Online course
Crafting a Believable Face

Week 1: Introducing the reaction shot

• Breaking down thought processes using animated and live action reference
• Finding who your character is, not just animating what they are doing
• Introduction to 'graphic shapes' and the 6 major facial expressions
• Looking at a character's design and how to approach sculpting expressions

Week 2: Reference as a planning tool

• What to look for, what to use, what and how to push
• Introduction to the muscles of the face and how to create graphic anatomy/symbols in expressions
• Comparing several on and off model expressions to show subtle differences in appeal

Week 3: My workflow part 1

• Part one of my hybrid stepped/spline blocking method. This portion covers how I work in the timeline to create pose transitions, how I use animation layers, and how I create 'offset apexes' in the graph editor axis by axis
• Workflow focus on animating Ray's eyemask

Week 4: My workflow part 2

• Polishing acting choices and expressions. Layering in details, connecting the parts of the face, and refining details.
• Comparing my spline pass to my polish pass side by side.
• Further exploration and examples of 'on/off model' and comparisons in appeal

Week 5: Reference analysis and introduction to the next assignment

• Studying reference to see the character think and react to what they are feeling - not what they are saying.
• Examples of attitude defining acting choices and personality, and how best to mold your own character for a better performance. Goal for this assignment is to create a naturalistic, spontaneous, sincere performance....not one that feels premeditated.

Week 6: Graphic Posing and body language basics

• Posing form and shape for clarity, maintaining and creating graphic body shapes in motion, and how posture informs performance.
• Looking at contrast in facial expressions, and how to maintain accurate anatomy for believable expressions.

Week 7: Looking at eyes movement in detail

• Focusing on several examples of eyes from live action reference.
• Contrasting sharper movements with softer, more organic motion through the eye mask
• Believable eye movements and how the eye socket reacts
• Overview of animating lids for believable movement.

Week 8: Graphic brows

• Simplifying naturalistic brow shapes into graphic lines
• Live action breakdown focusing on how each brow muscle group creates transitions and poses
• Workflow demo with Ray, On/Off model comparisons, and focus on the brow/eye ring connection
• Introduction to 'shot design'

Week 9: Appeal and simplification in the face

• Flow overall throughout the face
• Connecting face regions for appeal; helping to simplify and stylize an expression.
• Contrast in brow shapes during expression and muscle transitions

Week 10: Introduction to lip sync

• Major muscles in the mouth, and how they create the major graphic shapes (not phonemes) that define lip sync.
• Showing how inflection/emotion impact shapes as well as sounds surrounding them
• Workflow example of lip sync with Ray, showing how I mix shapes together, simplifying shapes, arcs on corners, and finding subtle asymmetry for a clear sync

Week 11: Lip sync and polishing continued

• Incorporating dimensional shapes into your mouth, connecting the eyemask to the lower part of the face, and examples of working in the graph editor to keep the face organic
• "Fleshiness;" animated reference from naturalistic and cartoonier films.
• Looking at some professional work from blocking/spline pass and comparing it to the final pass

Week 12: Recap

A review of concepts from the course:

• Good blocking techniques
• Offsetting the speed of controls in the graph editor, not offsetting keys
• Brow muscles
• 6 major facial expressions and combinations
• Importance of showing a character thinking/behaving spontaneously
• Eye movements and blinks
• Connecting the entire eye mask
• Sculpting lids to eye direction
• Emotional effect on lip sync
• Holding for clear shapes
• Moving the mass of the mouth in 3D space
• Polish reminders