Makin' Faces

Part of last week's assignment was facial expressions, which was actually a lot of fun.  Here's two I put together, one is subtle, the other not so much.  I kind of planned it that way because I felt like I've been doing a lot of big motions in animation, so why not try subtle stuff to see if I can pull it off.  I think they came out pretty well... of course I'm slightly biased.

Awesome!

So this lady was easily the best image I found of winking/happy on Shutterstock.com.  I really liked the asymmetry and how "big" her face got with excitement.  To give you the inside scoop, I started large (tilted the head, general eye open/close, jaw open) and worked my way down to the smaller details (lip sections up/down, eyelid edge shape) as I went.  I didn't focus on one thing and get it perfect because it seemed like so much effected everything else.  The face definitely has a lot of push and pull going on depending on the expression.

Somebody looks a little evil...

Same thing with this guy.  Even though parts of the face don't look like they are being influenced, they really are.  His face is squished on the camera right side.  His cheek pushes out because of this, his lips curl, eyebrow comes down.  Kinda cool to look at the tiny stuff.  It's also good to think about a slight rotation to the head... up, down, left or right.  Straight to camera is not as interesting as a slight twist... especially with this guy.  Makes him look a little more distrustful.  :) 

One last "hint".  I really find that the asymmetry of these faces works well when you think of things in terms of greater than/less than symbols... wait, WHAT?!  Hehe, no, seriously.  Here...

See?  When one side of the face pushes, it looks really nice to have the other side pull the other direction.  Even in the subtle face you can see this and it helps keep it interesting without being symmetric.