Describing Races

[Lalaithion]

First: I am not talking about elves, or dwarves, or ogres -- I am talking about the different races (ethnicities) we have on earth.

I am having trouble describing ethnicities in my fantasy world without resorting to using descriptors that only make sense on earth. No one in Middle Earth is going to know what a "russian" looks like. Can anyone help me make descriptions for the many ethnicities that exist on earth?

[Eeirail]

Simply build a place in your middle- Earth that would be the equivilent of Russia, and creat a new race from that, I might not be grasping the actual concept of what you are asking, if not, tell me and I will gladly try again.

[Lawfire]

You could start with: hair (color, texture, style), facial features (eye shape, eye color, nose, cheeks, chin), body (height, build, skin tone, body hair). You could then add things like speech patterns and accents if you want to use those.

[Feo Takahari]

If you're working from an in-universe POV, try describing what that POV notices about other races (or, if there are a lot of differences, describing what that POV notices first.) Of course, this makes it a bit tricky to describe the POV character's own race.

[shangrila]

You just have to describe them like you would any other character. Thier face, stature, clothes, etc. Then, if you want, you can add a few extra words to link it to the culture. For example, "he wore such and such, like all desert people".

[Ophiucha]

First, it depends on your world. Is your world full of fantasy counterpart cultures? You may not have a China to say people look Chinese, but if you have a Xio Pan, most people are intuitive enough to figure out that the people of such a culture have vaguely east Asian characteristics. You may not have a Japan, but there aren't many white people named "Sakura", so even if she's from 'Moryo', we can assume that a girl named Sakura is Japanese.

If you don't have fantasy counterpart cultures, here is a great reference.
Guide to Human Types, this is specifically an artist's guide, but it does wonderfully break down every minute feature between people of different races and nationalities, from head shape to average height to colour of their skin. Getting a breakdown of every feature could help in describing someone you want to look a certain way in the reader's eyes.

[amar654]

its easy to describe some one stereotypicaly, such as jappenese: yellow looking skin, black hair, small eyes, slender build

[Caliburn]

Perhaps reading other people's fiction and borrowing those descriptions wholesale?

For example, James Clavell's "Shogun" describes the appearances of Japanese people in vivid detail. One of its sequels, Tai-Pan, describes Chinese people a lot. The contrast of these cultures to the European characters was central to the story, so it got plenty of attention. If you can find similar kinds of stories revolving around travel or culture-shock in other parts of the world they might yield similarly rich descriptions of other cultures.

[dyga19]

I think the best approach would be to refer to them based on their home regions; for instance, someone from the a region called Zefer would be called a Zeferian, one form Rosic would be Rosican, etc. Then describe them based on height, body build, facial structure, and hair & skin pigmentation, as these are the common variables when looking at the different races of people on Earth. So, a Zeferian could be tall and slender, have a pointed, somewhat elongated face, wide, slanted eyes, dark skin, and platinum blonde hair. Anyway, I hope this helps out a bit.