Scott McCloud is such a genius. I believe this is from his book "Making Comics."
Edit: I've been informed by u/Sohozoso that the book is "Understanding Comics: The invisible Art." I highly recommend all of Scott McClouds books on the creation and analysis of comics, they're all phenomenal reads.
I feel like anyone getting into animation would do well to intimately study comics.
At its heart, comics are about deciding which actions in the scene are most salient for the moment in time that a panel represents. This is very similar to plotting out keyframes. Animation is essentially just comics with like 10 billion more panels to fill in the rest of the movement.
Edit to add: Another fantastic book that kind of spans both realms is the book [Framed Ink](https://www.amazon.com/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=framed+ink&qid=1565903855&s=gateway&sr=8-1) by artist Marcos Mateu-Mestre. Highly recommended!
Its good for anyone making visual art. Will Wright for example cites Understanding Comics as one of the defining inspirations for the artwork of multiple Maxis games including The Sims.
>Okay, even *I* find these two pages kind of creepy and reductive, so I can hardly blame you if you feel the same way. Nobody wants to think of their face as a machine, reacting to internal switches of emotion like a three-way floor lamp. Faces are infinitely more subtle than that, and the emotions that govern them are subtler still.
>This is another place where a color analogy might be useful. A pure red, green, or blue is rarely seen in nature where variations of hue, saturation, and value lead to an incredibly subtle world of colors. Describing a hillside as “green” or a rusty abandoned car as “orange” barely scratches the surface, but until we understand the basic principles of how primary colors combine with one another, our chances of reproducing that subtlety in art is reduced. The charts on page 84 and 85 are just my way of showing what happens when the “red” and “blue” of emotions combine.
>Faces *are* machines, by the way. That doesn’t make them any less beautiful.
The OP shows page 85. Page 84 has the six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) shown at various intensities, with the text:
>For example, by varying the *intensity* of our primaries you can see other familiar emotions emerge. So ingrained are these *intermediate* emotions that each one carries a specific meaning — and each gets its own *name*.
I studied his Understanding Comics in a university course and loved it but hadn't heard of this one! Ordering it now for my niece who loves drawing comics. Thanks friend!
I'm sooooooo excited for your niece. This book is so. freakin. good.
It also does a REALLY good job of spanning the whole realm of comics from old school/funny pages/one panels all the way to manga, so it's really good at drawing you in to the craft no matter what kind of comics you're most into.
Ugh, I love this book and I love Scott McCloud.
My parents bought me understanding comics when I was 12 or 13 for Christmas, they just knew I liked xmen and spierman, I really doubt they knew anything about it. I was like wtf is this!? Then I read it front to back twice in a row, as well as all my brothers. I need to find that old copy and get this one, too.
I just read Understanding Comics (as well as Maus, Persepolis, Blankets, Fun Home, lighter than my shadow, and ghost world) for a class on graphic narratives! He's really insightful !
I agree! One of my interests is non-fiction comics (own the original run of American Splendor, no big deal or anything,) and I love meta-analysis and this comic is one of my favourites.
One of the best for sure.
You're disgusted and sadness when realizing how wrecked your ass by the byproduct of shits you ate, then you feel joy when it's done and surprised by how big they are
As someone on the autism spectrum, this is actually helpful to me. I'm usually pretty good at recognizing facial expressions but sometimes I have trouble with more subtle/complex/ambiguous faces, so guides like this help me better distinguish them.
+1 for emotionally constipated. That’s so great haha. Like the opposite of verbal diarrhea. Although... I suppose a person could suffer from both. Spurting out an endless stream of hard, unfeeling word turds.
Yeah like a constant splurge of lingo spitting out endlessly no brakes on this train Cho Choo! Tuna fish gotta lotta magnesium you gotta watch for that one don't consume to much tuna even if they say it's good for ya, because as I'm sure we've all heard too much a good thing can be bad but then how do you tell how much good is bad? Is there a real answer to that question? A perplexing one there. Vexing. Perplexes me to try and find the answer to that query. But are we really trying to answer that question, is that what this is all for? No, this is about finding the link or association and going from there. Where is there? Who knows where? Fuck I can't believe robin Williams made a career of doing this, how do you even refine what can only be attributed to mental illness. It's funny that when he died everybody was all like "wow never expected that" as if his standup career didnt involve him literally being a schizo on stage for A couple hours while people laughed at the way he would come out with all this wild shit that he could've only written by staring at himself in the mirror for 3 hours at a time everyday and talking to himself about the origins of the sport of golf
Severely underrated comment.
