How To Draw A Character At Different Ages

Throughout these lessons I have touched upon how age changes things in the body and especially in the face. Hither we will look at the full progression of the body and face up from nativity to very one-time age.

A Few Preliminary Words

Let's become this clear: Everyone ages differently. The diagrams beneath are not meant to be invariably true to the letter, just to help yous draw people that look their intended age. I know for myself that while I was learning to draw, I concluded up with many children who looked eerily world-weary, or adults stuck in their twenties, before I identified the visual clues of age that I was misusing. They are collected hither to save you much trial and fault, only you volition non demand to utilize them all – as a affair of fact, unless your style is very realistic, you might want to use the fewest possible, just what is enough to make a character's age clear.

Most the Stages of Life

The stages used here (Newborn, Baby, Kid...) are a compromise between the "official" division (which for example groups 13- and xx-yr-olds together under "adolescent") and the way I feel they can be classified visually. Upwardly to boyhood, children alter very apace, only I tin can't practise a diagram for each passing year so I condensed them into as few stages equally possible. Naturally, a five-year-quondam doesn't look the same as a 10-year-one-time, and so these portraits are snapshots of a continuous transformation.

Factors That Influence Aging

Every bit I said higher up, nosotros all age differently. The childhood stages are somewhat compatible, but once we reach adulthood, the changes to our appearance, whether in the face up or the effigy, depend on many factors: genetics, ethnicity, living weather condition, work/life habits, wellness, exposure to sunlight and wind, exercise or lack thereof, usage of cosmetics or surgery, so on.

People in poor countries have a shorter life expectancy and no access to wellness care, let alone beauty products, so they may wait very former past the fourth dimension they're center-aged, while in developed countries, some people can look barely forty well into their sixties. In those same adult countries, in centuries past, middle historic period was quondam age and brought with information technology blackened or fallen teeth, a declining trunk and stained peel.

Exposure to the elements will line even a young face: in Viêt Nam I met a woman who worked outdoors in a very windy place, and the many fine lines on her face up made me think she was in her forties, but she turned out to exist merely 20. Inversely, the Japanese famously keep their smooth skin for years and years, and I was shocked to meet a "teenager" who turned out to be a mature, married adult female. Traumatizing events can as well accelerate aging, visible particularly in worry lines.

With all this in mind, it is best to wait at the stages below not as fixed values but as steps that are relative to each other. The verbal historic period is less important than the differences between a stage and another.

Sexual Dimorphism (or Not)

You'll notice I only provide separate male and female diagrams for some historic period categories. This is simply because up until puberty, boys and girls are not very differentiated. They are recognizable by and large through socially created factors such as haircut and habiliment. Y'all can't easily tell a young child's gender just from their face. Adolescence marks the beginning of serious differences in face up and body, and that's when the carve up diagrams begin. Then, after menopause, women start losing their differentiating factors again. Every bit they get older, men and women become once more than increasingly similar in the face, salvage for the fact women'due south hair never recedes quite as much, and women very rarely get bald.

Stages of Life

Newborn (0-ane calendar month)

Newborns can just prevarication on their belly, retaining the foetal position with limbs folded against their trunk. Therefore body length = 2.five heads (legs not counted). Note how brusk the legs are – remember that in adults, in this position, the knee reaches the shoulder.

The beginning calendar week, the head is elongated. This is called molding and it is due to the passage through the birth canal, which makes the bones of the skull overlap. C-sections don't event in molding.

Many newborns accept a full head of fine, dark hair, just they tin can also be quite bald.
The ear is apartment against the caput.
No neck or chin.
The nostrils are very evident in a tiny button nose.
The line under the eyes is clearly defined.
The eye slits, as well as the line of the mouth, look very broad.
The upper eyelid fold may not exist however. At this stage, the eyes are simply opened for brief spells and tend to squint.
In that location is the merest hint of eyebrows, very high on the face.

The eyes of newborns only have their concluding hue between six months and one year. The peel besides has a "birth coloration" that presently changes. Roughly speaking, for different types, these birth colors are:

Newborn birth coloration

Caucasian types: Dark blue-gray eyes, pink to ruddy skin (strong vascularity)
African types: Dark grey-brown eyes, cerise-blackness skin
Asian types: Dark grey-brown eyes, tea rose skin

Baby (one calendar month - 1 year)

Although babies develop at an private step, here's a full general guideline:

At ii months, a baby tin lift its caput halfway;
At 3 information technology can hold an object;
At 4 it can elevator its head and chest when lying down;
At half-dozen it can hold its head steady and sit with assistance;
At 7 information technology tin sit and stand unsupported, and tries to put its foot in its oral fissure;
At eleven it can stand up alone;
Around 1 yr it starts walking unsupported.

