In animation, emotion is everything. This is what transforms simple sketches into storytelling sensations, granting characters depth while driving a powerful connection with the audience. These emotions are conveyed through a myriad of facial expressions, which determine how every muscle is manipulated to shine a light on the character’s psyche.
Each new expression shows a different side of the character, revealing the complex thoughts and feelings contributing to the story and its core themes. This delivers a more profound impact for the viewer, making the animation more entertaining.
If you are excited to unleash your creative vision in the wonderful world of animation, you are in for a fascinating journey that includes a great deal of emotional nuance. Be prepared to explore character acting in animation, discovering how the intricacies of the human face (and accompanying gestures) convey a whole whirlwind of emotions while elevating storytelling in film, television, and video games.
Understanding Emotional Nuance in Animation
Impactful character expressions begin with emotional nuance. This term references the small yet impactful facial motions and variations in body language, which help convey the secrets of the character’s inner world. Expressions qualify as nuanced if they are restrained, yet precise, and closely tied to complex emotions.
Why Subtlety Matters
Animation represents, in many ways, the art of subtlety. Yes, bold visuals attract attention, and yes, certain moments call for exaggerated expressions, but the small details often drive the greatest meaning.
In addition to enhancing animated storytelling, subtlety conveys respect for the audience. Alex King expands on this idea in the British Journal of Aesthetics, explaining, “subtlety is valuable because it promotes active engagement with the artwork, and heavy-handedness is bad because it forces us into too passive a role.”
Observing Human Behavior
Animation reflects real-world expression to create a sense of realism and consistency that keeps audiences tethered. When expressions do not ring true to human emotion, it can be difficult for audiences to retain the suspension of disbelief vital to animated worldbuilding.
These issues are best overcome by carefully studying how people express emotions in the real world. For example, we can explore how they place their eyebrows when they’re sad or how their shoulders might appear tense when they feel angry. These observations can also include ongoing examinations of films, television, and diverse works of art. Over time, these insights will help make subtle emotional portrayals feel more instinctual.
Techniques for Animating Facial Expressions
Understanding emotional expression is only the beginning. From there, advanced animation techniques make the leap from the real world into beautifully animated landscapes. Follow these animation tips to make facial expressions feel both realistic and impactful.
Reading and Replicating Micro-Expressions
Micro-expressions involve subtle, yet meaningful facial motions that can occur within a split second. While these can be difficult to consciously observe, they have a huge impact on communication, demonstrating sincerity or revealing emotions that may otherwise remain hidden. Experts believe these expressions may even prove contagious, transforming others’ mood or state of mind.
Animators must be capable of identifying these expressions and building them into their work, using tiny (almost imperceivable) shifts spanning a few short frames to indicate subtle, yet meaningful details about the character’s state of mind.
Using Asymmetry for Realism
Asymmetry brings an extra element of dynamism to animated works, preventing the potentially artificial appearance of strictly symmetrical visuals. After all, real-world human faces are not perfectly symmetrical. Even seemingly symmetrical faces typically feature subtle differences between the left and right sides, especially when faces show clear emotional expressions.
Examples might include one corner of the mouth raised slightly or a furrowed brow creasing slightly more on one side. The specific use of asymmetry will depend on the character’s personality and in-the-moment motivations, but done well, this will always support emotional depth.
Layering Emotions
Layering plays a powerful role in animation, separating visual elements to create dimension while also helping to guide the audience’s attention. Layering also allows for enhanced blending, integrating a variety of elements seamlessly to ensure that animated characters and environments feel both compelling and believable.
With emotions, layering involves diverse expressive cues, building micro-expressions upon primary expressions to reveal mixed emotions and other intriguing complexities. This reflects the multidimensional nature of human expression, in which emotional states are rarely as isolated as they seem.
Think of the ‘fake’ smile in which the mouth is upturned but the eyes suggest an inner sadness, and now expand this concept to capture a broad range of human emotions. When these are incorporated in animated works, a single image really can be worth the 1,000 words.
Conveying Emotion Through Body Language
Emotion is not merely expressed through the face. Imagine a joyful smile combined with slumped shoulders. This would tell a far different story than a smile accompanied by a lifted chest and outstretched arms. These are just a few of the many mechanisms that play into body language animation.
The American Psychological Association (APA) includes facial expressions in its definition of body language, but also points to the importance of “posture, gesture…or other movements” for conveying thoughts and feelings that might not be verbalized.
Actors recognize the importance of body language and deliberately adjust their posture and gestures. This is especially crucial on stage, where such expressions can be very impactful. In animation, as in theater, body language can (as the BBC points out) “completely change how the audience interprets a scene.”
Posture and Weight Shifts
Posture forms a critical framework for emotion animation, even if characters are completely still. It describes how characters hold their bodies. In the journal Acta Biomedica, posture is defined as the “position of the body in the space,” controlled by “interactions between muscle-skeletal, visual, vestibular, and skin system.”
Shifts of weight can draw attention to posture or its changes over time, revealing how characters move from one position to the next. These extend the meaning of any given posture that occurs at rest.
Gesture Language
During conversations, people use their hands to emphasize important ideas. The lack of gestures is also meaningful, especially if arms are crossed against the chest (conveying a sense of being closed off) or with hands in pockets to suggest disinterest.
Active gestures, however, accentuate character interactions. Experts explain in Frontier in Human Neuroscience that these motions “contribute meaningful and unique information to a spoken message and reflect the speaker’s underlying knowledge and experiences.” Examples could include pointing or waving, which demonstrate enthusiasm and excitement.
