different races, so it seems ridiculous to me that in the armies of a million-world futuristic empire everyone looks the same.

I suppose what I'm saying is, GW could just make more of an effort. It certainly wouldn't do any harm.

Could somebody tell me why is this diversity such a self obvious thing that has to be everywhere? Also, for those people that insist on making a diverse army there already exists one that has been shown in artwork and fluff to employ a very heterogenous army composition, which is black templars.

It's a game made by white English dudes, so it's chiefly populated by white English dudes. It's just people writing what they know.

Paint your mans whatever color you want, they're only as diverse as you want to make them.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Could somebody tell me why is this diversity such a self obvious thing that has to be everywhere? Also, for those people that insist on making a diverse army there already exists one that has been shown in artwork and fluff to employ a very heterogenous army composition, which is black templars.

Because diversity is a self-obvious thing that is pretty much everywhere?

Walk down a street. Count the ratio of women:men (probably 50% or close if you don't live in the 3rd world) and count the ratio of nonwhite people:white people. Can change depending on where you live, I grew up in one of the more white areas of the USA and it was probably around 20%.

Now crack open a comic book. Play a video game. Watch a movie. And look at the model range of 40k.

Do the same count. For 40k, models that are sculpted to be female: Even building the max number of female models in kits that have optional female torsos, I'm going to estimate 10% of the total model range? And models sculpted to be/canonically not white: 1 currently in production, actually I don't know if the AM Khan guy has a sculpt. 2 if you count mutant Hestan. There's a Space Wolf terminator head modeled to be Mr. T, so maybe 3?

I'm not saying "OMG GW is so oppressive to women and minorities maaaaan" because it's not like they're going out of their way to create just caucasian models, they're just creating what they know. Making a character your race by default is what people have been doing for thousands of years. I mean, when was the last time you saw a picture of Jesus that looked like he walked out of the middle east?

And as to "paint them how you like" I don't know if you've tried painting a black 40k model before, but it rarely works very well. For one thing, you're going to have to do a lot of color mixing, because as others have said, there's no dark flesh tones from GW or really any company. Second, he's basically got to be bald, because I can't find a single head in my bitz box here that has even curly hair. Now try to find one without a big strong saxon chin and browline, a thin nose, and thin or nonexistant lips? There isn't one because most GW dudes all have the exact same face. For reference, I'm talking about locating a head that doesn't look like this: http://17rg073sukbm1lmjk9jrehb643.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gaston1.png in bald or crewcut.

Honestly, it is probably the single least important issue that this game currently has. EVERYTHING ELSE is more important. If GW publicly apologized for that tomorrow and said 'we pinky swear we will now adhere 100% perfectly to racial and gender demographics from now on guys' I would be right up there with everyone else asking why THIS was one thing they decided to fix.

But, like it is everywhere else, it is here too, and tbh it's probably the reason this game has less traction the smaller percentage of a population in any given area of the world is something other than white males.

You know, we have a unique opportunity to do something positive here in an artistic way. What about a dakka painting/modeling competition based on practicing painting various ethnicities and skin tones?

Drager wrote:
The company has very low internal diversity in staff and a poor to non existent handle on the idea that this is even relevant

Honestly though, is it? Who really needs enforced diversity standards in a game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Could somebody tell me why is this diversity such a self obvious thing that has to be everywhere?

Because we're on the Internet which is where the PC police tend to soap box their views


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Kind of odd in this day and age isn't it.

Not if you live in the US South.

A thread about diversity acceptance wouldn't be complete with a completely unironic cheap shot at the US South. Have you even been to the South?

My Space Marines were various ethnicities... mostly because I just used whatever paint I had on hand at the time. Also, Space Marines with dark complexions look really awesome! In all honesty, it's easier to paint the various darker skin-tones as there is a greater variety of brown colours provided by GW, allowing for shading without the need for doing too much mixing of paints.

