Eye Alignment and Human Expressions

Nicely put! I think I was subconciously aware of the 'muderous' look - its a look often seen in comic books! I had just never made the connection with how the eyes were positioned being relevant to their behaviour before.

 

The only exceptions I have to most of those rules are my RS An, his eyes NEED to face almost directly forward center. XD He's supposed to look generally panicked and startled, since this is not his world. The other is my DF Wind because his eyes are positioned just a little further up to where the edge of the iris is at the lid because he has a perpetually angry/annoyed expression. Other than that, these are wonderful rules to follow for basic expressions.

Perhaps later an expansion on the other positions like sidewise and downward would be nice? Or an explanation of the way EYEBROWS help convey expression as well as eye positioning.

Just a thought. ^-^ Very nice tutorial on the basics though!

 

Baby steps. XD Rosslyn first felt the need to do something about all those psychotic and homicidal dolls wandering around here aimlessly.

 

^-^; I know. I often see out-of-alignment eyes and want to saaaaaay somethiiiiiing~ XD But I feel bad because maybe they WANT them to be wonky? Kind of like my two guys are.

And I did say later. I mean, first let people get used to having their eyes in a nice, non-terrified/high/spaced out neutral position before you scare them with the side-glance or Angry!brows. XD

 

Hey, it would be a great project for you to make tutorials that will share your expertise with the rest of us! I always figure it's better to do something myself than to wait for someone else to do it exactly the way I want.

Actually on-topic: thank you, Rosslyn! Your illustrations are fantastic--I wish this tutorial could be a Sticky, so it would have a fighting chance of making a dent in the Plague of Porcelain-Doll Stares.

 

Great tips! I remember sitting down and explaining to my newbie doll friends all these points; now I can just point them to this thread instead!

My "lazy" rule of thumb is this:
- align top of pupil to upper lid, or bottom of iris just above lower lid (depending on eye shape/size).

All my dolls have relaxed/bedroom eyes.

<--Aramis in my avi, too.

 

Thanks for posting this! I see lots of 'off' eyes, and even in sculpts I love I think it makes the doll look bad. LOL I'm also particular because I'm a portrait artist and eyes are the most important part of the face. You did great!

 

This is a great set of instructions! I've been wondering if my doll's eyes were correct or off-kilter. This a great place to look and check it out.

 

I may give it a shot, probably with Dan, my SD size floating head. ^-^; That way I can use both 16mm and 14mm eyes, pupil-less and pupil eyes, and re-do the brows with watercolour pencil shading for various expressions. The idea has merit, and then Rosslyn won't have to do it all herself. ^-^;

Because its not just eyes that are off sometimes... Sometimes its the brows. Brows that give a constant 0_0 stare... Yikes... Unless that's the look you want, it's kind of startling.

 

Can you give tips on how to get eyes to line up properly too? I've been told a lot that my dolls are cross-eyed when I put the eyes in, and I could use some help with that. Especially for faces where they are looking up a bit, or off to the side, how do you get them to look in the same direction?

 

Pandy: Do you mean physically adjusting the eyes or just knowing where to point them?

 

Just knowing where to point them. For the life of me, I can't get them to line up straight visually, so I need some sort of technique or tip to doing it. >_>;;

 

It takes practice, especially if eye contact is not a strong point of yours, but for the "sultry" look that's popular, point them up (pupils touching the top lid), and then just slightly point them to the center of the forehead, like they're looking at the inner corners of the eyebrows. Looking at photos of models/celebrities would help a lot with seeing the effect of what you want in the dolls.

 

I always ask someone else when I'm doing it. Mostly my mum. Because she's always around. Just ask someone else "Hey, are his/her eyes straight?" It always works for me. XD Mostly because I'm horrified when I see them cross eyed. I'll take ten minutes making minute adjustments to eyes. XD

 

This was very interesting to read. I guess I never really thought about why we see positions of the eyes as being one emotion or another. I normally just fiddle with my dolls eyes until they look normal enough...but, now I can take these tips to make her super cute! Thank you for the tutorial!

 

I love the tutorial!! Now my doll won't have blank stares =P
It also gave me a good laugh seeing how silly some of the expressions look just by positioning the eyes differently

 

Nice easy tutorial, good job! What about taking it to the next step with eye alignment, though? As in whether or not the eyes, once lined up the lid, should be pointing directly forward or slightly to the side? I've noticed that if I don't set my doll's eyes very slightly apart then they still have that vacant look, but too far apart and they look like they're staring at something across the room and I wonder if there's a monster behind me! ^^; When they're perfectly straight forward, at a few feet away they can look cross-eyed. Somewhere between straight and wall-eyed is that perfect place of focus that gives the illusion of tracking.

 

Thank you! This has been something that's been driving me bonkers for years; the plague of creepily staring dolls.
This is exactly why I'm not really big on porcelain dolls, or most of the typical child's dolls you see around. It's no wonder people find them creepy!

Thankfully, this was something that I'd partially figured out. I wondered why my doll didn't have the same sort of look that other BJDs did, and realized that it had something to do with the eyes. They didn't look 'human'. A Google image search for 'eye' answered that pretty quickly. It was a huge 'Aha!' moment.

Even so, this tutorial has really helped in explaining why the glassy stare is so creepy, and why dolls with their eyes looking down freak me out. I'll be sure to direct my BJD newbie friend to this thread.

Excellent tutorial! I'd love to see more, it's all very insightful and interesting!

 

I already knew about placing the eye where it should be but didn't really know the "why" behind it. This is a wonderful explaination of it all!! I hope everyone here on DoA see's this!!

 

Thanks! I tried some of it on two of my dolls. I'd second the "please do a side-glance tutorial!" since I really do want one of my guys to glance aside but just can't seem to get it right, for some reason. Maybe it's just him being stubborn - one of the eyes always insists on being slightly off.

Your tutorial also made me realize I might need smaller eyes for one of my guys. That "bedroom look" just doesn't look right for him but the irises of the eyes I'm using are just so large that it's hard to position his eyes in another way and not give him that "blank doll-stare". (And that is eyes are slightly uneven doesn't help matters, either ...)

 

Thank you! this is incredibly useful, I just thought that my B&G Hera's eye sculpt was so wide and large that it was causing the "derp eyed stare" so I stuck bigger eyes in there.

NOW I can place them properly. Thank you!

 

Excellent tutorial, I remember the days when I used to set all my antique dolls eyes with plaster of paris or dental plaster.
There really is a knack of getting them just right and in those days it was a real drama to change them.
Thank heaven for putty!

 

Awesome tutorial, I've known the ins and outs of it for a while but it's good to see it all in one place. Also, a really fast way to see the "murderous look" with most dolls is to just look upwards at them from below their chin. ^^;; The sweetest doll does turn freaky as heck when you do that! XD

 

This is so amazing. Not only has it enlightened me on the topic of making dolls look more natural, it's also enlightened me on a bit of human psychology. Now I know why one of my dolls has always looked peaceful, while the other has that manic look you were describing. xD Time for some eye adjustments!

 

Rosslyn,

Thank you for making this tutorial. My friend Sonya shared this with me and it was a pleasant surprise to see it was you. I"m a visual person and this is perfect. I was worried about changing and moving eyes around but this makes it, so I feel more confident to try it.

THanks again this was a wonderful help for a newbie like me.

and now I know why porcelain dolls have always given me the creeps.


Bren =0)

 

Thank you so much, this was helpful and a great read.
I love how you put explanations to it, how it is in our instinct to feel a certain way just by looking at the eye of a doll!
It's really interesting how a lot of anime drawings draw characters in that violent stare lol

 

What a great tutorial. When I first got my Mary (Iplehouse SID Eva) I kept saying to myself 'Why is she looking at me like that?' It was as though she was testing me. (I also thought is was because she was lonely so to make it up to her I have ordered her a male friend!) The things we do. I have had a play with her eyes but not known really where to put them. I also think that one pupil is bigger than the other which makes her look a bit funny. She has 12mm eyes so they are quite small. I will be getting new ones just to try different looks. Thank you for this.

 

So that is kinda what is going on with my roommate's popo doll!!! He has the deer-in-the-headlights expression all the time. I think I'll fix that! Thank you!

 

Much thanks for this tutorial!! I read it a while back and have now found use for it.
My new Asleep Eidolon girl has her eyes in the "maniac" position. Her eyes are wonderful and her head is wonderful so I was wondering why I was picking up some unsettling vibes from her!
Can't wait to get home and try this now!!

 

I've ALWAYS found wide eyes with most of the iris showing 'sexy', even if it's manic looking. Weird.. Do you think you could do one for eyes looking left and right, too?

 

Thanks to this post my friendly doll actually Looks friendly haha
My bf said "he looks awake! "

 

Really helpful tutorial~! I think these are the kind of pointers that people often overlook no matter how normal it is in our everyday lives~
Thanks!

 

Very nice thread. Has anybody made any of the follow up threads that were discussed here a lot? Like the side glances eye stuff or an eyebrow thread?
Seems like a ton of time has passed, but no mention of it. Just curious.

