Facial Acting

notes

Facial expressions are the ultimate demonstration of our emotions.

Facial acting is usually a reaction or a result of the outside world, so it is closely related to the situation in which the character is placed. At the same time, it reflect the character’s inside world, their thinking and feelings.

Model Sheet from Brendan and the Secret of Kells

8 emotions of facial expression (from new lesson’s power point)

The basic emotions:

•Happy

•Sad

•Surprised

•Fear

•Angry

•Disgust

•Interest

•Pain

Remember that our eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth are all involved in the expressions. It’s a work about details. Observing the real face is a must, then translate it into an animation character’s facial acting with a little exaggeration.

Facial expressions from Tangled

Facial acting is not just the animation of the facial features but also the head, jaw and neck and very often also include the shoulders and hands.

Don’t make everyone look like a robot by keeping the head frozen without any movement!

By the way I have an idea that we can use memes as facial acting reference. After all, people use them because they can exactly express the emotions.