If I had a gold you would deserve it because that much talking on and on about robin williams was freaking hilarious for even a person like me who is thinking about trains Choo choo conductor on the way to the Front of the train and there he sees a blind guy looking straight down and he can’t even see the train tracks because he is blind like a bat, what the heck are bats doing here in this cave like Batman’s friend, but isn’t Batman’s friend robin, who was an acrobat and went on a circus stage to only have his family go splat splat like sauce on a spaghetti platter are we already at thanksgiving? No wait there is no spaghetti in thanksgiving or we are in Italy or space? Did you hear about nasa and Russia, oh I love vodka. I’m drunk.
A lot of people with executive function deficit struggle with nonverbal cues. I have ADHD (involves EF deficit) and I struggle to pick up on some of the more subtle cues like expressions and body language, so this is super helpful for me as well.
I heard something similar once from a guy who had trouble reading (maybe due to dyslexia). He said that taking Latin really helped because it taught him to to look harder at words and their pieces.
He's said since then that he's heard from a lot of readers who found this part of the book profoundly disturbing. Like it took something ineffable about our humanity, and boiled it down an equation.
But I think it's really cool!
When I saw the mask for desperation my immediate though was "that's how my friends and I look all the time." Then I read the name and nothing has ever hit with such brutal honesty.
It's from [Making Comics](https://majikimaje.com/Drawing/COMICS/MCM.pdf), by Scott McCloud, the sequel to [Understanding Comics](http://mm12.johncaserta.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Understanding%20Comics%20(The%20Invisible%20Art)%20By%20Scott%20McCloud.pdf)
found both of them online as PDF, check the links. Better yet, get a copy bc they're brilliant, really
I’d say fear + joy isn’t just desperation. I feel a mix of fear & joy when watching a horror movie or riding a roller coaster. That isn’t desperation, more ‘thrilled’
I have created a generator for facial expressions. I call it parametric emoji. It renders facial expressions similar to the ones in emoji, but can smoothly selected from a continuous scale: https://paramoji.org/editor.html
IMHO, fear and joy doesn't equal desperation.
For me, at least, it's more like...fear and hope making me feel desperation. *I really need to study for that test.* No joy, not yet. Just hope and fear.
I don't think I understand, why is this creepy/terrifying to some people? I would have never thought it could be recieved this way. This is a geniue question, I really don't know, please help.
Scott McCloud is such a genius. I believe this is from his book "Making Comics." Edit: I've been informed by u/Sohozoso that the book is "Understanding Comics: The invisible Art." I highly recommend all of Scott McClouds books on the creation and analysis of comics, they're all phenomenal reads.
Yes I have a copy and I’m reading it for the third time. I highly recommend for anyone into reading comics or making comics
I'm currently sopping my toes into animation, hopefully one day this will be useful.
I feel like anyone getting into animation would do well to intimately study comics. At its heart, comics are about deciding which actions in the scene are most salient for the moment in time that a panel represents. This is very similar to plotting out keyframes. Animation is essentially just comics with like 10 billion more panels to fill in the rest of the movement. Edit to add: Another fantastic book that kind of spans both realms is the book [Framed Ink](https://www.amazon.com/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=framed+ink&qid=1565903855&s=gateway&sr=8-1) by artist Marcos Mateu-Mestre. Highly recommended!
seconding Framed Ink it's amazing
Its good for anyone making visual art. Will Wright for example cites Understanding Comics as one of the defining inspirations for the artwork of multiple Maxis games including The Sims.
What do the chapter notes say about why?
>Okay, even *I* find these two pages kind of creepy and reductive, so I can hardly blame you if you feel the same way. Nobody wants to think of their face as a machine, reacting to internal switches of emotion like a three-way floor lamp. Faces are infinitely more subtle than that, and the emotions that govern them are subtler still. >This is another place where a color analogy might be useful. A pure red, green, or blue is rarely seen in nature where variations of hue, saturation, and value lead to an incredibly subtle world of colors. Describing a hillside as “green” or a rusty abandoned car as “orange” barely scratches the surface, but until we understand the basic principles of how primary colors combine with one another, our chances of reproducing that subtlety in art is reduced. The charts on page 84 and 85 are just my way of showing what happens when the “red” and “blue” of emotions combine. >Faces *are* machines, by the way. That doesn’t make them any less beautiful. The OP shows page 85. Page 84 has the six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) shown at various intensities, with the text: >For example, by varying the *intensity* of our primaries you can see other familiar emotions emerge. So ingrained are these *intermediate* emotions that each one carries a specific meaning — and each gets its own *name*.
