The Kooleen Fixing Art Disaster - What REALLY Happened

if you love kooleen comment here :)

As a professional, I'd argue with kooleen that it actually takes much more skill to draw ugly people. Perfection is easy; there are no flaws to detail. But ugliness? That takes pain, dedication, sickeningly-accurate detail... it is a much more time-consuming and delicate task. If you want to get better at art, perfect the tasks you want to achieve.

I'm a filipino, and so is kooleen, and this definitely says alot about our toxic culture and super strict beauty standards

drawing 'ugly' people will make you a lot better than just drawing the same pretty face over and over.

"i dont consume western media" she literally drew spiderverse fanart 💀

Ngl koolen doesnt have to draw black people or old people, but what she said was racist asf☠️

SHE IS FILIPINO (so am i) 😭 if she went outside of her home or to town she's gonna see people who don't fit her template. The fact that she uses the excuse of the lack of exposure to western media is unreal.

I'm not an artist, but "never draw ugly people", besides being morally very questionable, just seems like bad art advice. I had an "anatomy for artists" book as a kid and it was full of sketches of wrinkled, overweight, and old people, because drawing them is great practice for understanding form and light. It's easy to draw what you think everyone should look like, but it's a lot horder to capture someone's actual likeness.

I’m pretty sure her art suffers from Same Face Syndrome, since her style is just walking Korean beauty standards (same eyes, same v face, same nose) People with same face syndrome art style can’t draw people outside their preference zone. While many people face same face syndrome at some point during their journey, Kooleen’s is problematic because she is an influencer, with millions of followers. She portrays as if her way is the correct way. Her main audience consists of beginners, who wanna improve their art so they follow her. Its easy to draw pretty faces, make them look appealing. But its very difficult to draw “ugly” faces, make them look appealing to the eye. Same with same face syndrome, you won’t know you have this problem until you realise and its very hard to fix that (i promise, I’m going through the same).

As a south Asian, we’re barely represented in popular western media lol. And even when we are, it’s a weird stereotypical depiction of a generic North Indian. It’s quite important to acknowledge that humans and culture come in all shapes and sizes; thus art and beauty come in all shapes and sizes. There is no template for human faces. And there is no single standard for beauty. That’s my mini rant lol.

"if you draw "ugly" people you'll never get better at art" is such terrible advice for beginners. She is setting people up for failure later in their careers. Learning to draw fat people, old people, people with facial deformities, etc (not that those people are ugly, just deemed so) will massively improve your art, range and character designing abilities. something something, more tools in your toolboxes.

how tf she use AAVE in the damn "guide" itself but then claim you ain't seen black people before.

I hate how her mentality of “i dont draw ugly people” has stretched onto her fans. Now they’re saying “EWW DRAWING UGLY PEOPLE BAD!! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DRAW THEM??” Same goes for her motivation to draw(aka clout) now her impressional young fans will try and follow her steps and have immediate burnt out because… what do ya know?? Becoming famous isn’t easy

As a black person who likes art this is hilarious😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Dude, I’m white as fuck and I have that “gorilla-looking” jaw. I feel like this problem is actually super broad: all of these art tutorials that go “always draw eyes like this!” or “always draw ears like that!” only serve to alienate people who do not have these features. And, yes, given our ridiculous white-centric beauty standards, the people that end up being alienated are often people of colour. When I was just starting art, I had one of those “beginner’s how to draw” books, and I remember seeing anatomy tips such as: “the nose is the most prominent feature of the side profile, nothing goes further”, “for young women, always leave a gap between the upper thighs”, “ears never go lower than the nostrils”, etc… and as a young pre-teen girl at the time, with a prominent chin, long ears and no thigh gap, it made me feel really bad about myself. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I as a white person am feeling like I can’t mesure up to our white-centric standards, then I can’t imagine what it must be like for people of colour. We really need let go of these ridiculous “art rules” when it comes to drawing people and accept that they come in all shapes and sizes. Of course, when trying to learn the basics, it can be hard to draw the line between “basic anatomy” and “unfair standard”, but I think we should just learn to be more lax, you know?

she really tried to excuse it by saying she's never seen ppl of color wtf

According to SamDoesArt, it’s a general rule of thumb to use the method Koolean used when drawing a side profile. So I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt in that she didn’t know that a lot of the times, facial features can surpass that rule. However, it is infuriating that in her fixing art videos, she tries fixing them based on her own art style. I like SamDoesArt because he is not biased and tries to show what good proportions can look like while also saying that it’s ok to do different. Also, it does seem like Koolean was being racist in more ways then one and I hope she responds to this drama.

Im 13 and I loved her. I watched her videos for a long time and applied her tips into my art. I took a break from her videos before this situation. ANd while taking a break, I started observing people's features. THeir face shapes, their skin conditions, their proportions and etc. WHen kooleen said that she doesn't draw ugly people I slowly felt like I should draw stereotypical pretty people. And I applied this to myself. I grew more insecure about myself. And during the break, my art style changed drastically, it looked so much better, more diverse and realistic. Looking back on the drawings I did when I was watching and following kooleens advice, I realize it looks so simple. Nothing different. It looked the same. I feel terrible that I applied such knowledge into the real world and into my art. I think everyone is pretty. EVeryone is beautiful. Everyone should be drawn and seen and painted.

I personally think Kooleen's humor is very insensitive at times. I know it's her brand and all and she probably isn't like this in real life, but the way she presents herself in her content is probably why the backlash was so strong.

"Kinda racist?" No that's deliberately hateful, racist thing to say, calling anyone a "gorilla" directly or indirectly. What the hell.