100 Heads Challenge Day 3!

[thagandizzle]

Working through the 100 Heads Challenge with my day 3 submission: kids edition.

Imma be real a minute, y'all. I don't get kids. I am happily childfree by choice and my reproductive clock apparently arrived with a defective battery because I am 33 years of age and I have never longed for the pitter-patter of little footsteps. My own childhood was fine! Parents were great! I've got a niece and a nephew who are both beautiful and brilliant individuals, raised with expert love by my very own sister. But for me, personally, it's not my jam.

And this exercise didn't help with that. Kids are both kinda boring and kinda tricky to draw. They're boring because up until puberty, it turns out that kids just kind of look like... well... kids! Similar eye shapes, similar proportions to the features--and I tried really hard to source a really diverse range of ethnicities for the kids I drew today. They're tricky, though, because you have to be so delicate with the shading. The more lines and shadows you add, the more they age a face. And when you're trying to represent a chubby-cheeked prepubescent youth, you definitely don't want any prematurely aging shadows!

That said, I think I do understand why people who like drawing kids do like it. It's nice to just kind of ease into a general face shape and arrangement of features and then subtly manipulate them to make them unique and give them personality. For me, though, I think I'll mostly continue to stick with grownups!

So here's my contribution. Click to enlarge:

Comments

[aim_of_destiny]

i'm 100% with you on the 'not for me, thanks' aspect. i too have all the maternal instinct of a brick.

that said, these are certainly some kid faces that look like kids! which... is not easy to manage if all you ever draw is adults (i speak from experience).

incidentally: is that a pippi longstocking in the middle left there? or am i seeing things?

sketching

[oldtoadwoman]

I work with kids and I'm very happy to give them back to their parents at the end of the hour. I can't even imagine having kids around constantly.

Although, a friend with kids says that you pick your battles and train your kids to not do whatever annoys you most. (Like if you can't stand clutter, the kids will be trained to put their stuff away, but they'll still scream and run around. If you can't stand noise, you train them to be quiet, but you have to put up with mess. If you can't stand any combination of these things, you're screwed because kids are just loud and flaily and messy and whiney and sticky and you only get to pick one thing to teach them to not be and even that you'll only manage about 80% of the time.)

You should be very proud of these drawings. They're really nice and you succeeded in getting all the kids to look like different people.

[tjoel2]

Loving this challenge!

[darkmarcy]

Yeah, I have siblings and now they all have kids and they are nice (tho loud) but I don't feel any need to make any myself. I will look after them and teach them things and such, and it's rewarding, but I don't want to have full time responsibility.

Drawing kiddos is... I find it easy because they just have big eyes and round heads, and their personal features don't yet stick out that much.

Oh man, your posts are so inspiring, I should do this chellenge myself as well!

[thagandizzle]

No, she's supposed to be a little indigenous Mexican girl but it's almost impossible to tell in an uncolored drawing because kids all look the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!

DEFINITELY not easy to make the transition from drawing only adults to a whole passel of kids.

Re: sketching

[thagandizzle]

Like, I get it! Learning how to be a human is a difficult thing to do. There are layers upon layers of seemingly arbitrary and frequently unexplained social rules that we have to master to be considered functional adults. It's hard! And when you're little, all you want to do is be loud and flaily and messy and whiney and sticky because that's what your weird, unevenly developing, body is telling you to be. I get it!

Doesn't mean I have to like it, though, you know?

My mom is one of those people who likes kids for who and what they are. She likes that kids are prone to making stops at Asshole Central as they hurtle toward the highway of adulthood. As a result, she's amazing with kids and is a great mom (though I might be a tad biased on that last point!). I find that the people who say they love children often seem to love this weird idealized version where they aren't constantly sticky.

[thagandizzle]

It seemed really daunting at first, but I'm loving it, too!

[thagandizzle]

Right?! It's like they're all just... Kids until puberty and they start to morph into individual people. So, like, comforting in a way because you can just draw a Kid Face and shake up the hair/clothes to make it interesting. Like a low-budget anime! But man... It is a little tedious at the same time!

And this challenge is actually SUPER fun and I do feel like I'm learning a lot!

Re: sketching

[oldtoadwoman]

"I find that the people who say they love children often seem to love this weird idealized version where they aren't constantly sticky."

Exactly! I love my job, but at least once a day, I find myself thinking, "Why would you even do that?" Why are there half a dozen toothpicks in the sink? Why did you think it would be interesting to pour half a bottle of liquid soap onto the floor? Why aren't you wearing a coat when it's only two degrees Fahrenheit outside?!

The thing I dislike about them the most is their inability to just wait for ten seconds. Whatever they want, they want now, with no awareness that they're interrupting other people.

But there's also something incredibly satisfying about teaching a kid how to do something and having it click. The moment they actually get it, I'm like, "Yes!" (But I'm still happy to give them back to their parents at the end of the hour.)

[aim_of_destiny]

yeah, or i'm just not great at facial recognition (that's also a factor). ^^"

[thagandizzle]

Nah, you picked out the double braids! Just blame it on kid same-yness and we'll not blame it on my imperfect drawing or your imperfect facial recognition. ;)