Anonymous asked: my teacher says that I can't design characters with a good range of expressions without them having a face, do you think that's right?
Hard question; if this is an exercise for the purpose of learning to draw expressions they’re probably trying to help you, so keep working on those faces! It’ll be good for you in the long run, but in terms of declaring characters that don’t have faces to be void or incapable of expression I would argue against that very strongly; body language, gesture, and timing are just as if not more important than facial expressions!
Don’t let conventions limit your imagination, in terms of character design or anything else. Giving yourself boundaries can be helpful (if you get a brief for a character design you should try to follow it), and can be constructive in channeling direction, but it can also be horribly stunting and condemn you to having a narrow field of vision in what is acceptable in your and other people’s work. It all depends on context, but no, personally I don’t think that statement is ‘right’ at all.
