Exaggeration is a great thing!! No matter what it is you’re drawing if you’re making the expression too subdued it might completely miss your readers, see that characters face? It’s now made of rubber. Go wild.
Human eyelids FOLLOW THE PUPIL! most often the top eyelid with rest just above the pupil without obscuring it and that applies for all movements too! Looking up the eyelid will go up with it, looking down the eyelid will go down too. It’s because the eyelid is always at the top of the pupil that drawing whites above the pupil and under the eyelid makes a character look frightened, because thats one of the only times there will ever be space between them.
The jaw moves!!! One of my personal pet peeves ESPECIALLY in animation, is when the characters mouth moves a lot but the jaw stays in exactly the same spot. It’s not realistic, and it looks bad. There’s a bit more leniency with still drawings, because you don’t know where the mouth rests in comparison to the jaw anyway, but if the mouth is super wide open its so obvious! Here’s my tip: when you draw the mouth CLOSED pay attention to how much space is between the chin and the line. When you draw the mouth OPEN there should be that amount of space between the BOTTOM LIP and the chin. Remember, only the bottom jaw moves!
Your best friends with drawing expressions is the mouth, eyebrows,and eyes. Even a non expressive character can emote with subtle changes in those three main points!
The face is all attached to each other. If a character is giving a huge grin, the bottom eyelid will be pushed up with it, and the nostrils will move to be inline with the corners of the mouth always. If an eye is fully open the crease is long and defined, if it’s closed its very faint and short. If the eyebrows are pushed down the skin will fold and hood the eyelid, if they’re raised up the eyelid and crease will both become taller/more round. If the eyebrows are pressed together there will be a wrinkle at the bridge of your nose. When you move your mouth there are creases connected to your nose. Eyebrows, eyes, and mouths are the most major parts of expression, but these smaller details are what really sells it.
A wide smile where your upper lip curls up will often show the bottom tips of your upper gums! Don’t be afraid to draw the gums in, because a) it make the smile look really big and genuine and b) if you don’t your character looks like they just have really big teeth.
Less realistic indicators of emotion are things that don’t actually happen, but are often used to exaggerate expression. If you watch anime or cartoons you’ve probably seen it in action. These aren’t great if you’re going for a realistic look, but in stylized or cartoony looks these are super great!
The pupil increases and decreases in size, the iris does not. In many cartoons they will shrink the iris in order to give the character a lot of white space between that and their eyelid. Use this to express shock, fear, anger, any expression with very wide eyes.
The mouth when closed is the smallest it’ll go naturally, but sometimes people will draw it smaller, vertically, to mean quiet, shocked listening, etc.
Hair does not floof with your emotions they way it does in anime.
Sometimes people will draw bags under their eyes that just appear when they’re angry, sad, disgusted, etc. Eye bags don’t work like that, but they can be a good way to express negative emotions.
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