When researching into character expression and movement I came across a paper which helped me to understand the many different ways I can portray a characters emotion through movement instead of facial expression. I wanted to do this because my character does not have many facial features and I want it to look as cute and possible, and in order to do that I do not want to animate the face.
The paper specifically highlights many human gestures which can be simulated to show an emotion. For example, it says that posture is a very important way of expressing emotion. If the character is hunched over and looking down it means they are sad. Also, if the character waves its fist is shows anger. Another one is if the character is biting their nails then it means they are nervous. Many of these expressions and movements can be shown in my character to express how the character is feeling without moving face features. One of the reasons I do not want to move the characters face is to keep a sense of mystery. Also, many children can relate to a quiet character because many children are shy and prefer to communicate through pointing or through body movement etc.
Wen-Poh Su, 2007. Modeling Expressive Character Motion for Narrative and Ambient Intelligence Based on Emotion and Personality, MS, MFA, Adv.Grad.Cert.IMD, BA (1st Hons). Queensland University of Technology.
In order how I could portray my characters emotions I also looked at many different children’s cartoons to get an idea of what children can relate to and how I can integrate that into my characters. I looked at one particular program called “Dexter’s laboratory” where the characters movements are all over exaggerated and sometimes put into slow motion. It also plays sounds to go with the characters movement to make them seem more exaggerated and noticeable. For this I know I need to exaggerate my characters movements in order to express emotion and catch a child’s attention.
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