Facial Expressions Research

The facial expressions of the character can be vitally important to convey the emotions that they are going through. The are over 40 muscles in the human face and these muscles combine complexly to show different emotions. In the Preston Blair series there are twelve Phoneme mouth posses that can give the expression of a character talking. These shapes can be pre-prepared before the actual lip syncing of the character animation has started. Using the 'Morpher' modifier in 3ds max will give nice realistic movement of a human face but this is quite a tricky method because the model need to be well made with good features like lips and cheeks that are easily able to be manipulated without problem.

Animals are often used by Disney to create interesting characters in their animations. The animals often have very humanistic facial shapes to show their expressions, this is because the animators want the audience to connect with the character and to easily understand what emotions they are going through. The Disney character Micky Mouse walks upright and his mannerisms are very human, this is also true for his fiscal expressions that more resemble a young boy than a mouse. Pluto the dog isn't as human looking as he walks and acts like a dog. Facially he primarily tries to be more like a dog but because Pluto doesn't talk he needs to show of his emotions by changing the shape of his mouth and eyes which will also make him look more human, this is especially noticeable with his lips.

Disney Cartoon - Pluto's Playmate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAEdJc3RBg


Drawing out all the different facial shapes of your character seems like a good thing to do as it prepares yourself for when you start animating. Below is lots of different expressions that a Disney lion Cub character could make within a story. Each facial shape is worked out before hand and that shape will now be the slandered shape for that expression throughout the movie.
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Humans have lots of different expressions that look subtly different, which are sometimes hard to distinguish between. To help understand the expressions character animators will exaggerate facial expressions so they are easily recognisable. The subtle expressions might easily be missed or misconstrued by young children so exaggerating them is a good policy for animating for children. Below is a set of expressions for a bold cartoon man. Each expression has subtle difference's like one eyebrow up and one down for being dreamy, of both eyebrows down when being bored.

For one of my initial ideas I have come up with Balloon Boy which uses just facial expressions. The character has no nose or ears which doesn't really matter when animating a human style because they don't move. For my initial sketches I left out the eye brows which I think would be a mistake as they will come in handy when trying to convey his expressions. Below is a bunch of simple smiley faces with different moods that I think matches the style I want Balloon Boy to have. These will be a good reference if I go ahead with this idea.