There's no need to model various ethnicities in 40k, because they're all grey plastic. You paint them however you imagine. There's a certain sense of self-portraitism in 40k. You envision yourself doing the acts that the models are doing, or that you are closely connected to them. As such, when you paint them, you'll likely paint them in ways that remind you of what you would envision them to be like. That doesn't fully excuse it, but it's not like players are bad people for not painting all the different ethnicities.

lustigjh wrote:

Drager wrote:
The company has very low internal diversity in staff and a poor to non existent handle on the idea that this is even relevant

Honestly though, is it? Who really needs enforced diversity standards in a game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Could somebody tell me why is this diversity such a self obvious thing that has to be everywhere?

Because we're on the Internet which is where the PC police tend to soap box their views

We don't want to 'enforce' them; no-one is proposing sanctions, or a quota. If there was a touch more representation in the game, it might have attracted a few more customers from different ethnicities/genders, and the company might not be in such dire financial straights as it is today. Unless of course, more BME toy soldiers would have scared off some of the white customers, but I'm not sure than I want them in my wargame.

Same with policing; some of us are voicing the opinion that a bit more diversity would be a good thing, which means that we're soap boxing. There's plenty of representation (there's that word again, because we're all nice here) of the other point of view i.e. the game is fine as it is. I just don't agree.

It worries me slightly that, given infinite scope when creating a fantasy universe, we made one with three black people in it.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
theres this funny Black Legion parody video on youtube where black legion members are all black (at least speak in ebonics) I think the video was made by Bruva Alfabusa but for the life of me I cant find it anymore.

Pretty sure that's miniwargaming.

Miniwargaming is not a good exampel in any way shape or form, when it comes to tolerance and such. You would be hard pressed to find any more narrow minded religious nutjobbs than that compay( look no further than Sitt6 talk with Mathew)

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
Why is almost everyone obssesed with "diversity"... Does it really matter?

Yes.

How?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Trondheim wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
theres this funny Black Legion parody video on youtube where black legion members are all black (at least speak in ebonics) I think the video was made by Bruva Alfabusa but for the life of me I cant find it anymore.

Pretty sure that's miniwargaming.

Miniwargaming is not a good exampel in any way shape or form, when it comes to tolerance and such. You would be hard pressed to find any more narrow minded religious nutjobbs than that compay( look no further than Sitt6 talk with Mathew)

You're wrong, all I have to do is come on dakka and read your posts if I want narrow minded nutjobs. Have you actuality listened to him when he repeatedly says "this is just my belief..." or are you just assuming he's a bigot because he's Mormon?

You know why racial diversity in this game and in many games doesn't matter? Because if you slapped full body armor and helmets on every single model it would not matter what ethnicity or gender the individual was. Characters in 40k are not defined in the slightest by their ethnicity or gender, they are defined by their race and/or what kind of planet they are from. There are no multicultural nations in 40k, you are human, you are from the Empire of Man. Your own personal head canon of fluff is just fine, encouraged even, but the company producing the game takes no stance in any direction based on ethnicity or gender. They could make models that have definitive ethnic traits but they tend to only do that with special characters because it might help to define them, the basic rank and file get a generic as possible face. You can try and claim that they are Caucasian but I would have to disagree, they don't really have an definitive traits that identify them as anything.

Could they make more ethnically diverse models? Yes. Should they? Maybe. The issue is that making the distinction and saying that a potato headed Catachan is Caucasian seems odd to me because they just look liked horrible heroic scaled human heads rather than any identifiable group.

Crystal-Maze wrote:

lustigjh wrote:

Drager wrote:
The company has very low internal diversity in staff and a poor to non existent handle on the idea that this is even relevant

Honestly though, is it? Who really needs enforced diversity standards in a game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Could somebody tell me why is this diversity such a self obvious thing that has to be everywhere?

Because we're on the Internet which is where the PC police tend to soap box their views

We don't want to 'enforce' them; no-one is proposing sanctions, or a quota. If there was a touch more representation in the game, it might have attracted a few more customers from different ethnicities/genders, and the company might not be in such dire financial straights as it is today.

That's doubtful. I don't see people being "scared away" from Tau, Necrons, Daemons, or Eldar because they're not white people.

Fair point on the "enforced" statement. My political rants are starting to influence my gaming rants.