3D - Posing MERY

For this exercise I was given the rig 'MERY' to work with, so I could focus on posing her and looking at camera angles. I had to portray 5 different emotions, but exaggerate it with MERY's body.

Emotion 1: Sneaky

The first emotion I looked at was 'sneaky'. I didn't want to stick with the very basic/common emotions, so I though sneaky was quite interesting and a bit of a challenge. I took screenshots from different angles to show MERY's expression and to highlight how I made her appear 'sneaky' - making her crouch, moving her arms apart, stretching out the fingers, putting her on her tiptoes, making her bend forwards, etc. I also included a silhouette so the position stands out, and can clearly show the emotion without the face and details.

Emotion 2: Happy

For my second emotion I looked at MERY being happy, however I portrayed this by making her doing an arabesque. (ballet pose) The elongation of all her limbs makes her look open and joyful, which helped me show this emotion. Things I would change might be the foot on the floor needs to actually be on the floor, and the body seems very straight in the middle. On the other hand, I didn't do these things because a 'regular' person can't do the exact stance of a ballerina. The point of the pose was to express an emotion, not for the pose to be perfect in dance terms. I think the silhouette still shows the emotion well enough to be recognised.

Emotion 3: Sad/Distressed

Sticking with the more simple emotions, I wanted to portray sadness, but I wanted to take it a bit further and depict distress. Originally I was going to make MERY curled up completely, but I struggled to make this look natural. Her thighs kept going inside her waist, so I made it so she was less curled up. At first I had the legs symmetrical, but then the whole body looked 'too perfect', so I kept the arms the same and moved one leg up. Again, I think the silhouette shows the emotion well without the face.

Emotion 4: Determined

For my 4th emotion I chose to do 'determined'. At first I struggled on how to portray this, but I knew I wanted to position MERY in a lower pose as I had mostly looked at standing poses. Therefore, I made MERY lie on the ground and then made her appear 'determined' by making her look as if she was crawling in an action movie. It was a struggle to make her completely on the ground, so I had her kneel and push up with her arms, as if she was looking up at the enemy. I'm proud of this pose as it was quite a challenge, and the silhouette looks good. The only problem I have with this emotion is that it can be seen as quite similar to 'sneaky'.

Emotion 5: Authority 

For this emotion I made MERY take a teacher role to show 'authority'. At first I was going to make her more cross or angry, but once I'd placed her in this position I felt she looked more authoritative, and made the face reflect this. The hand on the hip was a challenge. Her hand kept on going into her body, so it took a few attempts to get it right. I still feel the arm is a little low,and the pose would be stronger if her hand on hip was higher. I put MERY in a skirt this time to reflect the teacher role - it just seemed more appropriate than leggings.

In this post I have just shown my poses, but I will explore cinematography and different camera angles to make each pose more dramatic/to suit the emotions.