Caricaturish Asian figures?

[WuZhuiQiu]

Further to the interesting thread in the General Discussion board, I've noticed that several manufacturers' Asian figures seem to be more caricaturish than their European figures.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=104415.0

For example, this is a potentially useful pack for allies and enemies of the ancient Chinese, but do they really look like Asians, and not the results of botched reconstructive surgery (or sculpting)?

https://www.castingroomminiatures.com/collections/chinese/products/vietnamese-auxiliaries

I am interested in gaming Asian history, and would like to invite Asian friends to participate, but, beyond a handful of ranges, I'd be quite embarassed to have such figures on display.

Do some sculptors simply not bother to take a good look at Asian facial anatomy? No, adding a "Fu Manchu" moustache does not make a figure "Asian", nor does giving it a big round head, nor does putting its eyes towards the side of its head, nor does making its eyes into slits...!

[secharles]

most of the figures in that range look that their mothers and fathers were sisters and brothers. I think it must just be the sculptor's style.

[WuZhuiQiu]

most of the figures in that range look that their mothers and fathers were sisters and brothers. I think it must just be the sculptor's style.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

[Plynkes]

There's a reason why Foundry sell all their miniatures from this period under the separate banner of "Casting Room Miniatures." They are from a time when all their good sculptors had jumped ship, and the new figures they released at this time were, to be polite, not that good. Apart from some of the Zulus (which were clearly conversions of existing Mark Copplestone Darkest Africa sculpts) the quality is a little wanting, so they hide them away on a different site. I think it's because they don't want them stinking up their main site.

So I feel in this particular case it is more a matter of sculptor inexperience than a deliberate attempt at a "Yellow Peril" caricature.

[carlos marighela]

It's an Anglo/Eurocentric hobby. Sometimes it seems to be the product of the limited skills of the sculptor but there are definitely ranges out there that pander to stereotypes and the tropes of casual racism. The Warlord Japanese being a case in point. You would swear that some of them were designed by the creators of US wartime propaganda posters.

Fear not though, it's not limited to depictions of Asians. There are some wonderfully 'Minstrel Show' like African figures out there.  

[clibinarium]

This is an issue I have been grappling with for a while now, as I am working on a range of Chinese figures.

The first thing is that human faces (and anatomy) in general fox a fair few sculptors; some could do with looking at basic proportions more carefully.
But even for a decent sculptor producing a face on a figure that is only about 3-4 mm tall is pretty demanding, and is to some extent a caricature of a human face no matter what the subject.

Then when you try to make the ethnicity of a figure apparent you can inadvertently end up exaggerating the features excessively so it looks like a cartoon from Punch in the 19th century. The differences between various races/ethnicities are pretty subtle, and difficult to bring out on a 28mm figure. A sculpt has no colour, and the structural differences are real, but actually pretty slight.
 I think that it is true that some sculptors fall into the "yellow peril" archetype, but for the most part I think its by accident and ignorance, rather than casual racism; though I don't disagree with carlos, that does seem to be a feature sometimes, but its hard to tell.
The racist notion of "slanted eyes", is pretty much an ignorant attempt to describe the characteristic East Asian epicanthal fold, and I think some sculptors may not have thought about it any more deeply. But if people took the time to study Asian faces as WuZhuiQiu suggests they'd begin to understand the subtleties of the facial features; the eyelid fold, the shallow nose bridge etc, and just appreciate the differences, they'd feed into the sculpting more organically.

With the Casting Room miniatures, without being too critical of the sculptor ('cause I know its difficult) I'd put the appearance of the faces down to his or her technical skills rather than anything sinister. Foundry basically market them as second tier. I don't claim to an an expert sculptor myself; I have plenty of limitations to my own skills.

It can be sort of hard these days to talk about the physical features of different peoples without sounding like some Victorian phrenologist, but its important for an artist trying to depict things accurately to be able to do it without descending into overt caricature.

