This week, I continued to refine the blocking, making more detailed adjustments, and also started working on the lip sync. This stage is more focused on careful polishing and fine-tuning.

There were still some slight timing issues in the overall body movement this week. I need to constantly pay attention to maintaining coordination across the entire body.

In the preparation phase of the action, I needed to adjust the character’s eye direction to make the overall expression feel calmer. I also added blinks and similar small movements to help transition between different stages of the performance and make the character’s actions feel more natural.

When the character transitions from calm to angry, I need to exaggerate the facial expressions more to enhance the emotional impact. Without this, the expression may come across as stiff and less expressive.

In terms of facial expressions, many exaggerated features that appear when the mouth is closed tend to pull back or disappear once the mouth opens. This is especially noticeable with the corners of the mouth — when the mouth opens, the downward bend of the corners is often much less pronounced than when the mouth is closed.

For certain syllables, I needed to add more noticeable jaw movement to support the character’s speech, rather than relying solely on lip motion.

Reflection

I believe it’s important to develop the habit of constantly checking the overall body movement during the blocking stage. In many cases, unnatural animation comes from a lack of full-body motion.

For facial expressions, it’s also necessary to exaggerate when needed to enhance emotional clarity. Different emotions require different adjustments across various facial features, so it’s important to stay flexible and responsive when refining expression detail.