Thanks for making this thread/tutorial!

 

Excellent tutorial and accompanying thread! A couple of thoughts occurred to me:

1) Eye/pupil size:

If the iris is too small to allow touching both upper and lower eyelid at once when looking straight forward, you might consider a different eye with slightly larger iris or even modding to allow for a larger eye (and so iris.) The point is, if the iris can only touch one or the other, the doll is either homicidal (love love love that!) or looking up, which, unless it fits the story, I find almost as distracting as the deer in the headlights look or even the manic look. For me (please note the qualification) if the iris can't touch both upper and lower lid at the same time, you're severely limiting your expression options.

2) Flash and camera angle can also affect apparent alignment, so if your resin-kid looks fine until you take a photo, it might not be the eye alignment but the way the light's catching the eye in a photograph. In fact, by angling your light and camera, you can take a perfectly centered eye and make it either manic or up-looking. Eye position has a focal point. You need to make sure your camera is in that range of focus. If your doll is supposed to be looking at something very close to his/her nose, you should angle the eyes inward slightly.

3) A good trick for alignment/focus of eyes, whether in a 2D picture or a 3D model, is to look at the doll in a mirror (or flip a photograph of him).

Anyway...just my two cents worth.

 

this is super helpful i always felt that my eye positions were weird when i changed them on my boy sometimes this will really do me some good.

 

Thank you for this great eye tutorial!
My problem is I get them "just right", put the head cap on, and an eye goes the wrong way.
I've even had eyes move completely.
I bet I need to add more eye putty or replace the existing eye putty.

 

The "no flash" rule is fine for some people, but completely impractical for me. I use flash all the time, but I do primarily photostories that are spur of the moment. If I paused to do setup, the muse w/b damaged if not gone. Besides, my house eats light! BUT I use flash from a distance and zoom in on the subject, and I turn the +/- adjustment way down so that I don't overexpose. Flash is a perfectly good tool, but just like f-stop and exposure time and ISO, you need to learn how to use it. I also have a relatively good Panasonic point and shoot, but it's not DSLR.

Another thing about focus that you may or may not want to add (this drives me a little crazy in a lot of photos) is, for goodness sake, have them LOOK at something. In the most egregious cases, the camera. To have a doll posed for a portrait or talking to the person taking the picture and have them looking to the side is just...creepy.

Hmmm...thinking about it, probably these both belong in the photography section, but it's all part of the positioning of the eyes. Maybe a foot note to the actual correct positioning. My point is, everything can look right, then you take the picture and suddenly that "right" look...isn't.

Again, thanks so much for a super-useful tute!

It's also possible you've got too much eye putty in there and it's getting squished when you replace the headcap and shifting the angle on the eye.

Just a thought.

 

THANK YOU! I'm pretty sure my dolls have been 'blank eye' statistics before... this will help a lot!

 

thank you!! this is so useful!!!

 

Helpful tutorial! Thanks for posting!

 

Great tips for me to improve on my doll photography. It is a wonder how eyes can make a huge difference in a picture.

 

This is very useful! Thank's so much for all the tips!
I'm going to be sure to bookmark this!

 

perfect~ i hope when my girls come in i wont have a hard time with this, it frightens me a little

 

Excellent tutorial! It'll definitely help when I get my doll!

 

This helps so much! Thank you!

 

Awesome Tutorial!

 

Yes &#8211; echoing that this is a wonderful tutorial and a great resource. I'd love to see something similar for dolls whose eyes are narrower (I'm thinking of more mature sculpts, where the eye holes are longer and thinner so the eye has to be big enough to fill the space from corner to corner, but the iris may then be too big to fit above the lower lid with just a bit behind the upper lid.

 

Exactly what I needed to know, thank you. (Although now I will be looking hard at everyones eyes to see if they are about to perform a violent act.......could make me a little paranoid! lol )

 

Question, Cause some dolls have wide eyes like my luts winter event head 2012~ no matter how i adjust his eyes. He just give that stare still look ): How can i improve on this?

 

Yes! I'm so glad that this exists! I was wondering why certain pictures just didn't look right. Thank you for making this!

 

Thank you for the tutorial , it helps a lot ^^'

 

Thank you! I'm getting new eyes for the first time and I have no idea how to position them... well now I do

 

My friend always put their eyes too high so I feel weird all the time when I see her dolls' pics.
Now I know why haha thanks for the tips!

 

Thank you for these tips! I lol'd in the bedroom eyes part.

 

now going to check all my dolls

 

Very usefull, thanks!