The age of an animal character is determined by context. If the context shows that Bugs is old enough to get married and have children, we know he's not under age.
In some of our more modern Furry characters, you can actually tell by how mature the artist draws them. But this is by no means a constant. Particularly with the characters in my own stories, I deliberately made it part of the concept that they are mature, but they show none of the physical attributes you'd look for in a human to determine maturity.
So, basically, if the other characters regard a character as being younger, needing more sheltering, living at home under the care of parents, we can safely assume this is an underage character.
But, with animal characters, it is never safe to assume a character is under age just because it is small or cute. In the animal world it's possible for some animals to be small and cute, even when they are nearing the end of their natural lifespan.
The most effective way of determining the age of a character is, of course, to ask the author or the artist. If anyone is ever unsure of the age of my characters, I have a sheet that lists various factors for each character, including their equivalent human age, even if the character ages in animal years.
I figure animal years to be approximately 10 to 1 for most animal characters. Thus, an animal of 2 years and 1 month should be considered an equivalent 21. Though of course such estimates may vary from author to author.
When it comes right down to it, we're talking about fictional characters that don't exist and are not relative to real human beings. The question of how they relate to human beings is nothing that should enter into any kind of legal decision. Yet, for some reason, people will do so on the assumption of what some people might do with the art. While the very same people would never even consider asking equivalent questions about what somebody might do with a gun.
Apparently we have a constitutional right to the means to shoot children dead, but our right to draw parodies of children in off color poses is more worth questioning. This is why I prefer to work with Furry characters. Humans make no sense to me. I could not write such nonsensical, wacked out creatures believably.
The age of an animal character is determined by context. If the context shows that Bugs is old enough to get married and have children, we know he's not under age.
In some of our more modern Furry characters, you can actually tell by how mature the artist draws them. But this is by no means a constant. Particularly with the characters in my own stories, I deliberately made it part of the concept that they are mature, but they show none of the physical attributes you'd look for in a human to determine maturity.
So, basically, if the other characters regard a character as being younger, needing more sheltering, living at home under the care of parents, we can safely assume this is an underage character.
But, with animal characters, it is never safe to assume a character is under age just because it is small or cute. In the animal world it's possible for some animals to be small and cute, even when they are nearing the end of their natural lifespan.
The most effective way of determining the age of a character is, of course, to ask the author or the artist. If anyone is ever unsure of the age of my characters, I have a sheet that lists various factors for each character, including their equivalent human age, even if the character ages in animal years.
I figure animal years to be approximately 10 to 1 for most animal characters. Thus, an animal of 2 years and 1 month should be considered an equivalent 21. Though of course such estimates may vary from author to author.
When it comes right down to it, we're talking about fictional characters that don't exist and are not relative to real human beings. The question of how they relate to human beings is nothing that should enter into any kind of legal decision. Yet, for some reason, people will do so on the assumption of what some people might do with the art. While the very same people would never even consider asking equivalent questions about what somebody might do with a gun.
Apparently we have a constitutional right to the means to shoot children dead, but our right to draw parodies of children in off color poses is more worth questioning. This is why I prefer to work with Furry characters. Humans make no sense to me. I could not write such nonsensical, wacked out creatures believably.