Wunderkinds

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Edit: I’ve updated this animation. Pushing the lip shapes and dialog accents.

Here’s a dialog animation I did to test out the facial setup of my character:

I know a medium close shot of a character just delivering a line of dialog isn’t the most interesting thing you can do in animation; however, I had a lot of fun being able to focus on it’s subtlety. I didn’t actually use any reference for this animation (not always a good thing to do), but I recently read a book on facial psychology written by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen called “Unmasking the Face” and tried to put a lot of what I learned from that book to use. I find it very interesting what triggers a facial expression, and tried hard to show it as my character is thinking through his dialog.

Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear any and all feedback!

Comments

8 responses to “Wunderkinds”

February 18, 2010

Michael Mahy

This looks really really good.

To good to ask if this rig will be free. :)

Very nice animation and character design.
February 23, 2010

Dave

Looks great, James! Nice work!
February 23, 2010

Samsonian

Well, the guys here keep saying “He’ll be back…” But, I’m not so sure… Inspiring as always! It’s looking pretty amazing, I’m waiting for Mr. Incredible to throw this guy through a few walls. Seriously, I’ll send you a monster… :)
October 3, 2011

Amanda

Wow this is pretty incredible, and I thought you did really good with expression through the eyes. Not that I know any thing at all about any of it. Except that I’ve been working on drawing a claw for a month and its really hard. I can only imagine facial features. Even with computers. I think you are really talented. :)