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Animtip Twitter thread

by @rickyframes – https://twitter.com/rickyframes/status/1472593751008755717

The #animtip thread about head turns that you were looking for today 😅

Step one. Sure it functions, but we can do better!

The simple blink. People and creatures alike tend to blink when turning to protect their eyes. It also adds more life. But still missing some things!

Ah, some brow and cheek movement to feather the blinking motion. This works great on more stylised characters. Still not there yet though…

A slight weight shift! Now we're layering in more toe holds for your imagination (to borrow a wonderful expression from @halhickel). This helps ground the performance. But still we're not done, what is it?

Breathing! A commonly missed detail, perhaps because it's so natural and subtle in real life.

We're done right? End of thread?

Not yet! This head turn is mechanically good, but misses one, last, thing…

Story! "Lisa turns her head" is a functional story, but animating that lacks drama. Here I have used my Anim Layer workflow to quickly sculpt the head turn into 3 versions that have context. Lisa is now thinking and reacting, which allows us to connect emotionally.

Hope you enjoyed this breakdown. It's just 10mins of content (out of 16hrs!) from my GWS3 @iAnimate lectures. I plan to share more soon, so stay tuned. I'd also love to know what you'd like to see. Comment below and I'll get a list going 🙂

Originally tweeted by Ricky Wood (@rickyframes) on 19/12/2021.

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