Before i began actually producing my 3D animation, i wanted to play around with some facial expressions. I think it's important to understand facial features within representing both emotions and body language. Without it an animation involving character's such as this, would be dull, boring and have little inclusion within the 12 principles of animation (squash and stretch, secondary actions etc). Also without using lip sync, i have to rely on facial expressions in order to highlight the dialogue within the sound clip.
From my idea in a previous post, i am going to have two characters that both react to my chosen sound board in different ways. One character is going to be menacing, evil and generally quite creepy. He will be the one who represents the majority of the motions and expressions from the dialogue. I chose menacing because the voice within the actual sound clip is quite disrupting and eerie, so i felt it was important to capture that sort of side with my own character. The other figure will be the 'victim' of the main character's actions. It will respond to the dialogue through facial expression and emotion.
I have done two sets of facial expressions for each of the two characters, The main character and the victim. So as previously stated, my main character is going to be menacing and creepy. So i played around with the facial anatomy of the figure through Maya and took some screenshots to show what i thought worked well to represent the character. I paid specific attention to the eyebrow shape for the simple factor that is easy to change the emotions through that muscle, however, i didn't want to stick with that element as it made the face look pretty inactive and lifeless. I decided to give the figure a very broad smile, which would aid me to express that 'menacing' feel. The best way to represent the figure's sinister intentions, was the addition of adding eyelids to the facial features. This gave made a squint, which gave the character's this appeal of being slightly crazy/evil/psycho. Adding these extra elements helped over exaggerate the emotion, which is ideal as it represents fragments of the 12 animation principles.
Here are some images of the facial expressions i formed during this experimentation:
For the second character known as the 'victim', i adopted the concept of playing with all muscle structures within the face, alongside the eyes. However, this time i had to make the character calm, fearful and horrified. I need this figure to react to the other character in shock (from the soundboard) to what has been said, or how it was approached. Judging by the sound clip and how i have produce my other character, i need this one to react horrified and scared. I need to make sure that the emotions expressed through this figure really show distress to the action that's taking place. Similar to previous, i adjusted the eyebrows first to show the innocent and calmer side to the character. I then played around with the mouth muscles in order to get smiles, frowns and open jaw shock (=O). Changing elements of the mouth allowed me to create different depths of exaggeration, and with a bit of time playing with them, i think i achieved some food expressions. I finally did some minor adjustments to the eyelids again, to really enhance that sense of fear with the ongoing action from the opposing figure. Doing those small adjustments, really made a difference with how the character looked within my chosen emotions.
Here are some images of the 'victims' expressions:
Within doing this small exercise, i managed to find new facial expressions i wouldn't of found so easily if i went straight into animating. It also gave me a better understand of how the facial anatomy worked within the rig and on the 3D software. Without doing this small practice, i doubt i would have been able to find such good facial expressions for my animation.
:)
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