HOME | DD
Wickfield — How to Age Your Characters Tutorial
#cartoonnetwork #characterdesign #dexterslaboratory #heyarnold #powerpuffgirls #tutorial #arttutorial #cartoondesign #agedup #agebend #gravityfalls
Published: 2016-11-06 16:37:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 16110; Favourites: 273; Downloads: 139
Redirect to original
Description
Since I joined DeviantArt 5 years ago I've had a lot of fun drawing aged-up versions of cartoon characters, and I've gotten plenty of excited comments asking how I go about the process. Wel since Daylight Savings Time ended last night I got an extra hour and I decided to write this tutorial up. Hopefully it doesn't seem like too much text, I just wanted to give a solid walk through of my technique so that other people can learn the tricks I've discovered for a good design. You can also use these principles to age down a character and make them younger, and many of the tips will also help for designing a character from scratch.I hope you find this tutorial helpful, if you use it in your own art be sure to let me know!
Related content
Comments: 55
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Quick Question: Can this process be also done in reverse, a.k.a. turning adults into teens/children?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm glad you made this easy-to-follow tutorial. I'm also happy how you designed the older version of Dee and the PPG. The canon adult PPG Just didn't look good. But anyway, those are some useful tips to keep in mind for any series (or comic or other media!)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome, I'm glad you found it helpful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
ooh this could be really helpful
Would this work the same way for aging characters down?" (never mind read the description)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I absolutely love this guide! I've been using this formula quite a bit to age up characters, even before I found this, and have seen some older designs that were basically the same as their younger designs. People do go through changes as they get older. So, you make a lot of really good point in this.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome, I'm glad you found it useful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
A well-thought-out and good guide with plenty of image resources! Fun to think about when aging characters, cartoon styled or not.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome, thanks for commenting!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hmmm, not bad, not bad at all. ^^ This is honestly really helpful info!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wow, great idea for a tutorial. 
But so far I can at least say that I tried keeping the short body, long legs thing going, when I drawn deedee older. ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome, I hope you find it helpful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh, I did this one thing a while ago that made me want to try it more - aging up a character - but in another show's different style. Granted it was also based on someone else's fandesign, but I tweaked it here and there a lil bit. Was a very fun & eye-opening learning experience, haha 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's good to experiment, that's when you learn the most!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
This is a really welcome tutorial on this subject and I'm glad to see it in such a simple-to-follow form. The text was kinda small on my laptop but still very readable! I also like how the images are so clearly brought out, some tutorials can get kind of cluttered with either text or images or both but this one definitely is not, at least to my eye.
I also really like the steps you've explained! These are basically the same ones I use when drawing characters in other show styles, isolating features and referencing the original as well as being aware of context the character is in, just way better explained
I also feel like new designs should be easy to draw for anyone aping/copying the styles, but that's just my opinion about cartoon drawing in general, like there should be an ease of drawing the model.
I'm sure this will help many new and old fanartists-animators to come! Nice work! I know I'll definitely remember your advice here
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Glad you found it helpful! Honestly this process is a lot more intuitive for me at this point (it sounds like it is for you too) but I tried to be extra detailed since it's easy to miss a step as a beginner, especially if you are still developing your technical skills at the same time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Of course
Doesn't hurt to include extra steps either I think, you've done a good job of keeping those detailed but clear too
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
To be fair, that scene from PPG was fantasy/ parody of crappy fan fiction, so they look bad on purpose.
I've actually been working on and off on some future Gravity Falls characters. I'll keep these tips in mind.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hehe, that's true, but so many people took it seriously I thought I could bring it up as a recognizable example.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
truly interesting!!! really, really!!! thanks for sharing this!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
No problem! I like to share my tips when I can, most of the time I'm just too busy to type out an actual tutorial.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Don't really agree with "wearing the same clothes in an early age". But I fucking hate how they made the PPG as teens. It's just as horrible as having alot of bishie cartoon characters as humans.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I don't think anyone liked the PPG as teens!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I don't think so. This is actually quite helpful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
This is some very good advice here. I'll keep this handy when I plan to draw my characters at a different age.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome, it will totally work with OCs as well I just didn't have any good examples to use in the image.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
On the personality thing, I find it a bit disappointing that men still don't get as many options as women in media. Sure, they can still look fashionable, but a lot of times people sort of assume that men can only look formal and casual, and only have short hair. Though, that still depends entirely on personality, and lately gender stereotypes breaking has caused men and women to have more options in fashion styles.
This tutorial is still great though, and I'll definitely be using it in the future when it comes to aging up/down my oc or characters in media.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well the truth is I generalize quite a bit in my tutorial because it was long enough already, but you could probably come up with lots of options for men, especially those with strong personalities who wouldn't care what society or culture dictates! Also time period is very important as well - all my examples are modern, but in the past men wore lots of fancy and flashy clothing!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That is true. Sometimes I forget that time period, culture, personality, family life, social standing, and many other things in a person's life can influence even something like the type of shirt they would wear regularly. Thanks for the response.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Your grown up versions of PPG will always be my favorites. Though I would like to see the PPGZ in the original cartoon design.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
| Next =>