Character Challenge - Day 9: 13-17 year olds

Day 9: 13-17 year olds

 

 

Welcome to the second week of the Character Challenge! During last week, we worked on head shapes, 2-4 year old characters, eyes, noses, 5-8 year olds, and 9-12 year olds. I hope you were able to sketch out at least one character for each of those age groups.

Here are links to last week's posts:
Day 1: Head Shapes

Day 2: Toddlers 2-4 years old

Day 3: All About Eyes

Day 4: 5-8 year olds

Day 5: Noses and Ears

Day 6: 9-12 year olds

For this week, our characters are getting older and today we start working on TEENAGERS. Specifically 13-17 year olds - the reason that I am not including 18 and 19 year olds is because once a person finishes high school and heads off to college - they are often into different things so we will work on them in a couple of days. For today and tomorrow, stick with High School students.

 

Things to keep in mind when designing teenage characters: High school students often break off into clicks or groups. You've got the brainiacs, the nerds, the goths, slobs, goofballs, athletes, etc...everyone from Miss Popular to Mr Total Nerd and they can all be super funny characters.

 

Boys: Teenager boys (unless they are the big athletic type) can be lanky with overly long legs, arms, and neck - skinny but fit. 4-6 heads tall should work for these boys. Finger tips can stretch to a couple inches above the knee.

 

Girls: Give your teenage girl character some hips and pull her waist in a bit. Give her some earrings and add a few eyelashes. You can make your girl characters taller than the boys (and still look like teenagers) because they are growing faster and the reality is that many of the high school girls can be a head taller than the boys. Unless your character is meant to be small, go for 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 heads tall for the teenage girls. Chris Hart states in his book, THE HUMUNGOUS BOOK OF CARTOONING that the girl's fingers for this age range will taper a bit - not showing nails but more defined that the boys at the same age.

 

Remember - all of these tips and suggestions are just that. Suggestions. You don't have to use any of it when designing your characters. Observe some teens this afternoon. If you have time, head over to the mall and find a seat in a popular area. Bring your sketchbook. Look at what the kids are wearing, how they are standing. Do some super fast gestural drawings to show poses (these can be stick figures - just stay loose with your lines).

 

Here is a Chris Hart video on drawing a cartoon girl...

  



Have fun!