Using art to conquer insecurities

[Leyelle]

It's always been inspiring and encouraging to me to see celebrities and characters that looked like me in some way. (whether they were black, or plus-sized or whatever.) And when I was plus-sized, learning to draw beautiful chubby/fat girls was a form of self-healing that taught me how to love myself more. Now I see it becoming a (positive) trend where artists draw insecurities to help people remember that they are beautiful, even when we are convinced little details about us make us ugly.

So what do you think? Do you find that drawing characters with physical features you're insecure about helps you to become more confident and love yourself more?

I think sometimes seeing it on a character we still consider beautiful helps change our perspectives.

Hence, I've been doing some "drawing insecurities" too. I think I'm going to do short hair and facial moles next because that's one that I struggled with as a teen (well, short hair was fairly recent actually lol)

I had a facial burn scar for YEARS between like 12 and 15-16 years old (it's faded now) and I was very self conscious about it, so I decided to draw this queen with a burn scar. Both these girls are also different levels of plus-sized.

This queen has small eyes like me (though I actually think small eyes are cool) I was also insecure about having spaced between two of my teeth (though in my case, it isn't the middle two teeth.)

Used to be insecure about having big legs too. Gave them to Texas and she's freaking gorgeous so 14 year old me can get over herself lol

Do you have any characters that you drew with features you're insecure about? did it help you learn to love yourself more?

[kyupol]

I have some features that are incel (height, proportions, physically weak by default) and some that are Chad (jawline, voice).

And I've drawn some incels in my comics. A challenge about drawing them was to override all that I learned from those drawing books that train you how to draw attractive people that it eventually becomes second nature the moment you try to draw a person.

Loving myself? Used to have a lot of self hatred it was enough to get me to dropout of college, and get prescribed anti depressants, and I had to work 3 jobs (office data entry was the main, then computer tech and limo driver were the sides) at one point AND join an MMA gym on top of drawing and writing to steam valve it all. The idea was to keep myself so distracted that I'll forget about the self hatred.

That was a long time ago. At present, I love joking about all of it when I'm not indifferent otherwise. Because this is just my temporary form identity and it's gonna be 6 feet under before I know it. Why identify with it so much on either the love or hate side?

[Leyelle]

I have some features that are incel (height, proportions, physically weak by default)

I don't think it's very kind to call these features incel. Incel isn't a compliment, and not every short or physically weak person is an incel

[kyupol]

Yes it's not very kind to treat people with those features as subhuman. Unfortunately, that is the reason for bullying and getting relegated to the bottom of the social hierarchy.

[jwabeasley]

I have a different perspective, I think. When I paint or draw things, it's because I see the beauty in them. Especially with women, the imperfections you see in yourself can be the things that other people love about you.

All of my characters are inspired by people I know in one fashion or another.
My daughters inform the personality and appearance of Veronica. The mom is inspired by my wife and MIL. The dad is inspired by some war veterans I know, a real-life druid, and some others.

The other characters are equally inspired by real people I know in some fashion or other - I think artists and writers should be inspired more by reality than by other fiction. In all cases, and with the backgrounds, once I get down to drawing something, I will find the beauty in it and try and bring it out.

There are women who would find rosacea and unmanageable red hair to be sources of insecurity. I've started to go thin on top, but I try to remember when I was 6 and found bald men fascinating.
Mr. S here would never be a flawless fashion model, but I still find him beautiful. Even more so if you were to know the amazing, generous personality of the urban hermit I based him on.

[jwabeasley]

I once had a woman seriously call me an incel at work last year. Everyone laughed at her for it, though, because it was well known that I've been married for 10 years and have 6 kids - provably not an incel. Meanwhile, despite being physically attractive, she'd never had a relationship last longer than a month. I think folks shouldn't put much stock in that particular insult - it's just a go-to for unimaginative and unhappy women to try and bring men down, too.

But believe me when I say it's 90% attitude and maybe 10% genetics. If that. I, too was bullied in school, it wasn't until college that I started to figure things out socially.

[Leyelle]

The reason for bullying is people with cruel or malicious attitudes, and we have to try our best to keep these mindsets from being perpetuated right? People will always find something to be mean about if they want to, but we should probably avoid using their mean terms when we can

[Leyelle]

I think you can be equally inspired by real life and fiction. Elves and such don't exist but I still find them inspiring xD. But I agree, finding the beauty in the irl and real people/things is important, I think that's why drawing these things can help us find beauty in our insecurities.

