Breaking down a sequence: line of action in the face

Today I wanted to go deeper into facial animation, especially about the line of action in the face.

Whenever you see someone standing you can notice that he has a natural posture that shows a counterpose between the hips and the shoulders (and the head too for balance).
From the most popular statues and paintings from the renaissance artists, to the last illustrations or cartoons of nowadays, you can clearly see it.

You can apply the same structure to the face, making one side stretched, while the other side is squashed.

I framed through a sequence from Brave (the best one of the entire movie in my personal opinion), and it's full of examples of this principle:

As you can see, in this shot even though he's changing expression, she's keeping the same line of action in the face.
This structure is more obvious in Merida's face:

Merida's a young girl, full of energy, and because of this she's moving faster than her mother, especially in this shot.

You can see all of that in her abrupt changes of body, but also in her quick movements of the entire head.

As you can see her face is squashing and stretching in relation to her body: when her hips go up her face first stretches, then catches up the movement, squashes and regain its shape.

Of course the same approach was first made in 2D animated movies.

I've taken a random frame from Treasure Planet, and here's what I found:

Proud Mommy

Birthday Girl

First attempts of storyboarding

This is an old project I worked on. 

The aim was to establish the main shots and lighting for the animation.

As you can see it was too detailed and illustrative to be a storyboard, but I learned 

a lot about composition and values.

Wedding

This is a work, part of a project I am working on.

It consists of a series of illustrations for a Wedding Planning company.

Completed Blocking

Will I ever be a real child?

More sketchs on the pantomime.

First part of basic blocking - Pantomime Shot

Same shot I am (slowly) working on.
This is the first half of the shot, just golden poses and some breakdowns.

Sketch Test

First attempt in drawing directly on my Wacom using Autodesk Sketchbook Express.

More updates on the pantomime shot - Still Blocking

Vecchi e nuovi disegni

More sketches based on the video reference:

Pantomime shot workflow - PART 1

I'm working now on a new pantomime shot and I wanted to share my workflow in here.

I first started with a simple idea: someone making a cake, putting it in the oven and, while distracted by the phone, he forgets about it until it's too late and it's burnt.
I thought about each beat:

1.
Finishing the cake putting the final touch on top (in this case the cherry).

2.
Observing happily the result.

3.
Putting carefully the cake into the oven, setting the timing.

4.
Waiting for the cake

5.
The phone rings, he answers.

6.
He gets distracted talking to the phone.

7.
He smells the smoke coming out from the oven (he understands the cake is going to burn soon).

8.
He opens the oven, the smoke comes out of it.

9.
He touches the cake, making it fall into the ground.

I've then shot some reference:

I drew some sketches for it.
The important thing about this part of the process it to make really quick sketches so that, in case you have to change them, you would not regret it and start again.

 And I've made the first pass of blocking:

Pantomime 101

In a pantomime the hardest thing to achieve is a good sense of the overall timing and trying to convey the emotion of the character(s) only through the use of good posing and props.

I found a great example in the recent movie "L'Illusioniste" by Sylvain Chomet.

The whole movie is a masterpiece at pantomime, essentially because it's a mute one, but I found one scene in particular with clear moments (beats).

The man doesn't know if he should buy new shoes for his friend or not.

He's living a hard moment of his life in economic terms, his work as illusionist seems to disappear, so he's running out of money.

Even though he would make his friend happy buying to her this new pairs of shoes.

So in this shot we have a conflict (between himself) and an objective (making happy the girl), and an obstacle (the lack of money), and we see his indecision in the succession of the golden poses:

FIRST BEAT: He's looking at the shoes

SECOND BEAT: Then he's thinking (left hand on the chin, 

right hand on his hip).

THIRD BEAT: Clear pose of him counting the money.

Now the action is making obvious to audience.

Notice also his body rotated towards us.

FOURTH BEAT: Scratching his head (more thinking)

FIFTH BEAT: He decided not to buy the shoes, so

he's doing an everyday action (smoking) to sell the idea

that he's sure about it.

He's also going in the opposite direction of the

shop (screen right).

SIXTH BEAT: He suddenly changes his mind and goes towards

the shop.

If you have the chance to see the movie also check the timing of those beats.

It is made by longer pauses and quick changes in pose.