FACE TUTORIAL # 1

Eyes - Wink, Flickering, and "Bulge" outwards

Eyes are some of the most important things when you want to give your character an expression. The eyes reflects the character's feelings, and such things as anger, fear, happiness, sorrow, etc. needs different kinds of expressions. Animating eyes is not the hardest thing in animation. In fact, it's the one thing most people first start with. My first animation was one of a girl winking. The same goes for many others who have tried to make an animation ^_^

 

1:WINK

 

Making an animation with a person that winks is easy. And you don't even need more than one drawing. It's enough with the drawing of the character, that's going to have the eyes open, and the rest can be edited with a program like for example Adobe Photoshop. Below I show the steps to make an eye wink. The changes in difference to the previous drawing is shown with red, striped lines.

 

 

A girl who winks. The first animation I made ^_^

 

1: Finish the drawing of the eye

2: Edit it and close it a little bit

3: Do the same, but close it more

4: Close the eye completely

5: Compose them. Finished!

 

Now you've got all you need to make a simple "wink" animation! You can make the character wink in different ways, for example fast, with breaks, slow, and so on. Experiment a little.

 

2:"FLICKERING EYES"

 

Eyes that "flickers" are very often used in anime. The animation simply consists of that the "gleam" in the eye moves a little bit back and forward. This animation can be nice if you want to show special emotions like fear, sorrow, love and so forth. "Flickering eyes" can be used in many relations.

 

 

Examples of "Flickering eyes". Taken from the movie "Demon of the night".

1: Draw a pair of eyes, for example like these

2: Move the "gleam" a little lenghtwise.

3: Compose these two pics. Finished!

 

Try around a little with different ways to move the gleam. It mostly works best if you only move it very little.

 

2: EYES THAT "BULGE" OUTWARDS

 

When a character gets shocked or surprised, it's common that they get "bulging" eyes. That means the eyes kind of bulge out of their head. There can be many ways to make this animation, but here's an example of one done in profile.

 

 

An example of "bulging" eyes. Taken from the movie "The peeper".

 

1: Make a drawing of an eye like for example this

2: Make the eye bulge more in a triangle-form

3: Compose these two pics. Finished!

 

You can experiment a little with how fast and how the eyes shall bulge, by trying different periods of time for each pic and such.

 

4: SHAKING EYELIDS

 

When a character is nervous, strained, almost crying, and such, shaking eyelids are often used. That means that the eyelids kind of shakes/shivers a bit.

 

 

Example of "Shaking eyelids". Taken from the movie "Demon of the night".

 

1: Make a drawing of a closed eye, like this

2: Move the eyelid a little bit

upwards.

3: Compose these two pics. Finished!

 

Try around a little with different ways to move the eyelid. Just like with the "Flickering" eyes, it mostly works best if you only move it very little.