[Svennn]

This is an issue I have been grappling with for a while now, as I am working on a range of Chinese figures.

Judging by the teaser pic you posted back in July I would say you have already nailed it.  Right up there with the best I have seen, definitely the best non character sculpt.  I presume we just need you to stop worrying about silly things like making a living doing paid work so you can finish the Chinese and we can finally get to buy some.

[nic-e]

I think part of it could be that the sculptor wants to , with all good intention depict a miniature sculpt as being CLEARLY asian, or CLEARLY african.
(This is fine, physical characteristics exist and a sculptor shouldn't shy away from it, otherwise we end up with endless armies of jimmy the generic white guy)
 but The problem could be that whilst to us, facial features might seem very different, that's mostly because human beings are trained to read facial features in intricate detail in very little time.It's the reason alot of miniatures end up with big heavy brows, or big noses... Because we think these things are much bigger than they are, because they are out markers for identifying people.

Now scale that down to 28mm. A sculptor of less skill might, in an attempt to depict these features which in reality might differ as little as a few millimetres, Will massively over emphasise them in order to create a face that they see as readably of a particular origin.

(as an example, draw  a person in profile just from your mind. Chances are they have a heavy brow and their nose extends beyond the line of their brow. In reality the face is fairly flat, the nose of most people doesn't extend out anywhere near as much as we think.)

I guess my point in short is that a good sculptor knows to always be looking at what they're sculpting. Never work purely from assumption because what something looks like and what your brain emphasises for the sake of memory are different things.
 

[secharles]

... There are some wonderfully 'Minstrel Show' like African figures out there.

this seems to be a fairly open minded group so i'll throw this out there rather than start another thread:

could someone post a link to "Negro" miniatures - preferably in civilian garb (pulp era/ between the wars). not natives particularly but similar in flavor to the 'musicians & singer' offered by someone and i'll be darnded if I can find the link now...

even though minstrel shows were usually white guys in blackface makeup, I want to have some ethnic diversity on my non-gaming model railroad which is in the planning stages. I will also have some Chinamen (sic) at the restaurant in fond memory of "Uncle Moy" Lee. 28mm figures only please.

thanks

[FierceKitty]

A lot is owing to illustrations based on illustrations based on illustrations from an era that heartily endorsed stereotypes. The recent clamour over Numidians (with those helpful photographs of the people living in the area today) underlined this superbly, as does every new force of Arabs or even Turks painted like coal-miners.
The late, great Angus MacBride leaned way over in the other direction sometimes; his Zulu paintings were a pale Halle Berry shade, even though he lived in South Africa and saw the real thing daily.

[SotF]

One other reason is that when dealing with smaller scales, you kind of hit the problem that a lot of the features for determining ethnicity for a model disappear because the details are to fine for it to be visible. This tends to lead to the exaggerated or caricaturish features for a lot of them.

[carlos marighela]

this seems to be a fairly open minded group so i'll throw this out there rather than start another thread:

could someone post a link to "Negro" miniatures - preferably in civilian garb (pulp era/ between the wars). not natives particularly but similar in flavor to the 'musicians & singer' offered by someone and i'll be darnded if I can find the link now...

even though minstrel shows were usually white guys in blackface makeup, I want to have some ethnic diversity on my non-gaming model railroad which is in the planning stages. I will also have some Chinamen (sic) at the restaurant in fond memory of "Uncle Moy" Lee. 28mm figures only please.

thanks

Both Eureka and Bob Murch's Pulp Figures offer a 1920s Jazz band.

[secharles]

thank you; i'll check them out.


for anyone else interested:

https://eurekaminusa.com/collections/civilians-jazz-band-dancers-28mm

https://pulpfigures.com/products/view/191

several of the Murch figures will be suitable for the scenes I have in mind

thanks again

[Hammers]

I converted my eurekans to a Shanghai orchestra:

[The Dozing Dragon]

I converted my eurekans to a Shanghai orchestra:

Superb!