Skin Color and Environment

Melanii

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Hi, I'm trying to prep for NaNoWriMo. In seeking visual images for my main character, I found the perfect skin tone for her (she's a star fragment who took a human form). I feel terrible with colors, so I'm not even sure if she's considered "olive" or "brown" or what. She also has a golden glow to her skin:

beb081f0dd46036722e008b9197cc0ac.jpg


I know people of all color can be born from anywhere nowadays, but since I'm trying to figure out what kind of town she lives in... I remember reading that way back when, the environment and amount of sun played a part in human skin color? What kind of environment makes sense for my main character's skin color? All I can think of is the desert, but that's so stereotypical. Maybe islands or the beach?
 

Cyia

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I'd do something like this:

She had skin like autumn, when the world takes on the crisper hues of turning leaves. Golden where the moonlight hit the points of her cheeks and nose. At a glance, you might assume she came from a forgotten island off the coast of someone's favorite summer vacation spot, but look closer, and it was obvious to me that she was not of this earth. Earth is drab and dismal. She shined.
 

DarienW

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Melanii, what a beautiful woman! Cyia, what a beautiful description!

Best of luck with Nano!!!

:)
 

Errant_Fragments

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Are there other threads with other suggestions on writing good descriptors of skin colour for non-PoCs to refer to without having to bug their friends all the time?

I always feel like a lot of commonly used descriptors for non-white skin tones are somewhat diminutive but I've no idea if that's because I'm still conditioned to see it that way or if PoC are actually fine with 'mocha', 'caramel'... various nuts and woods as analogies... For the record I'm trying to describe a guy who's mother is black Jamaican and father is white British so he's not by any means 'dark skinned' but definitely not white either

For that matter similarly with other physical descriptions - 'lips, lush and generous as fruit that begs to be eaten, to bury you in sweetness' (yes I'm basing this description of a real person and no I'm not showing the description to him)

Is there a resource somewhere of suggestions that aren't dumb?
 

Alessandra Kelley

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Are there other threads with other suggestions on writing good descriptors of skin colour for non-PoCs to refer to without having to bug their friends all the time?

I always feel like a lot of commonly used descriptors for non-white skin tones are somewhat diminutive but I've no idea if that's because I'm still conditioned to see it that way or if PoC are actually fine with 'mocha', 'caramel'... various nuts and woods as analogies... For the record I'm trying to describe a guy who's mother is black Jamaican and father is white British so he's not by any means 'dark skinned' but definitely not white either

For that matter similarly with other physical descriptions - 'lips, lush and generous as fruit that begs to be eaten, to bury you in sweetness' (yes I'm basing this description of a real person and no I'm not showing the description to him)

Is there a resource somewhere of suggestions that aren't dumb?

Why food analogies for PoC are offensive and should not be used:
http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/95955707903/skin-writing-with-color-has-received-several

Suggestions for better ways to describe PoC:
http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/96830966357/writing-with-color-description-guide-words-for
 

Errant_Fragments

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Many thanks this is just what I was looking for (and I guess was probably already linked on this board elsewhere so thank you for pointing them too me directly - I did have a look around before posting)