Applied 2: More Mouth Testing

             

Martin and Sara suggested that I perhaps try a mouth test once we had our sound recorded and I thought this was a great idea so as soon as I had sorted out all of the sound files, I picked the line 'It's a bit hot, isn't it?' and got testing. I chose this line because it is short and sweet, but it also uses a lot of mouth poses and the line itself is spoken quite quickly. I used the guides I made for myself to judge the lip movements, as well as saying it out loud to myself in order to try and make the speech look natural.

I found this to be SO difficult. I was trying to match up the mouth poses with the different peaks in pitch but at times I got confused and had to start all over. This was the first result and though I am happy with it, as it does illustrate movement of speech. I think I will have to compare with Hayley's tests and see how she did hers before I start animating with this technique.

            

I then added this cycle of mouth poses to my female bird. Though she does not say the line, the father newt does, Hayley had those models and I really wanted to do some testing so I used this one instead. I didn't think it was too big of a deal, because I just wanted to see whether the poses would look different on a body, than on paper, and I think they do! I think the character is more pronounced and looks like she has a real personality. Like my other tests, I did one with the beak and without and didn't mind the look of either. I think the lip movements do match the audio, I think I will just have to do a lot of planning prior to animation because this one second took about an hour to get right! The only concern I have now, is that sometimes my finger nails hit off the plasticine at certain angles and it is visible on camera, so I will have to watch out for that and smooth it over as I am going along! If I forget, I have tried using the smudge tool in Photoshop, frame by frame and it works, giving the same blurred effect.

          

And this is the final test of just the bird and the beak! I think that this testing has given me an insight on what to expect when animating and the problems that could arise. I have noticed that there are a lot of times where I do not get the sound and mouths right, and sometimes things look off and it upsets me because of how long it takes to achieve. However I think with practice I will be a bit more instinctual and confident, it just takes a lot of practice!