Around three months old, the body length is closer to three heads (legs all the same not counted). Although the proportions take barely changed, the torso and limbs are noticeably chubbier.

Around x months, we start thinking in terms of top, every bit the babe starts standing on its legs. Superlative = 4-5 heads. The features are less crumpled than a newborn's, actualization very open up to drink in the world.

The little hair present is very fine, and tin be light and so get darker every bit baby grows.
The ear starts sticking out.
A baby's eyeballs are near their adult size, only the middle slits are not, then the iris appears much larger than an adult's.
The lips become more visible, cartoon a tiny mouth.
The eyes are wider autonomously than an adult's.
The eyebrow ridge is hardly present, there'due south only a very gentle curve.
There's no cheekbone to speak of either, but a round cheek.

Toddler (1 - 4 years)

The body begins to slim down a chip, losing the rounded breadbasket, but retains an endearing awkwardness. At historic period iv, a child'south elevation is at least double its birth length. Height= 5 heads

We can see the get-go of a neck
The legs are brusk relatively to the body.
The pilus is thicker, darker, and at present hides the head.
The eyebrows are now nearly half as dark as they volition be in adulthood (so they'll even so be very lite in fair children).
The cheeks are full and often pink.
The rima oris is pocket-sized and puckered, looking pouty.
Double mentum
Toddlers nonetheless accept their baby fat, especially in the face.

Child (v - 11 years)

In normally-fed children, all baby fat is gone, but the muscles are nonetheless infantile, so the trunk looks skinny. Body proportions change from 5.5 heads in early childhood, to 6 heads between vii and 9, bearing in mind that the speed of growth is unequal – some children expect younger than their age and some abound so fast they expect like teenagers. This balances itself out before adulthood, with a growth spurt for the quondam and a slowing down for the latter. Note besides that in children, the face occupies a smaller surface area of the caput than in adults.

The neck grows out of an nearly horizontal shoulder line (instead of the trapezius of adults – see Basic Body Proportions) because these muscles are not developed.
The eyebrows nevertheless appear high.
The ears grow earlier other features so they looks large for a while.
Thin cervix
The mentum becomes defined, but not nevertheless potent.
The nose looks short because information technology's nevertheless upturned.
The nose bridge gains dimension.
The face contours beginning to appear, but are still soft.

Adolescent (12 - 17 years)

Females actually begin puberty betwixt 8-13 years of historic period, with males starting between nine.5 and xiv years. Height= 6.five to seven heads (males are taller).

In males, shoulders augment.
Hair appears on the body, legs, artillery and confront.
The anxiety, arms, legs and hands may abound faster than the residue of the body, leading to the gangly expect and feeling of clumsiness.
In females, the development of the breasts is the starting time sign of puberty, but they don't reach their total size until adulthood. Showtime the breasts form small mounds, then the areola gets larger. The breast keeps growing from there.
The waist gets smaller and the hips get wider.
Fat may increase in the buttocks, legs and tum.

The eyebrows are total and lower on the eyes, attenuating the broad-eyed look of childhood.
The about noticeable difference with adult faces at this point is the size of the optics, which are however large.
The bone construction is in place but still softened by a total face.
Equally the nose take its adult shape, it looks longer.
In males, the neck is thicker, the Adam's apple appears.
In females, the neck remains slender, with NO Adam's apple tree.
Eyelashes can be left out to convey adolescence, as their presence in a cartoon tends to make a female expect older.

Young Adult (xviii years - 30's)

Adulthood is when growth stops: this is the tallest 1 gets in i's life. The torso achieves maturity, with fully developed muscles, and in women'southward example full breasts. Pinnacle= 7.5 heads (Note that we apply 8 heads when learning to describe people, as explained in Bones Body Proportions). The full details of adult female person and male bodies are described in Advanced Trunk Proportions, simply note the almost obvious differences between them at this indicate:

Gray pilus can start appearing in one'south thirties or fifty-fifty late twenties, though most people (peculiarly women) volition remove or dye them. Female eyebrows at this stage are often styled (at least, in parts of the world where that is done) so they look neatly drawn, while male eyebrows retain a natural await than is rarely as crisp.

