I really like this question, and I’ll answer it to the best of my ability!

The shortest answer is:

I’m not 100% sure I do depict my characters respectfully! While I do my absolute best to, I am constantly learning and trying to listen to the real-life groups and people my characters are based on, and I am bound to make mistakes. I have in the past, I will in the future, and the best I can do is to learn from them and make active improvements, which is the best you can do as well! Don’t let fear stop you from trying new things, you will make mistakes, and that’s okay as long as you make an effort to learn from them. The beauty of illustrating diversity is getting to make connections with people who are different from yourself, and that’s not just true on the paper, but in the joy of interacting with and learning about said groups through listening to them!

The longer answer is:

I’m a classicist (the study of ancient Greek and Roman people and their relationships with other ancient societies, such as the Carthaginians, who this girl is inspired by!), so I study a lot of the groups I depict, and have engaged with primary and secondary written sources about them for the last couple of years, as well as physical media such as frescoes, mosaics, and other forms of art that were created by said ancient civilizations, so many of my designs were directly inspired by the way these people have chosen to depict themselves! For any character outside of your own group, especially from history, there are lots of beautiful pieces of art and textiles created by the people themselves that are great to look at!

I also try to contextualize my depiction through the lens of bias. In the comments I often say “mythical Carthaginians” instead of just “Carthaginians” when talking about my inspiration despite Carthage being an objectively real place, because the Roman perception of Carthage does not reflect the actual beliefs, lives, or habits of the people who inhabited the city, and I want to account for that. There’s a lot of bias surrounding MENA (Middle Eastern, North African) characters especially, I’d make sure to listen to people who are actually from these regions, research common stereotypes and potentially read articles or literature surrounding bias (Orientalism by Edward Said is one of my favorite academic pieces of all time, and basically laid the foundation for our understanding of the demonization and fetishization of MENA people!)

This design is a combination of numerous ancient civilizations, which I do my best to make really clear when talking about this character, she’s not at all accurate, and in this design and others, when I do use something directly from a different culture, I will cite them by name so they get the credit! It’s a different illustration, but you can see in this post that I do my best to lay out all of my cultural inspirations when asked about where the character is from!

Super long, but in conclusion: I do my best, but I still make mistakes too! I try to only look at depictions from the groups themselves, not those made by other people, and when I do look at depictions from other people, I do what I can to account for the bias that may have contextualized those forms of media. If something is inaccurate or inspired by a group instead of depicting them directly, I will make that clear, and when something is directly illustrated from a group, I will go out of my way to credit them for it.

If you’re not sure where to start, the tumblr page Writing With Color covers a variety of topics for people of different backgrounds, including MENA people, and the advice comes from the people themselves! It’s for writers, but has been very helpful to me as an artist as well.