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| Image Description: Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII drawn as a black male with blond locs. Part of a fan art series by artist Nikolas Draper-Ivey |
...[S]ome people on my page had a problem with me drawing black people because I, a black man, was drawing far too many of them (and not as stereotypes or tropes) when I’m known for having diverse character designs in the first place.
I literally got asked, “Do you ever draw white people?” And “You only draw black guys. Why?” In the same morning and I’m like, “Oh so this is a PROBLEM now?” Anyone that has seen my work knows that I draw people from all over.
...if me drawing people of color as characters and not stereotypes and over used tropes offends you, then get ready to hate my black ass then, because I’m not about to sit by and let us not be represented in a respectful, uplifting and positive light anymore...Rather than letting the haters get him down, though, he used all that salt to work on some truly awesome fan art and give his take on the main cast of the Squaresoft RPG Final Fantasy VII. Why'd he chose that game? As Draper-Ivey put it, "I specifically chose FFVII because it’s already a diverse cast and to Square Enix’s credit, you could literally tell the same story with these designs."
Those designs are amazing. His work in the superhero genre was already pretty impressive, and seeing his take on a JRPG classic is awesome. He takes the source material and puts his own well-illustrated spin on it. You can see his art of Cloud Strife above, but I was also wowed by his fan art of FFVII's main villain, Sephiroth. Check it out:
You can check out his other FFVII fan art here, his fan art of FFXV's Noctis here, and feast on his deviantart gallery here.
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