Anyone else notice the ridiculous depiction of Chinese faces in the Osprey books? So-slitty-I-can't-see eyes, extremely yellow skin, fleshless faces, African-looking lips, big chipmunk cheeks, receding chins...

I mean, how many real Chinese people have the illustrators seen? All that's needed is a visit to any random stock photography website and a search like "China crowd" and you'll have plenty of stuff to work from. Instead of basing your art on stupid western stereotypes.

I don't have the one you are referring to in my collection, but I think I know the one you are referring too. Yes I agree that they look terrible.
Is the artist Angus McBride? I have never liked his work, and am always disappointed when some one gives me a historical figure to paint that has been based on one of McBride's paintings.
All his bodies and faces are squat and wide and all seem to look alike regardless of race.

Angus Mcbride is guilty of the "white-skinned African" Chinese. But Michael Perry is the main offender, he paints them as described in the first post.

yeah, he's another, that I am not that fond of.
I wonder if Perry and McBride both went to the same art school, or it one taught the other how to paint faces.. Maybe one only is good at the depiction of the uniforms and armor and the other does the faces. It is a shame that Osprey falls very short in their depiction of races, but the books are more for the information on what was worn then what the people looked like. And in that they do a great job.

Yep, not impressive at all. And I've read a volume about American Indians Warfare, and the Indian warriors are depicted like guys dressing for carnival. The drawings in the volume about Vikings on other hand look very impressive.

I know what Conan was talking about.
The Ming era soldiers look...downright pathetic.
I mean, they could get Samurai to look cool.

Yep. Some books have great pics. The artists just can't portray Asian/native American faces.



Yeah, some of the Ming soldiers are even depicted as half-naked and shoeless.

Yes...I think we're on the same page...
Do you remember the picture plate with the Red Turban rebel doing a flying kick against a Mongol who's baring one of his arms?
That's one of the most ridiculous plates of Osprey Books. Serious.

That's a David Sque illustration. Talk about perpetuating the "peasant horde" myth.

They should put those guys who drawed Viking pics to work on the Chinese volumes, and with the same dedication.

Wait, Angus McBride did a Chinese in one of his books?

I've seen his Japanese work, they look fine.

I'd actually like to see it, as I consider him pretty much the best illustrator Osprey has.


Actually Conan, you know those illustrations you uploaded for us? When I first saw those, I thought "man, THATS what Osprey should have..."



My problem with their books is... the Chinese just come off as lame looking compared to their other series. I doubt they're as popular as Samurai, Vikings, Knights or that sort of thing, so maybe they just spent less time on it?

Chinese themselves can make lame versions of their own stuff though, you know what book I'm talking about (that illustrated costumes one or something like that, where it looks like the author's middle aged friend dressed up)


and the Perry Brothers, they are d**** awesome at making miniatures.
I like their work.

http://www.perry-miniatures.com/
there's their realistic stuff

they also did fantasy stuff, it has a lot of personality to it. Adventurers really look adventurous, etc.
http://otherworld.me.uk/
only a few of those are Perry Bros though



Now, this isn't exactly historic... but somewhat close

Since we're on the topic, here's a link to the Magic:the Gathering card game's Romance of the Three Kingdoms set

http://www.wizards.com/magic/p3k/p3k_edition.asp

Angus Mccbride illustrated The Army of Tang China, I think he also illustrated some of the Chinese Armies books for Osprey. Not certain, though.

Whatever the case, in every Osprey Chinese Armies book the Chinese are painted as primitive and ugly. Michael Perry's Chinese/Khitan/Jurchen warriors have such ugly, disproportionate faces it's almost laughable.

And yeah, those illustrations are awesome, and accurate to boot.

This is called racism. They will take the ugliest chinese and portray to the world that the average chinese look like that.

White supremism ?

The second book on Chinese / Far Eastern siege warfare is IMO the best illustrated. My favourite.

If this is a broadly shared concern, perhaps we might organise a joint letter to Osprey and make some positive/construction suggestions as to how they might approach the task better should they do another volume on a Chinese topic.

I don' like his illustrations of the samurai either, I believe it he did a the illustrations for the Celts which I don't like much either. I just do not like his faces. They are really poorly drawn. I am not complaning about his work on armor and costumeing. The Normans aren't too bad, in fact I always liked the illustration of the lady that is caught giving a knight a pin for as her favor as her husband or father comes into the room.

I agree with Richard, I wish Osprey would do a new set of illustrations for Chinese. The only problem is then I'll just need to buy them and there are already so many Osprey books I still need.

the majority of the Chinese army osprey books portray chinese in a really aesthetically poor light

i must say that the Far Eastern siege osprey books portray the Chinese look in a more neutral way. i really liked the illustrations in those books especially of Song lamellar armor and Ming brigadine

i have scans of the above mentioned and i'll post if anyone wants to see

Maybe some of us who own the books should use the Amazon.com customer reviews as a place to offer some constructive suggestions. I suspect that Osprey monitors feedback put into such prominent places. It will certainly alert other potential readers to the problem.

I do not mean to suggest that we plaster the Amazon reviews with only negative comments which might be construed as a sort of vandalism. It would be more constructive and effective to put in reviews that comment on both the positibe qualities of the individual books but also register concern and dismay that the illustrations have to date not been of the kind of quality that no doubt both Osprey and their contracted illustrators (we should assume) aspire to produce. If we can we might even add in links to places online where other readers/illustrators/Osprey can find more acceptable representations of the subjects.

Great plan, Richard.
We might be able to at least bring this to their attention.
I do agree it is important that we stress that the depiction of the Asian faces reduces the quality of an otherwise wonderful set of reference books.



Of course we want to see them!
Thanks for offering