AM Tutoring Tips and Tricks part 7 - Body Language

Having strong, clear poses could help our animation getting more appealing. However, we need to not only design great graphically poses, but also tell the story and show the emotion.

Unless it's an extrem close up shot, character's body occur the biggest space in the scene. Even most of time we look at eyes first, we feel body language as well. So usually I'll work on the body first, make sure the pose itself (without facial expression) is good enough to tell the story, then move on to facial animation. Eventually, body and face need to work together, for me it's easier to get the idea how to pose face if I already had body communicates well.

I found a book which is very helpful for study body language, it wrote by an ex-FBI Joe Navarro. He wrote this book basic on his own experience, and analyse body language in very scientific way. It doesn't really relate to animation, but it's fascinating to know what's behind the poses. This is a fun book to read, and plus, after read this, you might be able to tell if people really mean it when saying "good job". :)

There is an example from the book, the book mention that when we feel upset, or try to escape, we'll try to block ourself from outside. This could be as subtle as by covering the neck or buttoning up jacket. Here we go...

Thanks to Tony Chau for sending me a great mail about topics.