Body language and expression inspiration

The acting up brief focuses purely on the animation of the narrative rather than the aesthetic appeal of the composition. The animation needs to be emphasized, dramatic and exaggerated to enhance the atmosphere and the emotion of the scene. To gain inspiration for body language and expressions that Moom could have within my animation, I searched for character sheets from different animations.

This really helped me to create sketches and storyboard my narrative, getting into the emotion and drawing the character. Looking at these different expressions and poses, I noticed that the jaw and cheeks are moved/exaggerated as well to create funny facial expressions, and the neck is slightly stretched to create that shocked or bewildered look. The body language absorbs the use of squash and stretch to create volume and motion with in the stationary image, moving the hips and shoulders at angles to create a smooth movement.

Tangled 'Flynn Rider'

In the Disney film, Tangled, the facial expressions from the character Flynn, take advantage of the angle of the frame, the angle of a sad expression can be emphasised with a low angle, adding more shadow to the face to make it more dramatic; this can then be further emphasised with a dismal atmosphere, such as a rainy or cloudy background. I was quite inspired by how the jaw was as exaggerated as it was with expressions that involved Flynn shouting or looking confused, however elongating the jawline worked quite well with the style of the illustration and the animation. In addition the use of the mouth being lower or higher than it would realistically be on a face worked well with the jawline, as well as the eyebrows being raised or burrowed deeper into his forehead.

Treasure Planet 'Dr Doppler'

In Treasure Planet, another Disney film, the body language of the character 'Dr Doppler' is exaggerated by moving his body more forward or backwards with the pose that he would be making. For example talking to the main character, Jim, he would lean slightly fowards, one arm on his hip and the other pointing at Jim as if almost telling him off; this shows the characters personality how he is stereotypically perceived by the audience through small gestures such as the pose previous. His facial expressions where quite inspiring through how they took advantage with his nose, making them flare when he would be scared or angry, which worked with his alien esk character design. I also liked how the characters lower eyelid is used to make him look more scared or annoyed as usually you would just move the eyebrows to relate to those particular emotions.

Treasure Planet 'Dr Doppler'