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Posing the Eyes

The position of a character's eyes is very important, not only so that they're looking in the right direction, but also to help convey what they're thinking or feeling.


Posing the Eyes

When posing the eyes, always be paying attention to how they look in camera. Even if they're looking directly at the subject of interest in the perspective view, they might appear to be looking in a different direction from camera. In these cases, you will have to cheat the eyes, so that it looks right from camera view. It is always more important that the character's eyes look correct from camera view, even if they're wrong in perspective view.


You may also find that when your character is looking a someone, one of their irises may be barely or not at all visible from camera. This usually happens when a characters face is turned farther away from camera. Again, you will have to cheat this by moving that iris closer in toward the center of the face, so that you can see more of it from the camera. This creates something that looks correct from camera view, which is what we want, but if you were to look at it from perspective view, the character would look cross eyed.



Eye Direction

It is also important to pay attention to eye direction, since this will indicate what a character is thinking.


As you can see, looking toward screen left indicates constructed images, or in other words, imaginary things. Looking toward screen right, on the other hand, indicates that your character is remembering something real.


Looking up or down also indicates what your character is thinking about. Looking up has to do with images, and looking down has to do with feelings or dialogue. Looking straight to one side or the other has to do with sounds.


If you want to see more visually how these different eye directions look, check out this tutorial from Bloop Animation:

https://youtu.be/5SitzwA2xwg?t=390



That's about all there is to it, but these simple tips will help you to add appeal and life to your characters!

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