Character Research

I have made a mood board of some of my favourite animated character from films and animated shorts. They will all have attributes that I will take inspiration from when designing, developing and creating my 3D character.


With the personal and physical attributes of these characters in mind, I will now be ready to start designing my 3D character.

Facial Expression Research

Character facial expression will be the most important part of creating a personality for my 3D character.
The eyes are the most important part of the face that can convey emotion. Every emotion from anger, to suprise and happiness can be portrayed through the eyes.
The next most important part of the face for emotion would be the mouth.
Taking these two points into account, I will have to focus on these when animation my character. However, I must be sure not to leave the other facial features out.

I spent time looking on the internet at examples of facial emotion from various 3D characters.

The first emotion is happiness from the Bunny in Disney Pixar's animated short 'Presto'.


The key facial attributes that make this face happy are the open smile for the mouth and the raised cheeks that push the bottom of the eyes up.

The second emotion is anger from the Dark Cloud in Disney Pixar's animated short 'Partly Cloudy'.


The key facial attributes that make this face angry are the scowl on the mouth and the arched eyebrows.

The third emotion is worry from Scrat in Ice Age.


The key facial attributes that make this face worried are the wide open eyes, raised brow and the frowning mouth.

The fourth emotion is confusion from Wall-E in Wall-E.


The key facial attributes that make this face confused are the eyes sloping down from the middle and the tilt of the head to the side.

The fifth emotion is anger from the Dark Cloud in Disney Pixar's animated short 'Partly Cloudy'.


The key facial attributes that make this face sad are the eyes sloping down from the middle, raised brow and the frowning mouth.

I also saw an interesting post whilst looking at my classmates' 3D Character Animation blogs.
It was about Pareidolia, which is a misperception existent in all human beings that makes them see human faces in objects where they are not present.



I felt this was quite an interesting video and feel that I may be able to use this in my animation at some point.

Body Language Research

Body language is very important to a 3D character. Facial animation alone will not be able to convey an emotion adequately. Body movement should be realistic for movement, but also support the intended emotion of the character.

In Disney Pixar's animated short 'Presto', the body langauge of the Magician is pompous at times and angry at others.


In this image, you can clearly see that the Magician is angry. However, when you stop looking at the face and just at the body. You can see the Magician is experiencing extreme pain which supports the look of shock and anger.


In this image I have drawn a basic representation of the skeleton of the Magician. You can see that the biped position would be quite easy to achieve. How the biped moves to that position is another story. When animating, the movement should be as smooth and appropriate to the situation as possible.

Character Research

For inspiration, I've looked on the tinterwebs for some pictures and animations for 3D characters that are able to express a lot of emotion without the use of their voices.

The first characters I have decided to feature are Luxo and Luxo Jr.


These characters are at the extreme end of the spectrum. They are characters with no arms, legs or facial featues. The only things that give them a personality are they light bulb that looks a bit like an eye and the squeaking sound they make.



It is astonishing how much emotion is shown with no real physical attributes.

The second character I have chosen is Wall-E.


Wall-E is the next level up from Luxo and Luxo Jr. who are all machines and have limits to displaying their emotions. Wall-E only had eyes, eyelids, hands and a vague voice to contribute to his personaity.



It is safe to say that Wall-E is one of my favourite 3D characters, mainly due to the fact that he displays so much emotion effectively with such limited features.

The final characters I have chosen are the Stalk and Dark Cloud from Disney Pixar's animated short 'Partly Cloudy'.


I have chosen these characters because they are extremely effectice at displaying detailed emotion without the use of voice but only some minor sounds. This is mainly due to the characters being hugely versatile and dynamic.



It should be noted that for the Stalk, the emotion is making shown in the eyes and the cheeks as the beak cannot be animated for expression.

All of the characters I have listed here hav elements I will be looking to include in my animation.

Cartoon Eyes

Following the tutorial I had a quick go at modelling and animating some 'cartoony' eyes.


I went for a couple of emotions; sad and suspicious.



I'm not sure how useful this will be for my animation, but it was still a good technique to learn.

Initial Thoughts

When I received the assignment for this module I immediatley got excited. I love 3D modelling and animation and fell this module will be a great opportunity to utilise my my existing skills and develop new skills.

We are to create an original character and animate it to express some depth of emotion using only body language and facial expressions. The intended audience of this animation are children ages 3 - 12.

Up until this moment I have mainly modelled and animated more photo-realistic charactes under more mature themes. This assignment will give me the chance to model and animate a more 'cartoony' character.

I am really looking forward to start researching and working on this assignment.