The Eyes Have It
By: Sharon Ferrell, July 2004

Okay. Let me tell y'all a little secret about cartooning with "expression", especially when it comes to our non-mammalian friends such as avians and avian-like robots who have very un-expressive faces. But first, I warn you, involves a little case in point which is incredibly fantarded. Bear with me.

Like many other days, I was reading The Showdown mailing list. For some reason they were talking about Jeff Lynne (wow, imagine that!), and somebody observed he was more expressive without his sunglasses. Of course, that had me laughing like an idiot. Imagine that! The man's more emotive WITHOUT giant eyegear covering his eyes! Why, thank you Captain Obvious!

I suppose to a non-artist or non-actor this observation may be a revelation. But to me, a person who's drawn cartoons all her school career and read many books on the art of animation (yeah, animation is an art form), it's no news. It isn't specific to Mr. Lynne, but to, well, just about anything with a face.

In my character drawings, I am often dependent on using the eyes and eyebrows to express whatever it is they're supposed to be feeling, especially on creatures like avians and my dear Lillian, characters that have very limited movement in their mouths (although I do tend to cheat on mouths when it comes to my gryphons). I'm not the only person who's like this. Pixar animation is, too: in Monsters Inc they considered Sully having little reading glasses, and they took those out because they were afraid even those blocked the eyes and their ability to emote!

Poor Lillian depends almost entirely on her eyes, with only a minimal bit of help from her bill. Just varying the thickness or slight curve of a line can completely change the expression! I'd like to say that over the years I've mastered the art of expression on her and her camerabot predecessors, but that'd be a lie. Her lack of eyebrows often make some of the more complex emotions difficult, if not impossible, to express.

Okay, I admit I've been dodging around using the cliché "the eyes are the window to the soul", but dagnabbit, they can be! They're my favourite part of the character to draw and paint and often what I start out with when I doodle; often my doodles start just with an eye because I want to see if I can pull of a particular expression. I know to a beginning artist eyes just may be "a circle with a dot in it" and all you would really care about is to make sure the pupils are looking the appropriate direction, but there's so much more! Look in the mirror or look at other's art, see what they do to their character's eyes to denote emotion. Turn off the sounds during a classic cartoon, or perhaps one of the old TV sitcoms, and you'll find you have a pretty good idea of what's going on, or at least in the terms of the character's emotions. It's acting. That's what good, expressive, animation-style character art is all about. Acting.

Are eyes the only mode acting worth caring about? Of course not! Almost anything can denote expression- twitching whiskers, the flick of a tail, a slump of the shoulders, ears being laid flat, as I said, almost anything. Observe how the whole body moves, how the posture changes when conveying glee, dejection, exhaustion, or anxiousness. We are very expressive creatures, along with the majority of our animal kin. However, I will admit, sometimes I have hit some walls, but usually they were with Lillian. (She's a robot, so isn't really supposed to be emotive- I've cheated enough with her design to get what little range of emotions I can.) But I figure as long as you're drawing something fairly organic and humanlike (as in, having four limbs, a body, and a face), you shouldn't have too much a problem, as long as you have a good idea of how to act.

In conclusion: Observe. Observe yourself, observe others, and observe other people's art for hints of that spark of life for your drawings, whether they be in the eyes, the mouth, their gesture, anywhere. Just as long as you don't copy other people's own art. But that's another essay altogether.