The Power of Breath
Breathing influences speech patterns and facial animation, especially in moments of heightened emotion. In animation, this begins simply by showing the chest rising and falling, with the pace of breathing picking up as characters run or slowing down considerably during relaxed moments. Breathing can convey panic, tension, or relief, thereby amplifying expressions or gestures that might not mean as much on their own.
Timing, Spacing and Animation Principles
With displays of emotion, as in any aspect of animation, timing is everything, and it’s one of the core animation principles that guide how characters move and react to emotional stimuli. Changes in animated expression should be gradual enough to enhance subtlety, but pacing can also reflect emotional intensity. Quick gestures may suggest excitement, while drawn-out motions suggest that characters are tired or disappointed. Timing concerns also extend beyond individual characters to reveal the overall weight of a given scene.
Slow In and Slow Out for Emotional Beats
Perspective can enhance already attention-grabbing moments by directing the audience’s attention toward various focal points or character responses.
Beats are especially impactful, as these are purposefully built into animations to reflect significant changes in tone. These are defined in the International Journal of European Film Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication as “microunit[s] of dramatic action found in all narrative media: the smallest unit discernible within scenes.”
This effect can be elevated via easing, which adjusts the pace to help audiences follow or process key moments. Easing in, for instance, involves a slow start, with the pace eventually picking up to reflect an increase in intensity. Easing out takes the opposite approach, beginning quickly but then gradually decelerating to spark greater reflection on what has just occurred.
This practice is sometimes referred to as “slow in” or “slow out,” but the overarching goal is the same: to adapt a scene’s meaning through pacing and shifting emotional impact without requiring significant adjustments to facial expressions in animation.
Anticipation and Follow-Through
Significant moments can be amplified by building a sense of anticipation. This involves the subtle motions that may occur in the lead-up to a significant action. Follow-through provides a payoff or outcome to all this anticipation, demonstrating how characters continue to move after initial actions come to an end. Easing and beats help build anticipation, but this effort also requires strategic staging to spark an emotional resolution.
Using Holds and Silence
Do not underestimate the value of sound in shaping moments or expressions that otherwise appear visual. Silence, in particular, can add weight, forcing the audience to reflect on key moments or think more critically about the hidden meanings within the character’s behavior or the overarching narrative.
Holds help by pausing the animation for an extended moment, allowing audiences to absorb crucial information before they encounter additional visuals or ideas. This is similar, in many respects, to the concept of a beat, but may involve a more extended effort, complete with sustained expressions.
This may be paired with silence following emotional phrasing in the soundtrack, thereby creating a multi-sensory void that forces audiences to process difficult concepts. This opportunity reveals how character animation is shaped not only by visual elements but also by sound design.
Tools and References for Animating Emotion
As an aspiring animator, you need not go it alone when exploring emotions or attempting to convey complex feelings through character movements or expressions. A wealth of resources can support this effort, helping you understand how nuanced emotions can be etched on the faces of both real-world individuals and animated characters.
Acting It Out Yourself
If you struggle to visualize how a person might look when expressing a particular emotion, consider acting out difficult moments in front of the mirror or while taking a short video of yourself. You can then examine this footage to determine what makes you appear happy, angry, sad or surprised in any given moment.
Acting classes or coaches may amplify this effort, ensuring that you are capable of conveying various emotions convincingly. For this reason, many animators study theater in addition to visual art or animation technologies, as theatrical understanding can translate directly into the convincing portrayal of emotions through animation.
Using Video Reference and Study
Video reference is an indispensable solution in animation, offering a valuable trial-and-error approach to troubleshooting. We’ve already discussed one simple way in which video reference can make a world of difference, which is simply recording yourself and analyzing this footage to explore subtle motions or timing considerations.
Beyond this, you can also create your own catalog of video clips that demonstrate different emotions and how they are portrayed. This may go beyond footage of yourself to include animation tutorials or other resources that offer insight into facial expressions. Keep in mind that videos should simply be used as a frame of reference; expressions will still need to be tailored to reflect each character’s distinct personality and motivations.
Drawing Inspiration From Other Animators
Many talented animators reveal the power of subtle facial expressions to bring additional depth to already meaningful stories. The more you look to these gifted storytellers for inspiration, the more ideas you’ll uncover for how to integrate subtle expressions into your own work.
- Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki has consistently demonstrated the art of subtlety through powerful films that pack an emotional punch. For example, Chihiro’s disappointed expressions at the outset of Spirited Away are restrained, yet they tell an entire story about her family’s move. Similarly, Kiki’s slouching in Kiki’s Delivery Service quickly reveal when she suffers from self-doubt.
- Nick Park. In Wallace and Gromit films, the genius team at Aardman Animations conveys a complex series of emotions without smiles, grimaces or other changes in the position of the mouth. Rather, Gromit (the dog) expresses himself purely with his eyes and eyebrows, effectively demonstrating annoyance or concern. This reveals how apparent restrictions can actually amplify emotional expression.
Discover the Secrets of Animated Storytelling With RMCAD
The art of subtlety takes time to understand, but you can get a strong start by studying animation with the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Our Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation (both 2D and 3D) delves into the artistry of contemporary animation, revealing how advanced technologies and classic storytelling techniques come together to create unforgettable characters and narratives.
With engaging courses available both online and in person, our students have the chance to explore a wide range of relevant skills that can help them tell powerful stories through the art of animation. Reach out today to learn more about this program.
