When CG animation came out, it looked so different and so fresh compared to 2d animation that we could get away with a lot but the novelty effect eventually faded and the bar got raised very high with CG entertainment and funny enough, technology is finally enabling us to … go back to the appeal of the 2d aesthetics!
Shaping the mouth corners is one of those 2d tips used in top studios to make the characters look less CG. By moving the outside corner closer inside the silhouette of the character, you will make the mouth shape more stylised and closer to what an illustrator would craft rather than a stupid computer.
Doesn’t the tweaked mouth shape look clearer and more appealing on this Sony’s “Angry Birds movie” presentation? I am posting the picture twice just so you can flip it and the link to the video is below.
I got to attend a workshop with Bill Perkins, a talk with Disney Story artist Josie Trinidad and Disney Vis dev guy Jeffrey Turley. I was also part of a classic 1h30 long queue for a pay-to-see “Lorax behind the scenes” that nearly ended in blood bath. The “Brave” and “Paperman” queues were 2h so I passed on those (my knees and elbows were still swollen from previous brawls). On a side note, Pixar didn’t hold their regular Mifa presentations which was really unexpected and sad.
Josie Trinidad won us over with her enthusiasm and Jeffrey Turley gave a very funny talk spiced up with lovely cartoony ink-brushed beatboards at the Disney booth. We were not allowed to take any pictures or report anything on their Wreck-it-Ralph presentation so I can only share with you the following pictures. (sorry for the picture quality, I had forgotten my charger and used my phone instead)
Here is the Wreck it Ralph trailer if you haven’t seen it yet:
