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Tip Tuesday: Facial Expressions as they pertain to fursuits
12 years ago
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Commissions are currently: CLOSED
Quotes are currently: CLOSED A lot more goes into giving a head expression than one would initially think. With a human, our eyes, brows, and mouth provide almost all of the expression. With an animal, things get MUCH more complicated. I will write this up with canines in mind, felines and other species will have different characteristic points to their expressions.
The biggest expression/character point will always be the eyes. The eyes are the life of any suit, and we as humans instinctively look to the eyes first because of our tendency to communicate through them. With canines, pupil size and eye shape are two large points to consider. Larger pupils tend to convey friendliness or approachability, while smaller pupils look more intimidating or aggressive, or possibly even fearful. Eyelids/brows contribute too. More open eyes signify surprise, fear, or alertness, depending on shaping. More closed or squinty eyes can indicate submission or fear.
The muzzle also has a lot of opportunity for expressiveness. Obviously snarls/a raised nose and wrinkled muzzle indicates aggression, but the corners of the mouth have the potential to show many emotions, and the contour of the upper lips can change a suit from a blank stare to a gentle smile.
One often overlooked point of expression is the ears. Animals use their ears for expressing an abundance of things, and when paired with different eye, muzzle, and lip shapes convey wildly different emotions. Here is a decent collection of different facial expressions. Note how varied the ears get!
And all of this is just facial construction, not including how the wearer holds the mouth open, wearer posturing and body language, and tail shaping. A costume should be more than just the sum of it's parts, it should portray a dynamic character that is compelling and engaging.
It will be up to the artist to interpret how anthropomorphic to make the expressions, and how to blend the animal's natural expression characteristics with human ones to convey the desired emotion/expression. There is really no reason to make heads with blank expressions with so many options at your disposal!
The biggest expression/character point will always be the eyes. The eyes are the life of any suit, and we as humans instinctively look to the eyes first because of our tendency to communicate through them. With canines, pupil size and eye shape are two large points to consider. Larger pupils tend to convey friendliness or approachability, while smaller pupils look more intimidating or aggressive, or possibly even fearful. Eyelids/brows contribute too. More open eyes signify surprise, fear, or alertness, depending on shaping. More closed or squinty eyes can indicate submission or fear.
The muzzle also has a lot of opportunity for expressiveness. Obviously snarls/a raised nose and wrinkled muzzle indicates aggression, but the corners of the mouth have the potential to show many emotions, and the contour of the upper lips can change a suit from a blank stare to a gentle smile.
One often overlooked point of expression is the ears. Animals use their ears for expressing an abundance of things, and when paired with different eye, muzzle, and lip shapes convey wildly different emotions. Here is a decent collection of different facial expressions. Note how varied the ears get!
And all of this is just facial construction, not including how the wearer holds the mouth open, wearer posturing and body language, and tail shaping. A costume should be more than just the sum of it's parts, it should portray a dynamic character that is compelling and engaging.
It will be up to the artist to interpret how anthropomorphic to make the expressions, and how to blend the animal's natural expression characteristics with human ones to convey the desired emotion/expression. There is really no reason to make heads with blank expressions with so many options at your disposal!
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I think these concepts can be applied to taxidermy eyed fursuits. This head is more like mombear http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10167694/ and this head is more like regularbear. https://www.furaffinity.net/view/5401688/
The real test of the artist's ability is choosing at what point to blend those two together to achieve the style and expression the character is supposed to have.
Thanks for posting all these tips and I look forward to reading more :3
I had decided to make a cast of my own but due to my brain melting, not getting any resin to hand and lack of faith in the results I opted for a premade... if I feel brave enough, Ill try again... and I'll be sure to read your tips so I will be less likely to end up with another monstrosity!
BUT! My point is, yeah, I think expression is one of the most important things in a fursuit's design. Style is the other XD Of course, when a suit is made, your character is "locked" into that expression forever (unless the suit is made with movable eyelids etc., which I've seen a few suiters make, but these are usually super-"toony"-styled only), so unless your character is a werewolf/curmudgeon, you're probably not going to want to always be snarling, etc., stuff like that XD
So, that's probably why we usually see "happy!" as the default for most suits, or "blank" - you can't really go "wrong" with a blank expression, I guess. XD