Younger characters and proportions to adult sizes
AllenArt
Posts: 7,172
I keep seeing this, so I can't name any one vendor so I'll just use a generalization. Teens and children are NOT tiny adults. The head of a 10 year old is nearly the same size as an adult head. It's the BODY that is smaller. And yet, I see tiny versions of grown persons (including tiny heads) being passed off as teens and preteens. These ages don't just have smoother, more non-distinct features. They have have BIG heads in comparrison to their bodies. If anything on the head is smaller, maybe the face is somewhat shorter, but the braincase is similar in size to an adult.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3400202/
The above is info for safety in automobiles, but the illustrations show exactly what I'm talking about.
Just FYI ;). LOL
Laurie
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
These are pretty helpful illustrations! I bookmarked for reference material.
Another good place for reference is the Internet Archive. There's gobs of books on this and other subjects. I haunt that place. LOL
Laurie
...a decade ago I spent a lot of time researching this same topic when attempting to develop younger characters for Gen4 as there were none (until near the very end) The Gen3 teens and preteens looked more like "downsized" adults. Even with Genesis I depend on morph and shaping resources rather than actual young characters and still adjust proportions manually when needed.
I just don't understand how someone can make a promo with an adult and a "teen" who is just a tiny adult side by side and not realize it just looks wrong, because when I see it, it smacks me in the face immediately ;) Maybe because I've had kids? But I mean, people look at other humans of all ages all the time, don't they?
Laurie
I looked for a valid proportion chart for months, I hope your link can help me, AllenArt!
But I think we need something more "material" like a 3D static model of the true proportions. Mixing chars (especially not-realistic ones) affects the proportions and often I obtain two chars of same age but with very mismatching proportions with each other.
As someone who makes lots of younger characters, I can appreciate a topic like this. Can I assume this thread is also in response to the latest young figure, Olivia?
I don't disagree, Laurie (interesting reference document, BTW), but I think that sometimes it can go wrong the other way, too. Those K4 kids always looked like bobbleheads to me.
On some characters, the heads are in correct teen/child proportion for their own bodies, and they look good on their own. But it looks wrong when put side by side with another character because the overall scale is different / wrong
For example - if you made an anime character stand next to a normal character and had them the same height, the anime head would look far too big. But if you scale down the entire anime character (not just the head) until their head is approximately the same size as the normal character, the anime character would then look more in proportion.
As anime is stylized, you probably will not be able to go down all the way to equal head size without it looking strange due to other reasons, but adjusting the overall scale a little can make things better when side by side to another character.
Basically I'm agreeing that head sizes of different ages are approximelty the same. But the solution can be changing the overall scale of the character rather than changing the head size of the character, as some characters look very good with their own proportions that the artists have given us.
Zev0's Growing Up has correction dials for various issues, including the head/body proportions.
Yes, it's useful to create young figures out of older ones, but it's also just generally good work for balancing out younger figures in general.
That new Olivia does seem to have a small head, but it's nothing Growing Up couldn't fix.
Not necessarily. I saw another one this week. Same problem. It is not unique to one vendor.
That's because even tho their proportions were about right, their faces were weirdly toward the adult. I think they were reaching the uncanny valley. I'd rather have that tho than a child that is just a proportionally shrunken adult ;). I know I can fix things like that, but if I'm gonna pay in the area of 20-30 bucks for a character it should be done already.
Laurie
Its been sort of an ongoing issue particularly with female characters. The wikipedia article on Neoteny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neotenyhas a good image of the scaling you are talking about.
Standards of scaling would be helpful, but as was mentioned stylized characters don't neccessarily fit the realistic proportioned shape. Many 'realistic' characters don't either, as they are idealized even though their proportions are closer to the age range they are being targeted for.
I don't really expect stylized characters to follow any kind of proportion rules, but I think the characters I've seen lately weren't supposed to be stylized, but realistic (and I do expect those to follow rules of normal human proportion...lol). I know I'm probably being a bit of a wet blanket here, but I think if vendors wanna do child/young characters then they should research and do them correctly. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Laurie
The science of measuring bodies in detail is called "anthropometry". There exist several collections of data measured from thousands of kids that can be used to check proportions. "Anthrokids" is about the most comprehensive, although the data reflects late 1970s proportions, and there has been a slight shift. The data is very thorough, with about 50 parameters per subject, all summarized as 5th, 50th, and 95th perceltiles.
https://math.nist.gov/~SRessler/anthrokids/
This is old, and most of the links are broken, but most of the data and images described still exist, you just have to Google for them, once you know the name of the dataset you need.
https://www.humanics-es.com/recc-children.htm
I think it’s a valid issue. I own a baby who has Proportion issues. When in an image with an adult figure the shape looks off. It’s less notice less on its own though.
I wonder if people have been desensitized to the differences in age appearance by television and movies, where adults are routinely (indeed, almost universally) cast to play teenage roles. For that matter, preteens are often played by teenagers. We just get used to seeing it, perhaps.
FWIW, 3D Universe does VERY good with child proportions. It can be done ;)
Laurie
I think Laurie's point is particularly true for these products:
https://www.daz3d.com/body-shapes-children-for-genesis-8-female
https://www.daz3d.com/body-shapes-children-for-genesis-8-male
To me all those child shapes look just like shruken adults, with little changes to proportions (in particular the head)
I don't quite understand all the negativity regarding the K4 characters. They were no more unrealistic than the V4/M4/... and so on characters of that time and in many ways more realistic then those V4 generations characters.
As far as the proportions go, I've tried to use Measure Metrics (Figure Metrics) and it absolutely won't allow the user to create some valid measurement ratios in models. eg, changing the circumferance of the head changes the size of the body. If that's the tool the PAs & DAZ are using they will never get further than a small subset of measure ratios.
i like k4 personally. Some of the clothing still beats the pants off of current outfits
Thank you Laurie,
I found similar sources some time ago. There are some drawing tutorials on DA demonstrting it pretty well.
--> https://www.deviantart.com/stuartduvall/art/Ideal-Proportions-Various-Ages-265231039
https://www.deviantart.com/nuei/art/TUTORIAL-VIDEO-Face-Proportions-and-11-Face-Types-567394211
... and some more ...
I only hope, that the outcome of this thread leads to updates of the current "Growing Up" and other youth characters products.
...one thing that Growing Up does include is a head proportion/scale control. Many of the head morph resources I use also include facial and facial feature sizing controls.
__________
...agh saw this was already mentioned. Sometimes FF has a habit of taking me immediately to the last post in a thread instead of the first new one since i was last here.
I have a simple fix that works great for me......don't render non adults, LOL
...doesn't work for my story.
LOL good advice, but kinda hard to do if you wanna render an entire family with kids ;)
If one were looking from the outside in at the last three versions of Genesis (except for lately), one would think we took a trip in the "Time Machine" and the only people on the surface of the planet were 20-somethings. The only difference being that nothing ate the older people - until the last few releases they didn't even exist. LOL.
Laurie
Except the eyes
I change the size of the eyes on EVERY character I've ever gotten here, PA or DO...lol. Eyes always look huge to me. And maybe that is just me, but they all just seem so huge. LOL.
Laurie
Indeed, it happens a lot.
There are some more correctly proportined characters at the other store by angelwings, however they are growing up morph deprndent. There is another, the artists first character, a girl named Ning. He primarily makes clothing sets geared toward young figures, and she is I think the figure he uses for his promos of the clothes.Though she is a bit stylized, she is G8F, stand alone. and isone of the best propotioned, and age accurate figures I've seen, head and face included.