Most of the physical features I've given my human ocs, if not all of them, are inspired by real people rather than characters and I love finding unique traits to add (like the fact that some people in my culture have totally golden appearances. Hair, eyes, skin etc. It's pretty cool and inspired the little girl in my drawing)

[thepenmonster]

The majority of these incels and femcels are good looking enough that they should be up to their ears in ass.

They're lonely because they're shitty people with shitty beliefs. Nothing more.

My point is: Incel is a consequence for bad behavior, not a facial feature.

[remiquise]

Mm... I mean, I don't do much of that. I draw what I like, and though I cannot say I "like" myself, I'm okay enough with who I am to not feel the need to validate myself in such a manner.
That said, I used to make a lot of characters with self harm scars. I'll yet ya imagine why. Kicked that years ago now, no worries. But that was more out of venting frustrations than feeling better in my own skin;

The first example was a character that got super popular under a blog I had many moons ago; oh.... the amount of fanart I have of that little dude... Reminiscing aside, I also got a lot of comments about how he made others feel less self-conscious of their own scars. So. eh. Guess it helped some folks feel less insecure.

[Orichan]

I think that hits the nail on the head. People are really (suprisingly) comfortable cutting down their own appearance and making the way they fail to interact with others about how they look, when most times it has to do with the way they act and treat others and maladaptive expectations for what relationships should look like. There are some very non-conventionally attractive people that get lots of love, attention and physical affection because they are genuinely kind, charismatic, and/or intelligent and have found the people that connect with that.

[Orichan]

I think I process my own mental health stuff a lot in my work. The way things are perceived by others or the way that the thing one person says coukd be readily interpreted differently. Also the dynamics that lead to trauma or the way society shapes individuals whether it be something they are aware of or not. Honestly, I struggle to not make every character as cool/cute as I possibly can, but also I think people with a lot of looks are pretty so variable appearances are common.

[Leyelle]

but also I think people with a lot of looks are pretty so variable appearances are common.

XD, i'm the same way. since I find so many different traits pretty/attractive, my characters often look very different from each other. Actually the male and female leads from all my released stories all look very different from each other but I think they're all handsome or pretty respectively. I also use stories to process things emotionally as well, so I getcha in that respect as well.

[inubasket]

Many years ago I watched a short horror film that depicted a world in which only the young and beautiful could live. Anyone considered "ugly" or older was incinerated

It really inspired me to really diversify my characters, and normalize just being human. (I really try to vary my background characters too, as pictured below.) We're not born to be beautiful, we're born to live!

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I do not find the need to create a fictional character with my features to feel better. I don't need people to accept me as pretty or fawn over my features, I need people to not treat each other differently because of their look. But I realize, even people's perception of fictional characters is heavily influenced by their appearance (with the real life biases attached), and especially because "they're just fiction."
I remember reading together a manga with love rivalry included. There was a love rival character with tanned skin appeared (as as opposed to light-skinned blonde MC) when a classmate said "Ew, I hate her! Her skin is so dark and she thinks she is pretty." She never ridicule me or say I am ugly, but being a person who was ridiculed for not exactly light-skinned enough, I just sat in silence.

Some of early comments in my art journey also shaped my character design. "Why is she/he (brown/curly/ugly/freckled/have cat ears/looks Indian(?)/dresses like a slut/etc.)?" For now I can brush them off and not care, but as a kid being told that by adults, it felt like I did something wrong. I felt like I should only draw something they deemed pretty.

Until I broaden my horizon and see other (foreign) artists and characters (with how people respond to them neutrally or positively). Then I thought, "Okay, I can try that."

For now my rule is, if it fits the narrative, aesthetically coherent, and convenient to draw (most important), then that is my characters' design. I no longer give a rat ass whether they're a bishie or are waifuable or not.

There is a character, though, I designed against what deemed as conventionally attractive, because he shared a name with heartrhrob male leads for local popular series, and I thought it would be fun to kind of subvert because I like the name.

TL;DR: not insecurity on how I look, but rather how the character is perceived.