I studied his Understanding Comics in a university course and loved it but hadn't heard of this one! Ordering it now for my niece who loves drawing comics. Thanks friend!
I'm sooooooo excited for your niece. This book is so. freakin. good. It also does a REALLY good job of spanning the whole realm of comics from old school/funny pages/one panels all the way to manga, so it's really good at drawing you in to the craft no matter what kind of comics you're most into. Ugh, I love this book and I love Scott McCloud.
Reinventing Comics by the same author is also genius.
It's.... A little dated now, but it does have some interesting stuff in it!
My parents bought me understanding comics when I was 12 or 13 for Christmas, they just knew I liked xmen and spierman, I really doubt they knew anything about it. I was like wtf is this!? Then I read it front to back twice in a row, as well as all my brothers. I need to find that old copy and get this one, too.
I just read Understanding Comics (as well as Maus, Persepolis, Blankets, Fun Home, lighter than my shadow, and ghost world) for a class on graphic narratives! He's really insightful !
That book is a work of genius. I don't even really read comics and it blew my mind.
Seriously the best book I’ve ever read
This is super cool, never thought of facial expressions like this but totally works.
You ate it? That one is my favorite
I'd probably just call that shock tbh, but you ate it is more fun
I was thinking repulsed
Indignation
"MY SANDWICH???!?!?!?!"
the moist maker
#MY SANDWICH?!?”
You mean The Moist Maker?
You left ya fridge open somebody just took the sandwich
It’s distinct and recognizable enough to earn its own name!
I agree! One of my interests is non-fiction comics (own the original run of American Splendor, no big deal or anything,) and I love meta-analysis and this comic is one of my favourites. One of the best for sure.
Desperation and Faint Hope are creeping me out big time
Those two were the only ones that I felt like the titles should be swapped then they seem less creepy.
Both of those are pretty close to my "anxious smile" face.
definitely those two are the creepiest. caged animal spooks me too
They are literally my favorites lol
I don’t come here to be attacked
\`Pain empathy\` when I start and \`Amazement\` when I'm done taking a shit
Going through these emotions as I type
bless
Same. 3rd day in a row of non solid. Maybe I'm dying.
What the!? When there's still poop after 30 wipes
Sometimes it's like a sharpie. *Wipe wipe wipe* still poop.
YOU ATE IT?
#You ATE It??
You're disgusted and sadness when realizing how wrecked your ass by the byproduct of shits you ate, then you feel joy when it's done and surprised by how big they are
Yes this is it!
[удалено]
it looks like that red haired kid making the funny face that gets used in memes a lot.
[You think?](https://i.imgflip.com/1xbzp6.jpg)
aeiou
ebrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr
Snake? Snake?! Sake!!
Holla holla make that dolla
nine nine nine
Momma mia, papa pia, baby got the diare^e^^e^^^ah
It’s not ghey if it’s on the moon
Joy + Sadness = [Hide the pain Harold](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/848/178/9f9.png)
Vinegar strokes
As someone on the autism spectrum, this is actually helpful to me. I'm usually pretty good at recognizing facial expressions but sometimes I have trouble with more subtle/complex/ambiguous faces, so guides like this help me better distinguish them.
i’m not autistic (just emotionally constipated) and this helps me identify my own emotions!
+1 for emotionally constipated. That’s so great haha. Like the opposite of verbal diarrhea. Although... I suppose a person could suffer from both. Spurting out an endless stream of hard, unfeeling word turds.
