If Looking At Someone Makes You Squeamish, With All The Compassion I Can Muster, You Have To Get Over

If looking at someone makes you squeamish, with all the compassion I can muster, you have to get over it.

Don’t be an asshole. Privately desensitize yourself to seeing scars. Engage with art & media & disabled people’s blogs. Imbed it into your brain that they’re normal. And, for some fucking reason, you don’t feel like doing that, JUST MOVE ON. It’s absurdly childish to point at people like a playground bully and go “EWWW”

first slide, titled "how to draw some burn scars" with "some" being underlined. The text under reads "3rd/4th degree mostly, because most people on this website apparently never seen a burn survivor." below that is a red box with text reading "(all caps) all scars are different! (end caps) there is no one correct way to draw a scar. this is more of an overview than a step-by-step tutorial".
the right side of the slide has three drawings, each showing a person's forearm. The text above them reads "there's many types of scars, actually". The first one shows a hypertrophic scar, with the text "draw a darker patch of skin and shade underneath to show depth. notes: it sticks out a bit, it can be slightly discolored (darker), it's not really this bright red color that people draw burns with, it interacts with the rest of the skin - you can see it pull skin inward".
The second one shows a keloid scar, with the text "it sticks out a lot, much more discolored, it can be red, pink, purple, it doesn't with the rest of the skin as much - it has sharper, more defined edges". The third and last arm shows a severe contracture with the top of the hand resting on the forearm, with the text "burns make skin contract; scars affect range of motion (ROM) and can lock or limit movement, they afect all areas of the body vbut are most visible on the neck, joints, and hands". There's a fourth additional drawing showing a man's torso; he has a lighter burn scar on the far side of his ribcage, with his arm seemingly fused to it above the elbow. He has visible body hair but is lacking it on the scar itself. The several notes around it read "healed scars can also turn lighter; a burn scar has a tendency to pull surrounding structures* inward, here it makes a contracture. *-not only skin. scars affect cartilage (like in ears), nipples, etc. also notice the lack of hair on the scar".

second slide, titled "how do burns look like (for people who draw them but don't seem to know)". there's an arrow labeled "not like this (heart)" leading to a drawing of an anime girl with half of her skin being plain red and no other changes. text box below her reads "'don't worry man I watched ATLA when I was 14' type OC", with the following noted; "the Red, has fingernails despite 3rd degree burns, has eyebrows despite 3rd degree burns, has hair despite 3rd degree burns, eye is totally fine it's only fire LOL, nose and ears also fine, why is it red, more flexible than your average abled person, why is it red". below is a disclaimer reading "(one or two is fine, but why is it always all of it? burns do things, especially one as seveer as implied here)". the right side of the image shows pictures of body parts with burn scars on them, the first being a hand with a severe contraction in the fingers. the burn and contracted joints are labeled on the image. next to it is a drawn comparison between a non-burned hand with stretched out fingers, and a burnt hand with curled fingers. photo under that is of a pair of feet being held by a hand. the link below goes to "SurvivorNotVictim.com/Scar-Photos". my added text reads "not red! the scars mostly show through texture and tissue damage" and "no toenails". next to that is art of a scarred leg from the mid-calf down, it has visible skin pulling, no nails, and discolored patches of skin. text reads "some pinkness/redness can show, but it's A) not going to be a consistent color, B) other aspects of the scar still show up. Remember the body is 3D and skin pulls accordingly (more or less); scars form toward the ankle because it sticks out". at the bottom of the image is a portrait photo of Marzieh Ebrahimi, an Iranian woman with a chemical burn on one side of her face, smiling. Text next to her reads "a scar can be more defined in one place and less in another (forehead/chin); the skin is darker and less saturated, not red; Marzieh's scar is more visible because of her eye and nose than the discoloration". Next to that is a simplistic portrait drawing of her recreating the picture. Note reads "just some darkening of the skin, lighter and darker lines to imply skin pulling, and attention to some basic effects of burns (e.g., scar on eyebrow ridge = no eyebrow) looks more like an actual burn than the red paint thing".

Third slide, titled "skin grafts". On the right is a photo of a white woman posing with her scars visible to the camera, the source is linked as SurvivorNotVictim.com/Scar-Photo. Text reads "one of the most common visible kinds of skin grafts is the mesh one", with an arrow pointing to the woman's arm, where her skin has a mesh pattern. There is a drawn comparison of non-burnt skin and skin with the mesh graft for comparison. Text box reads "it leaves a specific kind of texture in the skin. Grafts sometimes have stronger highlights than other parts of the skin (you can see it on both photos)". Under that is a photo of Kenny Matthews (@IKenDawg), a Black man with burn scars. There is a text box on the right that reads "skin grafts will usually be thicker than the rest of the skin and thus can stick out; they can be discolored (both darker or lighter, more yellow or red, more/less saturation, etc.) and have a visible start and end. It applies to all skin colors BTW". Below that are two portrait drawings, one of a Black man with a large, darker skin graft on his cheek, and a white woman with yellowish grafts on her jaw and nose.

