Pull faces.
No, really. Look at this dude;
This is Ward Kimball, a super good animator who really influenced my own work, especially in the expression department, but almost all animators do this. You want a serious piece of advice? Grab a mirror, think about your character’s motivation and just get silly.
I’ve always had quite a rubbery face and people constantly tell me that I am a ‘cartoon’ of a person, but you don’t have to be extrovertal in real life to be able to pull faces back at your desk. Sometimes you don’t even need to be looking at yourself for it to help with drawing expressions; just feeling how the muscles of your face move helps, and it gets you in the mind set of the character. A lot of people do it naturally- ever found yourself drawing something and pulling the same face as the person you’re drawing? Good. Keep doing that.
Animation is acting, you just do it through drawings; illustration or even just scribbling a character with a certain emotion is just as involving and important for me. If you want to draw a character feeling sad, feel sad. Don’t just imagine them being sad, think about what would make them sad; understand why it would make them sad, and in what way. There’s a thousand ways to be sad and a thousand ways to look each type of sad. Don’t be simple, don’t be complicated; be deep. Know what you are drawing from the inside out.
The very word 'character’ tells you that the subject you are drawing, be it a human or a robot or a shoe with a face, has a personality. There are all sorts of tutorials out there about the anatomy of the face and typical expressions, which are really useful and I do recommend looking up, but for me the most critical part of the process is what is inside; realizing that you are drawing something with emotions, not just trying to draw 'an’ emotion on that character’s face. You have to understand what you are drawing. What is an emotion? A reaction. What are they reacting to? Why are they reacting that way? Make it mundane or make it dramatic, but give your character a reason to look the way they do.
Characters are people. Respect them for it, and they’ll help you find the expression that you’re looking for.
Ain’t no biggy; my post-grad visa ran out \o/ also my class was very international so most everyone I knew from VFS has already gone back to their respective countries, and on top of that I am rather homesick, so it’s probably the right time to pop back anyway.
a) Oh god don’t even you’ll make me cry.
b) Don’t worry. Just don’t. Vancouver is one of the sweetest, most beautiful, brilliant cities I have ever been to, and I have traveled a fair amount. It’s been a delight living here. I didn’t feel homesick until six months into my studies in the first year, the people are kind and welcoming and very patient, and really as much as it rains I think the weather is actually fantastic on the whole- never too hot and never too cold. Just use your common sense, stay out of areas that are obviously dodgy and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
I sketch the characters (and often the backgrounds) in pencil and then scan it in to finish it in photoshop. I don’t draw massively huge things but it depends on what I’m drawing I guess?
anyway here’s some next page-ish sketches next to my tiny pudgy fingers for reference
I am having a lovely day, and sure! Although I wouldn’t call it a problem, I don’t mind. It happens once in a while, but my body is actually fairly, uh, well, rounded… so on the whole it’s usually people who see photographs of my face online who mistake me for a guy.
Having said that there was this one little old lady a while back who tapped me on the shoulder and said “Excuse me, son-” before turning bright red when I turned around, but again, she was the only one of us who was embarrassed about it. I thought it was pretty hilarious.
The thing is I really don’t give a crap about my gender so it’s really pretty hard to be offended by that sort of stuff, mostly I think it’s kind of sweet :>