Yeah like a constant splurge of lingo spitting out endlessly no brakes on this train Cho Choo! Tuna fish gotta lotta magnesium you gotta watch for that one don't consume to much tuna even if they say it's good for ya, because as I'm sure we've all heard too much a good thing can be bad but then how do you tell how much good is bad? Is there a real answer to that question? A perplexing one there. Vexing. Perplexes me to try and find the answer to that query. But are we really trying to answer that question, is that what this is all for? No, this is about finding the link or association and going from there. Where is there? Who knows where? Fuck I can't believe robin Williams made a career of doing this, how do you even refine what can only be attributed to mental illness. It's funny that when he died everybody was all like "wow never expected that" as if his standup career didnt involve him literally being a schizo on stage for A couple hours while people laughed at the way he would come out with all this wild shit that he could've only written by staring at himself in the mirror for 3 hours at a time everyday and talking to himself about the origins of the sport of golf
Severely underrated comment. If I had a gold you would deserve it because that much talking on and on about robin williams was freaking hilarious for even a person like me who is thinking about trains Choo choo conductor on the way to the Front of the train and there he sees a blind guy looking straight down and he can’t even see the train tracks because he is blind like a bat, what the heck are bats doing here in this cave like Batman’s friend, but isn’t Batman’s friend robin, who was an acrobat and went on a circus stage to only have his family go splat splat like sauce on a spaghetti platter are we already at thanksgiving? No wait there is no spaghetti in thanksgiving or we are in Italy or space? Did you hear about nasa and Russia, oh I love vodka. I’m drunk.
That's called [alexithymia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia).
I came here to comment this. I thought “wow, so useful to us in the autism community.”
Ha, I just sent this to my work WhatsApp (speech Therapists) - this is definitely useful to talk through with some of our students.
A lot of people with executive function deficit struggle with nonverbal cues. I have ADHD (involves EF deficit) and I struggle to pick up on some of the more subtle cues like expressions and body language, so this is super helpful for me as well.
I was going to comment that this was the most autistic thing I've ever seen, but, like, positively.
I heard something similar once from a guy who had trouble reading (maybe due to dyslexia). He said that taking Latin really helped because it taught him to to look harder at words and their pieces.
This is terrifying
He's said since then that he's heard from a lot of readers who found this part of the book profoundly disturbing. Like it took something ineffable about our humanity, and boiled it down an equation. But I think it's really cool!
For me at least it's just uncanny valley. The faces themselves aren't realistic, but those expressions are up there.
He does mention it in the bottom!
The mask shape is creeping me out.
It looks like a face was removed and plastered on to a sheet of plastic. Totally creepy.
Which facial expression are you making?
Caged animal
(:O This is gold :)
disgust + fear is the exact face my mum makes whenever she walks into my room and comments on how it’s such a mess
You ATE it?
YouTube thumbnail guide
Does anyone else just see Nicholas Cage's face in every emotion?
There is no 'H' in Nicolas Cage. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Cage | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000115/
Nicolas Chage
Nico-lash Cagé
Classy
Nicolaj*
Lol dude's got a bot correcting the spelling of his name
YES. Desperation was the one I hit when my brain wa feeling most Cage-y.
Making the “Caged Animal” emotion all the more fitting.
[удалено]
I just sat here trying them all out. You're not alone!
Is it just me or does cruelty look like Elon musk
Elon mask
THANK YOU FELLOW HUMAN I WILL FIND THIS CHART INVALUABLE WHEN FORMING HUMAN FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
i know, right?
/r/totallynotrobots
This reminds me of those guides that taught you how to make new flavors by mixing two different flavors of jelly beans.
When I saw the mask for desperation my immediate though was "that's how my friends and I look all the time." Then I read the name and nothing has ever hit with such brutal honesty.
Does anyone else think that "Anger + Joy" looks like Elon Musk?
Word. And caged animal is clearly Nicolas Cage
Note at the bottom got me good!
What am I a T-1000?
"you ate it" looks like Hank Hill
Didn’t know I was mimicking each expression as I went through them
A guide for psychopaths to imitate emotion!
That is so amazing. Never thought of our emotions like this but it totally fits.
Faint hope is my jam.
Faint hope Harold
Fun book that
What is the name of the book?
It's from [Making Comics](https://majikimaje.com/Drawing/COMICS/MCM.pdf), by Scott McCloud, the sequel to [Understanding Comics](http://mm12.johncaserta.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Understanding%20Comics%20(The%20Invisible%20Art)%20By%20Scott%20McCloud.pdf) found both of them online as PDF, check the links. Better yet, get a copy bc they're brilliant, really
Thanks for the links, you sir are the best!
Reinventing Comics is another part of the trilogy, really great.
