I've caught the SSS fever, but I'm being side-tracked by having to learn the terminology and the inability to find correct shaders for many ethnic skin tones, and in particular, Native American skin tones. As lovely as some of the commercial packages are, they are DEFINITELY not Native American no matter what the advertising copy says.

I can't model...yet...so I have no way to correct facial bone structures but I can at least help out on the skin tones. Here is my research so far:

Pantone Codes for Skin Colors: http://www.athenna.com/artist-aims-to-catalog-all-possible-skin-tones-using-pantone-color-chart/athenna/web_design/teoria-de-design/
More Pantone Codes: http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/showthread.php?p=202209
25 Useful Skin Textures http://www.athenna.com/25-useful-skin-texture-collection/athenna/web_design/teoria-de-design/
More Pantone Skin Codes http://humanae.tumblr.com/
Color codes for Native American skin textures Pt. 1 http://encycolorpedia.com/592720
Pt. 2 http://encycolorpedia.com/421d18

I highly recommend Pt. 2 as it allows you to click on a color and it takes you to that as the median color and gives you visual references and all the codes for the colors shown.

Please, and this comes from all the Native American artists I know (and being in the Capitol of the Cherokee Nation I now a lot of them), take some time and don't try to pass of a European with a mild tan as a Native American.

The same when modeling materials for N.A. characters. Go to a good photo archive and look at the actual gear. Each Nation has their own version of what things are shaped like and how they are designed. DO NOT push television "injun" materials as actual Native American materials. At least be so good as to add the disclaimer "based on a XXXX design" near the top of the advertising copy so the consumer, and the viewer, knows it is not intended to be offered as correct.

If you are going to add beading, check archives for patterns and don't just toss down what you've seen in movies or television. Most of that stuff comes from countries that have never seen the original material and don't care as long as they sell product.

Hopefully this will create a dialogue and some good discourse without racism or intolerance. We, the Native American community, may not always look like what you THINK we should look like on the outside, but we know our own culture and ask that you respect it as you would your own.

That brings up a rather interesting subject. I have worked in a part of town where there were quite a few Native Americans, none of them were red. I know a lot of Asian Americans's none of them are yellow. I know a lot of Africian Americans, 99% of them are not black and of course us European Americans are not white.

What I have noticed in my life time is that people come in all shades of their native colors. I am going out on a limb here and "assume" that Native Americans" do also.

Actually, I think it is down right funny when one stops to think about it. European Americans (not all of course) turn quite red in early summer, then go from light tan to as dark a brown as they can. When the cold season returns they go back to being their orginal color.

Beeing from Norway I can sort of relate to this. Meaning all the renders of "vikings" lol. The vikings never had horns on their helmets and so on. Research is a good thing 

(ROTFL)  That is like the Native American and Feathers. Not just anyone got one, it had to be earned, and Holly wood was not part of that process.

What Hollywood no part of it? Who WOULD have thought! :biggrin: