I’m screaming you could not have missed the point of this post more
also yall saying “I know 14 year olds that look like this” no you don’t because this is what I meant:
OK, so like… instead of shaming everyone for it, this is actually a legitimate problem where popular mediums get adults to play the roles of young teenagers, and art books don’t teach you how human children SHOULD look. It’s hard to find resources on learning this but you pick up tips every now and then. For example:-
Head to body proportions
If you normally draw an idealised body proportion of 1:8 heads high, try lessening that ratio for drawing young teenagers to 1:6 to show that the body is still growing.
Add baby fat
Unless your teenager is starved or gone through MASSIVE amounts of stress like abuse or war, they’ll probably still have a degree of baby fat on them. This rounds out features, and smoothes out wrinkles. Their skin is also elastic, so there isn’t much folding of the skin in areas of muscle, and the eyes.
Facial proportions
The younger a child is, the lower the eye level is in comparison to the head. To make a character younger, just lower the eye level, and shorten the nose length. To age them, lengthen the face
Fashion
Teenagers wear and say different things than an adult. Talk to actual teenagers if you can. Some teenagers are more mature than adults, and some meme 24/7. Some are goth, some are fashinistas etc… If you’re an adult, don’t assume that your current knowledge of teenagers is correct. You’ll probably find that your memory is skewed, and teen life has changed in the last 10 years. Specially if it was 20 years ago and pre-internet. IF they act like a teen and dress liek a teen, they’re more likely to read like a teen.
Google
I’m not joking- LOOK AT PHOTOS OF ACTUAL 14 YEAR OLDS. It’s not creepy, and it’ll do your art good knowing what you’re drawing.
Naturally there’s rule breaking in art everywhere, and you’ll get 14 year olds that do look mature for their age, biofemales that have large breasts already (I’m sorry to those people), and biomales that are in sports so have muscle mass (Likewise with anyone else), and sometimes art styles lean toward certain characteristics where everyone has a certain feature like large muscles, but the really strong ones have zero body fat. That happens. As long as you’re consistent and it’s obvious that a certain character IS younger, you can get away it.
Diversity is art is good. Try not to have “actors” with one certain body type and face shape cause you’re only limiting yourself with what you can do.
You can’t learn to draw from one art book no matter how good the teacher is. They likely lack in certain areas cause they have to cut some corners in teaching art. Most art books are giving you the building blocks so you can learn on your own. It’s not a single and complete resource on the subject.
And if you have questions on if you’re doing it right, just ask a teenager, or an adult that is doing it right 🙂 I’m yet to find a person that isn’t more than happy to help you if you ask nicely 🙂
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 