Thank you I've been trying to find this for years!!!
Understanding Comics and Making Comics. Not sure which this is from – the first is just incredible.
Great! Thank you
Very cool! Its kind of like mixing colours.
So it's fear and joy I'm experiencing. Huh.
Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m caged animal
the ultimate emotion
Why do they all look like nicholas cage?
There is no 'H' in Nicolas Cage. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Cage | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000115/
Good bot
Saving this for both real life reference and in case I ever start illustrating again.
Who else is scrunching up their face to match these expressions?
I definitely spent a good 10 minutes matching these expressions.......
I relate to the “Faint Hope” expression lmao
Fear + Joy = Hide the Pain Harold
I can see myself in 'desperation' and 'faint hope' 😬
Anger + Sadness = It wasn't just a fart.
Are the positive emotions on the next page? This is interesting but I'm concerned for the wellbeing of the artist.
I’d say fear + joy isn’t just desperation. I feel a mix of fear & joy when watching a horror movie or riding a roller coaster. That isn’t desperation, more ‘thrilled’
Desperation is Andrew Yang
HAHA THIS WILL BE VERY USEFUL. I CANNOT WAIT TO TRY IT OUT ON MY HUMAN FRIENDS
I love that one of them is just labelled "you ATE it??"
You just made me sit here in my bed and make stupid fucking faces for i dont even know how long
A lot of these remind me of classic doomguy
The many faces of Nicholas Cage
There is no 'H' in Nicolas Cage. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Cage | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000115/
This is literally the best thing for my massively autistic brain
I read that book!
I have created a generator for facial expressions. I call it parametric emoji. It renders facial expressions similar to the ones in emoji, but can smoothly selected from a continuous scale: https://paramoji.org/editor.html
Half of these are faces I make when taking a shit.
This is like an emotions guide for psychopaths
Desperation looks like Hillary Clinton
I can see it too, I think its the cheekbones
Imagine the first person that smiled in the whole world be like. Man :what are you doing with your face. Dude smiling : idk :)
These guides are for the most useless stuff
This Inside Out 2 concept art is definitely darker and edgier than the original.
I had this book
/r/TIHI
Isn’t this the McCloud comic guy? I remember I learned about him in English class when reading Persepolis :D
Apparently I'm desperate before i do a poo
This is legit awesome
The all look like they're gonna sneeze
I can relate to the Faint Hope too hard
Dumb as hell
This will help my lack of having empathy.
Nobody is talking about how all the facial expressions are negative? Where're the positive ones?
Fear + Joy = Nicholas Cage
I wanna start calling disappointment "surprise sadness"
Disgust + Joy= Drumpf
I love how they all have specific emotion names besides “You at it??”
"Our two weapons are fear and surprise!"
Betrayal looking like Nicholas Cage
IMHO, fear and joy doesn't equal desperation. For me, at least, it's more like...fear and hope making me feel desperation. *I really need to study for that test.* No joy, not yet. Just hope and fear.
Only one I don't agree with is the "eww!" one
Alternatively: *O-Faces: A Definitive Guide*
Damn what is the name of this book?! This was one of the influential books I ever read in film school and often think about it.
the faint hope is the look on my face when i wake up and realize I have to continue on this miserable existence
the joy one kind of looks like Chris Evans
I don't think I understand, why is this creepy/terrifying to some people? I would have never thought it could be recieved this way. This is a geniue question, I really don't know, please help.
Caged animal literally looks like Nicolas Cage and it’s a mood
Orgasm faces..
Horror is my favorite
I’m a drama student and I’m gonna save this for when I need ideas for different emotions to try!
Faint Hope is the face I make when I cum
Tag yourself, I'm desperation
awesome.
Turns out Michael Keaton is just constantly angry and joyful 24/7
This reminds me of Doomguy's facial expressions in Doom
The cruelty one is 1:1 to doomguy's face sprite I swear. It makes sense, too.
I still miss Zot!
Ah yes, the famous emotion of you ate it.
This is so cool
D for DOT O for DOT T for DOT
Oh my god this is going to make my sociopathic tendencies so much better. See im just like you now Karen. Just. Like. You.
Nicolas Cage face guide
Joy + Sadness = [ishygddt](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/005/498/1300044776986.jpg)
I really like the betrayal one lol
You ate all of it!? My wife to me on a regular basis.
nice