Facial Animation
Facial Animation Course
Facial expressions are the most important element of showing emotions and mood of a character. Demonstration of character feelings should always be present in demoreel!
In this course, an exercise is carried out to work on facial expressions, with special attention given to the eyes, eyebrows, construction of facial expressions and changes in the character's emotions. No lip sync.
- Task 1: basic static emotion of character;
- Task 2: animation shot, 150 frames with 3-4 changing emotions without lip sync.
To enter the course, you must send a demoreel! (can be in the form of separate shots).
Demoreel
What you'll learn in the course
Planning shot animation. Reference – a roadmap of any shot. Analyzing and parsing the reference.
Anatomy of facial muscles, wrinkles, and jaw.
Basics of human emotions (facial expressions). Construct emotional poses (brows and mouth - main elements of conveying emotions)
Work and animation of eyes (darts) and eyelids (blinks).
Work and animation of brows.
Mouth, nose, cheeks, tongue.
Face asymmetry, animation.
Overlap as key part of facial animation.
Break – is the best partner of emotions.
Main and secondary. How to keep focus of an audience on emotion when working with the body.
Pantomime. What is more important – facial expression or body language?
Wrap-up: your weaknesses and strengths. Review of shots and parting words.
How is the course going?
At the online webinar, the teacher goes through the theoretical part, shows what the students will later repeat as part of their home assignment, and answers any possible questions.
The student watches the recording of the lesson and does his/her assignment.
The supervisor checks the assignment, analyzes mistakes, and gives ideas for improvement.
Who is this course for?
Facial animation course is meant for intermediate animators who have experience with body mechanics.
What will you learn?
- understanding the workings of individual parts of the face and working with them as a whole;
- setting the character's emotions;
- animate the change of the character's emotions.
After this course, you can consolidate and deepen your knowledge in the Pantomime course or go to the advanced animation course "Actor".
In this course, we work in Autodesk Maya (the main software of specialists from animation, cinematic and game industries). An important point to note is that during the course, the supervisors teach the animation principles - the correct logic of thinking and specific skills for creating the movement of objects - rather than working in Autodesk Maya. You can easily make your animation in any other software, for example, Blender.
Please note that the school does not provide Autodesk Maya!
Course Supervisor
Ivan used to be an artist at Soyuzmultfilm, has worked on Christopher Robin (Framestore studio), Jingliks season 1, and directed the animation "220 volts of love" (NTV television company). Now Ivan is an animation supervisor at Bazelevs film studio and a teacher.
OCA is Ivan's original project. The school was created with the aim to give students a solid understanding of animation and to consolidate the acquired skills in a real production. Course students have a unique opportunity to participate in the production of the show My Babushka smokes a pipe.
Studying in OCA school, you gain the most valuable experience from working industry professionals benefitting from smaller groups.
Our students work in
Certificate
Since 2022, our school has been issuing certificates for successful course completion. The certificate is awarded to those students who have completed their coursework and received an "Excellent" rating from the teacher. You can verify the authenticity of the document on our website.
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Get 10% off when paying for the full 3-month course!
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