Fourth slide, titled "nose and eyes". The left side features various nose drawings, while right and bottom show different kinds of eyes. The text in the nose section reads "Usually if nose was visibly burned, it will be seen on the nostrils and septum". The first nose drawing shows someone with pale skin and nostrils pulling strongly downwards. Second one shows a person with darker skin and fourth degree burns; his eyes are covered by skin and the external parts of the nose are largely gone, leaving the red internal part visible. Text attached reads "With very severe burns, the external part of the nose can be removed. In this case the nose will be red because the insides of the nose are red". Third drawing shows a white man with burns below his eyes; his septum is completely gone, and the nostrils pull to the sides. Attached text reads "Nostrils can also pull to the sides, making the nose wider. Sometimes the septum will be absent if burns were severe enough. That generally causes some degree of asymmetry". Last nose drawing shows someone with a lot of keloid and hypertrophic scars on his face, with one of them formed around their nose. Text attached reads "Nose can also pull to one side. The constricted nostril can then be very flat". There's a simple sketch underneath that shows a nose with symmetric and asymmetric nostrils from below. Eye section. The first text box reads "Eyes are not affected as often as you'd probably assume (mostly because blinking and all) but eye damage is frequent in chemical burns (as opposed to thermal)". First drawing features a darkskin person with burns on their forehead and around their left eye. The skin pulls their eyelids upward and to the side at a 45-degree angle, resulting in the red of the eye showing on the sides. Attached text reads "Eye pulls out and up, so the red parts show accordingly. The eyelids themselves are stretched, eye is fine". Second drawing is of an Arab man with a chemical burn on the left side of his face. He's missing his eyebrow and eyelashes on that side. He has ptosis and his actual iris is blurrier while the white part is redder. Text reads "Here eyelids pull down so the eye looks like it's drifting up". Third drawing shows a person with tan skin and severe burns. They have no hair of any kind, and their nose bridge is significantly pushed to the side. Their right eye is wide open with a red shiny eyelid at the bottom, their iris pointing extremely outward, and blood vessels showing. Their left eye looks very small with swollen eyelids and partially opaque iris. Text reads "The redness you can sometimes see is a result of chronic conjunctivitis, it's not an open wound situation. Here the right lower eyelid is missing so it looks like it's red and shiny. The left lower one is turned outward and it causes corneal scarring, which results in parts of the eye looking white(r) and the eyelids to swell". The bottom section features four eye adjacent conditions and their characteristics. The first one shows a person with one of their eyes missing and an empty pale-red socket visible. It's titled "Enucleation". Text underneath reads "If the eye is as badly damaged as in 90% of OCs with burns then they will get it removed. Despite popular perception there is quite literally nothing 'gore' about an eye socket. The redness/whiteness is the same thing as on your eyelid when you pull it. The empty socket has a much smaller opening and is very flat in comparison to a full socket. If the character has a protruding brow ridge, the shadow will fall on the whole area". Second one features a dark-skinned person's eye, which is brown with a white spot on the lens. Text reads "Cataracts is a condition of the lens, so it affects the lens by making it to appear clouded. Causes blindness". Third one shows an eye of a pale person; it's slightly red with blood vessels visible and the irid is blurry with a large opaque spot in the middle. Text reads "Corneal scarring causes pain, red sclera, and the opaqueness that can happen over the whole eye, not just lens. Also causes blindness".

Continuation from the previous slide. Last one shows an eye with the upper eyelid fallen down. Text reads "Ptosis is caused by nerve damage more than anything else. It makes the eyelid fall down, but does not affect the eye itself. Can technically make someone unable to see if the eyelid doesn't open". Fifth slide description starts from here. It shows a three-step process of drawing the skin texture. First step shows a patch of light skin, titled "get a base". Second step puts various brown lines of different sizes on the skin, largely going from the upper left to bottom right, spreading out on the right. Text reads "Draw slightly darker lines of various lengths to imply contractures". There’s a second, smaller drawing, first with the lines going in similar direction and the other with the lines all pointing different ways and going over each other. Text above them is "try to keep them going in a direction that makes sense" and "not just random strokes" respectively. Third step adds some shadows and highlights on the scars. Text reads "add subtle shading to show texture changes, can also add highlights". Below that is a small drawing of a patch of skin with a red line going through it; one side is shaded and one isn't for comparison. The upper right has a drawing of a man shown from the back; he has burn scars on his left shoulder. That shoulder is less muscular than the right one, and he has keloids and grafts visible. Text underneath reads "You really don't have to draw 10000 lines to show the contractures. A few smaller and some bigger ones do it just fine. Remember that you can ad keloids, hypetrophic scars, and graft discoloration!".

sixth slide, titled "other things to think about". it features a few different burn survivor characters and the text "no two burn survivors are the same". first one is a Black woman with a burn just on her face and neck, empty eye socket, and no ear, wearing a very wide-brimmed sun hat. note next to her reads "sun protection". below her is a white man with scarring on the side of his head, including two large keloid scars. he's missing a lot of hair on his scalp. underneath him is a drawing of a Latino man with short black hair and contracture scars on his forearm, fusing it around the elbow; he's wearing a large compression glove on his hand. in the center of the image are two women; a South Asian young woman wearing a pastel hijab using crutches with a visible prosthetic leg, and a Black woman with short pink hair and all four limbs amputated using a powerchair. The first woman has no actual burns visible while the second one has her stumps covered in distinct discolored scars, but they're both smiling at each other. text between them reads "burns can result in amputation, either because of the initial damage or infection. sometimes burns are visible, sometimes not so much". under them is a portrait of a white woman scratching her neck with her remaining fingers. she's completely bald with scars on her head, face, and hand. her eye is slightly red with a discolored white part in the middle of the iris. text next to her reads "research actual symptoms of burn scars (like scratching) (like sun protection), etc."

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

Screenshot that reads, "In a 2022 survey of the burn community, Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors found 59% ranked 'burn survivors & the media: changing the portrayal of the survivor' as a top need for support."

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

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