What are your art icks?

[Viridian Beedrill]

In the case of body types, there are just some I need practice at doing in my stylized/non-realism rendering. In the case of ethnicity...
You know what, this gets a bit raw in terms of talking about my experiences, so I'm gonna spoiler it.

Spoiler

I've entered some environments (university, and my job to a lesser extent) where ethnically European/"white" people are sort of...presumed racist jerks unless proven otherwise? Not as an overt thing, mind you, more like something that slips into casual conversations (such as using "really white" as a substitute for saying someone was a "Karen"). I'd grown up in a school and home environment where that was not present at all, so it came as a shock. I left college with my worldview of people still intact, but with an underlying fear that, being (mostly) ethnically European, I couldn't depict characters of other ethnicities. Any character flaw or deviation from perfectly realistic anatomy would be taken as an indication that I was racist. It took me some time to realize how much those environments really did to me, and I'm now re-teaching myself that no, most people are more reasonable than that. All that to say, I have a lot of sympathy for artists who don't feel qualified to depict certain ethnicities. It might just be that, like me, they've been exposed to that insistent little voice telling them they CAN'T.

 

[Lyndis]

In the case of body types, there are just some I need practice at doing in my stylized/non-realism rendering. In the case of ethnicity...
You know what, this gets a bit raw in terms of talking about my experiences, so I'm gonna spoiler it.

Spoiler

I've entered some environments (university, and my job to a lesser extent) where ethnically European/"white" people are sort of...presumed racist jerks unless proven otherwise? Not as an overt thing, mind you, more like something that slips into casual conversations (such as using "really white" as a substitute for saying someone was a "Karen"). I'd grown up in a school and home environment where that was not present at all, so it came as a shock. I left college with my worldview of people still intact, but with an underlying fear that, being (mostly) ethnically European, I couldn't depict characters of other ethnicities. Any character flaw or deviation from perfectly realistic anatomy would be taken as an indication that I was racist. It took me some time to realize how much those environments really did to me, and I'm now re-teaching myself that no, most people are more reasonable than that. All that to say, I have a lot of sympathy for artists who don't feel qualified to depict certain ethnicities. It might just be that, like me, they've been exposed to that insistent little voice telling them they CAN'T.

You've hit one of my points almost entirely, and that's one where people will automatically assume malice when ignorance/inexperience is 9/10 the underlying cause for a lot of awkward or uncomfortable situations. Kind of why it's nice to see a thread with a discussion like this too. I appreciate you sharing your perspective.

Destructive criticism was mentioned as an ick in the OP and if the folks that gave you a hard time about your efforts really cared about anything other than outrage for outrage's sake, they would have offered something more constructive. (I've seen plenty of artists respond to such things with well informed tutorials or graphics. I saved one the other day illustrating proper cane usage, since I had a design idea where a gentleman would use one due to previous injury. I learned some things I didn't know before, like how its decided which side of the body the cane is used/walked with, what types of canes work best where, etc.)

While it's applicable to the art community, I think it's also fair to say that in general people have become kind of hyper-reactive to things and often work off of emotion rather than take the time to process why they're having the reaction they are.