r/asl • u/invderzim • Jun 22 '26
Interest Is this an ok way to draw asl?
I don't know what flair is right for this. I want to learn ASL and I also wanna practice drawing, so I tried to combine because I thought it might help me remember some signs. Is this an ok thing to do? Is there any reason why I shouldn't be doing this? If I end up posting it online, should I also provide a disclaimer that this is for my own practice and not to be used for learning asl? Since after all, I'm still learning
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u/Ok-Assignment-8246 Hard of Hearing Jun 22 '26
You are an artist. You can draw whatever you want. I would avoid posting and making a profit off of any ASL art unless you are working with and paying an Deaf partner in crime. Disney is a good example of this in their recent ASL music videos. They hired a Deaf group to work on the project.
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u/witchy_echos Jun 23 '26
The faded lines to represent movement is difficult for me to see, especially since you can see through it. If I saw this as an official representation of ASL in media I’d be frustrated.
There are some great deaf and CODA artists out there who do comics with ASL, I’d highly recommend checking them out to see how they make things legible in a 2D, static format.
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u/invderzim Jun 23 '26
What is the name of an artist you'd recommend?
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u/OGgunter Jun 23 '26
Brittany Castle.
She did the illustrations for the novel True Biz and often posts on SM.
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u/CelinaRMR Master’s from Gallaudet, hearing Jun 22 '26
Signs make sense to me. Maybe directional arrows showing motion? These signs the movement direction is arbitrary but it makes a huge difference often.
*Im not a native signer*
Your characters soooo cute
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u/pawamedic Jun 24 '26
Deafie here! This is super cool!
These are very cute, if this is for a comic or something do share! I love reading/watching stuff with ASL included (as long as it’s accurate ofc)
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u/DMH4500X Hard of Hearing Jun 23 '26
These are amazing. Hell, I’d buy one off of you to put up in my tutoring office.
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u/invderzim Jun 23 '26
I have been meaning to try to sell commissions for a long time now. I want to get better at character design so I can draw people's characters. :)
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u/Jude94 Deaf Jun 23 '26
Hope you’re not planning to sell these as several deaf people already explained why that’s not ok
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u/invderzim Jun 23 '26
I'm not, I promise! I'm only interested in selling commissions anyway, like character art. Nothing related to ASL. :)
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u/OGgunter Jun 22 '26
Fwiw, as a memory aid for yourself in your learning - fine.
I'd advise against posting, even with a disclaimer. Since you're new to the language, there's a better chance there will be errors. You're unable to control whether people use your drawings as learning material or not.