From Pale to Brown Skin: Learning to draw characters who looked like me

The door screeched as my parents brought me to the video rental for the first time. I stared slack-jawed and awestruck at shelves upon shelves of DVDs, their case covers vibrant against yellowing walls. To anyone else, it was just an old, dusty store. To me, it was a treasure-trove of entertainment. It was paradise. I returned home clutching five DVDs of American animated films.  

As I grew older, my preferences skewed more towards Japanese media, undoubtedly from watching Tagalog-dubbed anime at my cousins’ house. Either way, it was this fondness for American cartoons and Japanese anime that propelled me to pursue illustration. I asked my parents to enroll me in art workshops, hoping to learn the appropriate skills to emulate the features of my favorite characters: their large eyes, sharp jawlines, thin brows, colourful eyes and hair.  

The only aspect of the characters I struggled to copy was their pale skin colour. Oftentimes, I left them paper white, filling in the rest of the page with all the colours from my box of crayons. I remember an adult offering me a flesh-coloured crayon to “complete” my drawings. I refused. Because to me, the colour looked too dark for a flesh tone. Too ‘muddy’. It was much later that I realized that the colour looked very similar to my skin.  

As I drew, I never questioned why the characters looked different from me, with my brown skin, round face, thick eyebrows, dark hair and eyes. I only had a vague understanding that I somehow looked wrong. That people like me don’t deserve to be featured in animations or illustrations. So, even when I drew original characters (and even my self-portraits), I used sharper features and pale colour palettes because I was taught by the media I consumed and the skin-whitening ads that accompanied them that to be considered pretty, one has to have either Western or East Asian features.  

Then while browsing online one day, I stumbled upon a post by an artist I followed for months. Not only was I surprised to see them write in fluent Tagalog, they accompanied their post with an illustration of a Filipinised character, depicted with the same finesse and care shown in previous works. The only difference was the character had a rounder face, thicker eyebrows, dark hair and eyes, and… brown skin.  

They looked like me.  

And they were gorgeous.  

I remember staring at the post, stunned. I asked, “You can do that?” 

It seems so silly to be surprised that a Filipino creator can create a Filipino character, but this was before #OwnVoices, before ‘BIPOC’ was coined, before the media barely featured any coloured characters. To me, it was revolutionary.  

I wish I could say that the change was immediate, that after seeing another artist confidently draw characters with darker features, I would start to do the same. Unfortunately, years of internalised colourism don’t leave overnight because of a single drawing. But the more I saw diverse characters in illustrations and animations, the more I began to question what I was taught about beauty and colour.  

My turning point came when I was drawing for a Philippine folklore-inspired art challenge. When I opened my art program, I gravitated towards my usual palette by instinct. Then I stopped and thought, “If this character is based on Philippine folklore, then she's likely Filipino. Why not draw her like one?” 

I remember the initial discomfort I felt when seeking out brown colour palettes for her skin, similar to the time I was offered the flesh-coloured crayon. This time, however, I persisted and even used myself as a reference as I drew. When I finished, I expected trace amounts of the discomfort and shame that hounded me for the longest time. Instead, I looked at the screen and felt relief. Pride, even.  

Slowly but surely, I drew more brown-skinned characters for both professional and personal work until it became my new default. If someone asked me to draw a character, I would depict them with darker features unless stated otherwise.  

Perhaps to others, this is rather shallow. But to me, drawing characters with brown skin is a reflection of my self-acceptance. I no longer find myself self-conscious when standing next to people who are several shades paler than me. I can look at the mirror and not feel shame when I see my Filipino features.  

Of course, there will still be days when I fall into my old ways of thinking, as my journey to unlearning internalized colourism is far from over. Still, I am proud of the steps I have taken so far. The little kid who was taught to dislike their own colour has grown up into someone who enjoys (and even looks forward to) drawing characters who look like them.