How to Draw Dynamic Expressions

Mhm .

Good day , ladies and gentlemen , and welcome to draw with Jazz .

I'm JAA and this is a video tutorial in which we're going to be talking about creating dramatic expressions .

Now , I've got a file here that I've prepared beforehand , uh which is a set of expressions .

Now , these are quite appropriate and usable .

We've got angry , sad , happy , bored content , worried , glaring .

Um We have scared and these are all drawn quite appropriately .

In fact , there's nothing wrong with them and they're usable in scenarios like animation and comics and things like that .

But the thing that we're gonna be talking about is really pushing the boundaries here because expressions like these are like I said , quite appropriate and usable , but sometimes they're not enough .

Sometimes you need a little extra kick .

Sometimes just happy isn't happy enough and just sad isn't sad enough .

And we may need to really over accentuate some of the characteristics of these emotions to uh to portray either the humor or the emotion that we're trying to get across .

The other advantage of um learning to do really extreme expressions is that it's easier to work back from extremity than it is to move forward .

So to give you an example of what I'm talking about , I'm gonna go up here to my happy expression and I'm going to get my line ready .

I'm using Adobe Photoshop for those of you who are unfamiliar with my videos .

And I'm also using a set of custom brushes by Kyle T Webster , which gives me this really sketchy feel , which I tend to really like for doing construction lines and things like that .

So , in using this happy template , I've got , uh the character over here on the left and I can actually work from that and show you what I'm doing to over accentuate it .

So I start off just by very roughly outlining where I'm gonna be putting the eyes .

So it's basically the same sort of area and now we're gonna start pushing it .

So the eyebrows are just gonna be a little more raised .

Now , they're anchored at the same sort of point they're anchored down here because we can't draw eyebrows up here .

It starts to look a bit weird .

So we wanna make sure that even though we're going really over the top , we do want to ground it in sort of reality , you know .

So I've pushed the eyebrows up now that alone hasn't made a huge difference .

So what I'm gonna be doing is contorting the faces shape around him .

That's why we've gone with this three quarter angle because a sign and front profile tends to hide the um the depth and the shape of the face .

So in an expression like this , I'd be raising the top part and really sinking in this inside eye bit .

And I'm gonna be really bunching up the bottom of the face .

So we are happy and then we are happy where everything's really pulled up .

So I'm going to be drawing a line here which is where the cheeks are all really bunched up like this .

And here instead of the shape of the face , following the same as here on the left , we're really gonna work it up and bring the cheeks up like this .

OK ?

Then I'm gonna really stretch the mouth to be really high and wide and I'm gonna draw this little line of the side of the mouth .

Now I draw that line when the side of the mouth is pulled into a place where it's pushed up against the cheek and the cheek is , as you can see here , moved by the muscles of the face and the teeth are even more bad .

So to the point where I can very lightly draw some of his gums from his teeth and I'm just gonna really pull the mouth down like this .

So it's much more open .

Now , it's not just a matter of making everything bigger when you're doing an extreme expression .

Um It's about showing more and it's about moving things realistically .

So , for example , here on the left , there aren't any bottom teeth because his mouth isn't open enough .

Whereas here on the right , we're showing not only more of the tongue but the bottom teeth as well because the mouth is so far open .

So I'm just gonna sketch in color in that part and we see how that mouth just looks a lot more open .

Now , as a consequence of the mouth being so much more open .

Of course , the jaw will be lowered .

So the bottom of the , the face is gonna be pulled down a lot further than our image on the left .

So we're really stretching the face , we're opening the jaw and we see how everything affects everything else .

OK .

So the eyes , we're gonna be having him look in the same place and I'm just gonna have the pupils a little more smaller and then adding a bit more of a refining line around the eyes .

And you can see how very quickly we've built this extreme happy expression .

And there are some situations where an expression of this extremity would be much more appropriate than a simple happy face , you know .

So this happy face is the expression that this kid has when he's met a new friend and they found out they have something in common .

This is the expression a kid has when he gets exactly the toy he wants for Christmas .

No , when he gets a roller coaster for Christmas , you know , so we've really got to be able to bring these emotions into play .

If we have such extreme scenarios , we wanna show those extreme expressions .

Now , sad is another interesting one .

Again , I tend to very lightly sketch the shape of the full open eye and then I work the eyelids around that .

Ok .

So sad , we're gonna work with the same parameters .

So the eye eyebrows are kind of scrunched in and angled up like that , but I'm just gonna , I'm gonna really angle them up and really scrunch them down .

Ok .

So it's quite extreme and now we start to bunch things around it .

We need to create the consequences of these extreme motions .

So for example , I will be creating these lines here from where the eyebrows are pushing up on the forehead and then I'm gonna be of course flattening out the top , ok ?

And then the next thing I want to do is pull the cheeks down cos the face here is quite neutral .

So the cheeks sit just a little rubbery , rubbery .

There you go .

I've invented a word .

Um It just kind of full and sitting there normally , but now I'm just gonna be really sinking them down along with the rest of his face because his mouth is gonna be lowered and I'm just gonna give him that really wavy trembling lip as if he's about to cry .

Ok ?

Now , in talking about having him about to cry , let's lift up the eyelids again .

Now this is a different sort of lifting their eyelids in this expression .

In happy .

It's because his face is lifted and all the muscles are working and he's really , you know , happy it's pushed up .

Whereas in a sad expression , it's like he's trying to stop the tears from coming , which we can draw there sort of brimming on his lower eyelid and have his eyes in the same place .

Now , what we can do here with the eyes is have more highlights on the eyes , these two bubbles like this and that makes his eyes look a little more wet .

Ok ?

So you can see how very quickly just by using a few key points , we can really add extremity to the expression .

So what was once a simple sad face is now an extremely sad face .

Ok .

So using things like pushing the eyebrows more extremely moving the facial features and um the skin and the muscles around those contortions and then adding little features like the trembling lip or the tears in the eyes .

So now we're going across here to angry .

This one's always fun to do a nice extreme angry expression .

So this one , I'm going to start off with the eyebrows because they're gonna be doing so much work on top of the eyes themselves .

So I'm gonna start by anchoring the eyebrows here and really giving them this massive arch like this .

OK .

Now what happens when someone has an extremely angry expression is everything on the inside of the eyebrows here scrunches up .

Ok .

So we have this scrunch up and then the nose as well .

So if you , if you do like a really anger expression , you'll notice that all on the top of the nose , everything bunches up and scrunches a bit so you can draw some lines to indicate that scrunching .

Ok .

Now I'm gonna sketch in my I base and bring up the extremity by raising the lower eyebrow because of the work the facial muscles are doing .

You'll , you'll notice that a lot of these expressions really bring the lower eyelid up , not eyebrow .

I did I say lower eyebrow .

Um and it's just quite a useful thing because it , it just shows the face working very hard .

So bringing the eyes into place , I'm just gonna draw very little pupils like that , ok ?

And it just shows that his eyes are just very focused on something he's angry at .

Next .

I'm going to give the , the mouth more of an extreme expression by opening it up more .

I'm gonna raise the top of the mouth which will end up bearing more teeth and I'm going to really push the underbite like this .

Ok .

So I've opened up the mouth a lot , really pushed out the underbite and now I'm gonna show quite a bit of his gums bad .

Now that shows this really raw , you know , open expression of anger .

Ok ?

So we've got everything scratched up in the middle near his eyebrows , um his eyes very focused and his teeth bared menacingly .

Now , the result of this , of course is that the face stretches in a wide sort of direction around the cheeks .

Ok .

So we can push that .

And then because of the underbite , I wanna push the jaw forward , not too much as to make him look like he's got a big jaw normally , but you just wanna push it forward a little bit more than in the other ones because he does have his teeth grinding .

Another thing you can do , this is something that I've seen in a lot of animes is sure this little shape here , it's like a little cross drawn with just these four lines and it , it's like , um , a vein popping in his head sort of thing if you wanted , you could add sweat , but I'll just leave it at that for now .

So now we're gonna go down here and we're gonna talk about the bored expression .

Now , this is where things get a little interesting because with happy , sad and angry they in themselves are fairly easy to over accentuate .

Right .

Whereas bored is a sort of understated emotion .

It's sort of a , you know , how do you have an extreme look of boredom ?

Well , you can , and we're gonna talk about that now .

So , same thing here .

We're gonna take these features and we're gonna overdo it .

So we're gonna push this eyebrow in cos that one's sort of pushed in , but we're gonna push it in more and raise this one up more .

So give it a nice arch and now I'm gonna sketch in the shape of the eyes and work some things around it .

Now , this is where things are a bit fun because first of all , we're following a similar look here .

We're , we're drawing the top of the eyelid , but it's gonna be a little lower because it is slightly more extreme .

So it's a bit more bored .

Ok ?

Now , to add extremity to this expression , you add pockets under the eyes .

So I'm gonna draw the eyes and then I'm going to simply drag these two thin lines to show almost like he's aging as he's so bored .

OK ?

Another thing that you can do or another way you can approach it is to have completely flat eyebrows like this , OK ?

Like he's totally unaffected by everything , but I'm gonna just work with this arch for now because this too works well .

OK .

Now , in this expression , you can see on the left , his cheeks are drooping already .

Now , let's really push that .

We're talking about extremity here .

So I'm just gonna push it , see how it's almost completely flat here as opposed to here that there's that sort of bunching of the cheeks here .

We're just pushing it straight down into a low chin , drawing the face down and almost makes him look like an old man .

But that's kind of the point .

It's because we wouldn't use these in very common situations , would use them in extreme situations and that there's an extreme expression expression for an extreme situation .

Ok .

Next , going across here , we have content .

This is a similar sort of more underplayed emotion naturally .

Where how do you over accentuate content ?

Well , same thing as before we are gonna push the eyebrows up a little more .

We're going to sketch in the base of the eyes like this .

And the , the way I would over accentuate a content expression is to lift the mouth and widen it and then raise the lower eyebrows just slightly , not enough to cover too much of the eyes because we don't want them working too hard content , like I said is slightly more underplayed than the more extreme expressions , but we really do wanna push it enough .

So we're gonna have his eyes looking up this time because he's kind of daydreaming about how content he is and we're just gonna push this cheek up around his massive grin and then work the face around that .

Ok ?

And you can see how both look content , but one is warping the face with the emotion .

So here on the right , we're really pushing the face around with the expression of contentness that he's got .

So what's next on our list ?

We have worried .

Ok .

So this one is a little more extreme , we can push the boundaries a little more now , even though um our content and board faces were a little understated naturally , you could see that we could push them .

But face expressions like sad and angry are , are such that we can over accentuate them even more .

So worried is one where like our picture on the left , we're just gonna over accentuate all the things that we've already got there .

So I'm just gonna raise the arch of the eyebrow and this is an expression where I'm gonna really lift at the lower eyelids .

So I'm gonna bring them almost halfway up the eye .

So his eyes are almost closing .

His lower eyelids are working that hard and I'm gonna have his pupils quite dilated .

So a big bubble in the middle and have them a little more open looking .

Amen with the mouth .

I'm gonna bring it up .

Ok ?

So have him worried , have his mouth lift up even more .

So I'm gonna do this , have the underbite at work again , but not too much .

And I'm gonna give the bottom lip an arch like this , ok ?

And then have it work into the face , then what I can do .

And this is a little weird here .

I'm gonna wrap the skin around the edge of the bottom lip .

OK ?

Now you'll see that this is , this almost acts as both the , the edge of the mouth and the lip , but also the edge of the face .

We're really pushing it over the edge .

Um that is and a way of doing this in an extreme sense .

And we start to show the gums a bit as well , draw the face down because it's being stretched down by this very long scared mouth .

And this is an expression where beads of sweat would be quite effective .

OK .

Another thing that we can do is similar to what we have here in the board expression , how we have these lines under the eyes , we can do something similar , but it's not necessarily those aging looking lines .

We just draw lines like this , maybe a couple small ones and it just shows the muscles under the isle is really working as he's so worried .

Ok , he could lower the top eyelid , but I think it looks better with just the bottom eyelid working there .

So there you go , you can see that it doesn't take a huge amount of knowledge , a bit of practice and a bit of understanding about how the face muscles work and about how the uh skin sits over the bones and the muscles .

So next , we have glaring .

OK .

So this one's kind of fun because the whole face is kind of like a cat's arse , like it's really scratched up .

I don't look at many cats asses but who doesn't look at a cat's ass from time to time ?

Um Sorry .

So this one , what I like to do is draw a slightly downward bent line like this and then have the eyebrows follow it .

Ok , then I'll scrunch the brows together similar to how I did with the angry expression just to show a little bit of extremity .

And I'm drawing the eyes eyes under here .

Now , in this expression on the left , you can see the top eyelids closing .

Now , in general , having the top eyelids coming down is somewhat received by , um , viewers as a little tired , a little less than engaged .

So when you're doing extreme expressions , uh often eliminating that top eyelid , uh can really help work in the favor .

So if I did the top eyelid down , it makes him look a little less engaged .

But if I really bring the , the bottom eyelid up and then the top , then the eyebrows act similar to how the top eyelid would act .

We get that really glaring look without him looking less than engaged .

Ok .

So we're bringing the face down and now what I'm gonna be doing is scrunching the mouth forward more so you can see how here on the glaring expression on the left , the mouth is a bit smaller because he's pinching his lips a little bit and looking forward .

Well , now we're gonna really push his mouth forward .

So we're gonna bring this over bite that he has forward and just give him this tiny little mouth because he's so scratched up and mo looking forward and as such , the shape of the face moves forward with his expression because his muscles are pushing forward like that .

Ok ?

And then the rest doesn't move .

Now , one thing I should have mentioned at the beginning that I'll mention now is there are some things of the face that never change .

So for example , the ears aren't ever really gonna move based on your expression , uh depending on the character .

So the hair as well .

And so , you know , I haven't been touching anything beyond this point .

Everything here has been totally untouched .

OK .

So we've got our more extreme glaring expression .

What I can do as well is bring in these little lines and I can also shade the eyes a bit because the face is quite drawn and it's almost like his eyebrows are sh uh covering his eyes and giving it more depth and adding a little bit of shadow like this .

It's almost like you're peering through , you know , something you're you're hidden behind your dark expression that makes it a more dark , literally dark expression .

Next sarcastic .

Um Again , like I was talking about adding the bottom eyelid will over accentuate that expression .

So I'm gonna add this eyebrow in a more arched position and really give them both an over the top sort of look sketch in my eye and then follow my other expression by doing the top eyelid , but then really bringing up the bottom one like this .

Ok .

Now , the other thing to keep in mind too is that the pupil where it rests can affect the expression .

OK .

So for example , when the pupil rests up against the top eyelid , it tends to , like I said , look a little more disengaged .

But when it's closer to the bottom eyelid , it , I feel like it , it tends to um make the face look like it's working a little more , right .

So when it's pushing against the bottom eyelid , it's like the eye , the bottom eye is really pushing its way up and it's like the whole face is being lifted .

Whereas if these were drawn against the top , it looks a little lazier .

OK ?

So that's just a something I tend to keep in mind .

So when I'm drawing happy or angry or things like that , if I go up here , you'll notice that where there is a , is a top eyelid in an extreme expression , the pupil isn't resting against it .

OK ?

Sometimes against the eyebrow , which is different because the eyebrows are kind of like really uh m much more useful than the top eyelid and don't look as tired .

They work hard .

OK ?

So it's sarcastic .

We're bringing the face and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna really lift one side of the mouth .

OK ?

So I'm gonna draw that face up , the teeth are normal , but you'll notice that that mouth is really pulled up there .

OK ?

The other thing I'm gonna do is bring the bottom of his mouth forward and over , accentuate that under bite and even bring out his bottom teeth to show that um in put , twisting it in this way , it's like the face is kind of leaning in this direction .

So I would draw this expression with his whole body , sort of leaning in that direction because it works in .

It's like , you know , I know what you he , he's , he's telling a joke or he's annoying someone or , you know , it's just pulling everything in that direction .

So filling in here lifting the cheeks and then the jaw juts forward because everything is angled in this way .

The other thing you can do , which is just a minimal thing is just add a little line above a really over accentuated eyebrow like there because that just shows that things are bunching up that there's a little more work there and then finally last but not least our scared expression and this is similar to our worried expression .

Ah , but worried is a little more , well , they're sort of interchangeable but worried is a little more , uh , internal , worried is a little more in line with what he's thinking .

Scared is a little more in line with what is about to happen .

What's I imminent ?

And in front of him , it could be a dragon .

You don't tend to be worried about a dragon .

You tend to be scared about a dragon going to bite your head off or , you know , you tend to be more worried about the math test coming up Right .

So in over accentuating this scared expression , we're gonna pull everything out .

So at the moment , everything is a little more just contorted in a way that the worried expression is , it's just a little more pushed in and , and things like that .

We're really gonna open this up .

Now , we're gonna really give them a fright .

So I'm gonna really pull the eyebrows up like this .

No , I very lightly sketch the arch before I draw the eyebrows because I wanna get them right first and now I'm just gonna really stretch the eyes .

So these are gonna be big eyes , really wanna pull it up , open up those eyes .

OK ?

Then what I tend to do when drawing an extreme scared expression is with the pupils and the eyeballs themselves , draw them like this .

What that does is that it's like there's a big shine in the middle of the eye and I'm not drawing much of the black of the eye you'll notice in most of the eyes , I draw a circle and then have this little highlight and the rest is black , right ?

Whereas in this , in this case , there's no middle black pupil part , right ?

It's , it's like it's looking at a direct point of light or a direct thing to fear .

OK .

So next , we're gonna open up the mouth .

So we're gonna have that and we're just gonna open , literally open the mouth .

So we have the top teeth and we're gonna show the bottom teeth and we're gonna put in the tongue , shade the inside of the mouth and then with the extreme teeth showing sure a few of her gums work the face around the shape of the mouth .

OK ?

And then we're basically done , but he's not quite extremely scared enough .

So what can we do to over accentuate that ?

We can add a few of these lines here , just very light like that to really push out that fear in his eyes .

We can add some beads of sweat .

And if we wanted to , if we're drawing a comic or something , we could draw an exclamation mark above his head or do some sort of accentuation like that .

So we can see that in warping the face a little more in pulling the uh features of the face a little more like the eyebrows and the mouth giving little features , whether it be the vein popping in the head or the curvy uh lip or the tears , you know , welling in the eyes , drops of sweat and then making sure that the muscles work around the face as well , knowing how to work with the bottom and top eyelids and how the pupils dilate and react uh and look at certain things using features like shadow to create a darkness to the face , stretching the entire angle of the face .

So it looks like it's pulling itself in a certain direction .

And then of course , having that all come together an expression that is over the top that we want to use rarely but as a garnish , OK .

So we don't want to use these sort of expressions all the time because it will soften the punch of when you want to use them .

But when you do use them like a garnish , it just makes the the thing a finished work of art .

It adds a final flourish to the piece .

So ladies and gentlemen , I hope you enjoyed this video tutorial if you wanna see some other videos uh in terms of how to draw the face and the head um which I haven't gone into in this video , I have videos on that as well as drawing expressions themselves um and emotions .

So make sure to check out my other videos .

Otherwise I hope you enjoyed it and make sure to click the link in the description and go to the reference files .

And until next time , ladies and gentlemen , I will see you later .

Thanks for watching .

Make sure to subscribe .

If you enjoy my videos , you can download the reference files from this tutorial by clicking the link in the description and remember to share any art animation or game you make on new grounds dot com .

Until next time .

See you later .