Animation [Facial Expressions]

Happy-Sad: The face smiles, but the eyes give away the disappointment

Emotional pain: The shoulders raise, the nose and brows bunch and top/bottom teeth show with a gaping mouth

Worry: the eyes widen, the brows come together, the hand often raises, the forehead wrinkles, and the mouth becomes small

Rebelliousness: the eyes shut or go very narrow, the lower jaw juts out, the tongue shows, and the nose raises and flares

During my sophomore year of college, I took a course in animation. The majority of the semester was spent tackling facial expressions. During this time, I was grieving the huge loss of my mother, and was in a lot of emotional pain. The feelings I was experiencing came through in my study of animation; I was better able to render negative emotions than positive. If I could take the class again, I would spend more time on the positive expressions, but above you will find my studies from the course. 

Before taking this class, I had no idea how many muscles there are in the face and how our expressions, especially those of our eyes can tell so much. Want to know how to spot a phony smile? Look at the person's eyes. Are the wide or narrow? Wide eyes indicate insincerity in a smile. Though animation is a study of art and cartoon, understanding the way that the body shows emotion and expression is a good way to better understand people and pick up on their body language and the words that often go unspoken.