This was the phase that took up the bulk of my time, and I felt I improved the most on! Dynamic facial expressions have always been my weakness, as I’ve always been more of a solo illustration kind of girl, and there hasn’t been much of a need for expressions in anything that isn’t sequential art. But if I wanted to write a good comic, I knew how important this part was! The ultimate rule to storytelling is “Show, don’t tell” and that especially goes in the case of comics, where you’re literally seeing what’s going on.

I knew right away that I had to work on these… a lot. I wanted to redo them entirely after receiving Jouchelle’s feedback. And as expected, she helped a ton. Along with the red lines, she made comments and sent me plenty of resources to ingrain into my head when I’m working on expressions in the future.

At this point, it was all starting to come together! I had much more of an understanding of what needed to be done and what makes an expression “dynamic”. Also, with the addition of their shoulders/busts, I can add even more movement and mood to them, because it’s not just in the face!

Here’s my final run through of the expressions: