Makin' faces

Work has been intensely busy lately ; the project I'm on is racing towards a deadline , so not too much of my own stuff to post , not even  "phone doodles" .   

Anyway,  I did come across  a great new resource via  director  Tim Hodge's excellent blog   , a book called  "In Character: Actors Acting"

Tim's review really grabbed me :

"As good as other facial expression books have been in the past, my one
complaint with all of them has been that they don't feel genuine. They
aren't real expressions. It's people off the street approximating what
an angry or surprised look is. They also don't take into consideration
body language. (I guess that's two complaints - sorry I miscounted.)
Where this book has the advantage over the others, is that the photos
are of trained actors: Rosie Perez, Hume Cronyn, James Cromwell, Jason
Alexander, to name a few. And the expressions are set up more like
scenes. The actor wasn't told, "Look angry! Now infuriated!! Okay, now
give me bashful." Instead the director said, "You are a man who has
just been told he has inoperable cancer." or "You are a devoted father
watching your handicapped daughter receive her high-school diploma."

The results are incredible."

The book sounds like a super resource for any student of character animation . (anything to make animators look further afield for fresh, authentic expressions and not recycle  that same ol'  "furrowed-eyebrows-and-pouty-lip" thing and stuff like that which we've seen ad nauseum ad infinitum ... and I include myself as the chief of sinners in that regard)

 

"You talkin' to me, bub ? "
(hard to teach an old dog new tricks...)

Comments

[Tim]

Fun character, Dave! And what a great expression. This would be a great character to take and emmulate a bunch of expressions from the "Actors Acting" book. Or go freeze frame through an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and capture each change of Brad Garrett. (I love the facial acting in that show - some of the best!)

[RoboTaeKwon-Z]

Thanks for the great recommendation!
Great stuff on your blog, by the way! We have many of the same influences!

[David N]

Hey, thanks for the nice comments, RobTaeKwon-Z . Any friend of Walt Kelly is a friend of mine.

I left a longer comment over on your 'blog.

[Matt Williames]

very sweet drawings ma man! are you a wallace tripp fan by chance- i adore his stuff myself!

[David N]

Hey, Matt,

Yes, I love Wallace Tripp's drawings. Someone should get that guy to design an animated feature. To me his stuff has an appeal similar to Ken Anderson and Marc Davis's designs .

(sorry I didn't reply when you posted this . Somehow I missed the comment and then I've been away for a bit , due to work commitments )