The eyelids get more visible, toning down the gaze and conveying maturity.
The eyes wait slightly smaller.
The line of the nose is chiseled.
The face contours now show more bone and muscle structure than soft flesh.
The ear size stabilizes at the mensurate that is roughly the distance from the top of the optics to the tip of the olfactory organ.
Males have a strong squared jaw.
Dark-haired men often have a shadow around the jaw even when they're shaved. At this historic period, facial hair would be at their strongest if grown.
Female lips at their virtually fleshy (and often look much redder or assorted, due to the use of cosmetics).
The eyelashes are now emphasized.

Middle Age (40'southward and 50's)

The body doesn't change all that much, but muscle density decreases, and female breasts commencement losing firmness. Elbows and knee caps testify wrinkles. The tendency to accumulate fat increases. Men and women shop it in unlike places, indicated in blue:

The changes in the face up are mostly in the lines, no longer in the structure:

The eyelids go heavier.
Crow'southward feet begin to announced.
A downward fold shows up at the corners of the mouth, giving a bit of a wry expression. It is now safe to draw more than expression lines that would have fabricated the confront expect too sometime otherwise.
Lines may also appear at the root of the olfactory organ.
In males, the hairline is likely to starting time receding.
The hair shows more sign of aging, the "salt and pepper" wait.

Menopause happens in a woman'due south fifties. The drib in estrogen levels has many effects on the body, the most visible ones being:

The bones lose density so the body starts getting shorter.
The breasts dry upwardly.
Weight proceeds is redistributed to the abdominal area, and then the waist starts disappearing.

Early One-time Historic period (sixty'due south)

The pilus turns incomparably grey. It thins, and its growth is now limited, so women clothing it shorter.
Worry, frown and smiling lines become permanent.
The eyebrows may stay nighttime longer than the hair (if they were dark in the commencement place), simply abound sparser.
Pockets appear under the eyes.
The peel loses elasticity and starts hanging at the jaws, resulting in a less house jawline.
The male hairline recedes to a varying, but noticeable degree.
Female person eyelashes are no longer prominent.
The lips get thinner. The confront in general starts losing femininity.

Centre Sometime Age (lxx's)

People who keep exercising into quondam historic period keep a younger body longer, and may not slump or lose much musculus mass. Slumping makes the cervix look shorter and the arms fall lower than usual. Male pectorals droop visibly.

In males, hairline recedes considerably or all hair is lost. Women'southward hairline recedes niggling: this is the chief deviation between male and female faces at this stage.

The skin becomes thinner, showing veins, blemishes and age spots.
The hair is sparse and wispy, almost transparent as all paint is gone.
The upper eyelid may droop to permanently cover the outer corner of the eye, giving it a triangular shape. This happens to populations of Western and Northern Europe and to people heavily exposed to the elements.
The earlobe droops (mostly noticeable in people who wore earrings).
The pare adheres to the bone, hollowing the cheeks.
There is a jowl effect as the peel on the cheeks sags.
The corners of the mouth run downward.
The folds join the mentum to the cervix pit.
If there is any facial hair, it's getting sparser and weaker.
The lips lose color, with vertical lines running up and downwards from them.
Loss of cartilage makes the nose tip droop.
The optics go watery and their iris less intense in colour.
Thin or scraggy eyebrows.

Very Sometime Age (80'south and upward)

The appearance of carrying the burdens of the earth that erstwhile people usually have is mostly due to the physical changes of their face – the "lamentable" eyes (shaped this way by the drooping eyelid in Caucasian types), permanent "worry" and frown" lines, corners of the mouth drooping... We read these as expression lines even though at that time of life, they are just e'er there. When cartoon an elderly face, we need to be aware of the expressive ability of these lines and balance or attenuate them according to the facial expression we wish to convey.

More age spots.
The eyes sink back, letting the orbits evidence through the skin.
Crow's feet tin become really long and arable.
People who spent their lives exposed to the elements can accept arable lines on the cheeks as well.
The jaw line is lost.
Double chin.
The oral fissure puckers in if lost teeth are not replaced by dental work (only affordable or available to a portion of the industrialized earth)
These lines deepen.

Do time:

Observe people on the street, on the bus, etc. On kickoff impression, what age would y'all give them? Try then to deconstruct the visual clues, picked upward unconsciously, that led to that impression.
Consciously sketch age groups that you lot don't normally draw or that you have problem portraying, both with and without reference.
Play around with imagining your favourite comic book character (or your own character) at dissimilar stages of their life.