A character study exercise with stock photographs

By juxtaposing certain animal heads with human bodies I am attempting to create a sense of character, which is ideally reinforced through written descriptions of each character.

Misconceptions & Ethology

Common experience teaches us that people often attempt to read human emotions into photos of animals, or to project certain emotions and attributes onto the animal, based on the facial set of the animal. This is understandable, given that people will naturally use their own experiences of what seems to be a pensive look, or an angry look, or a look of contentment, etc… Ethology is the study of animal behavior, and it’s the field of science that most closely deals with the issue of emotion in animals. Although many lay people will advocate that animals they know have emotions, in fact the matter is not considered accepted scientifically. Because we do not have the benefit of language for communicating with animals, scientists have declined to state whether or not animals experience emotion in the same way that humans do.

Character development study

This is also an exercise in character development. As an animator who develops characters with graphics tools, I will often first concentrate the “look and feel” of a character.  The initial stages of character development involve the design, color scheme, clothing, body language and posture, as well as facial expression. Further levels of character design would include the vocal characteristics, speech patterns and personality traits. This series of images attempts to combine the body, gesture and physical traits of a particular person, as well as their environment, with the facial qualities of a given animal, ideally combining all of these things to create a believable character.

The questions I try to pose when creating this project are:

• To what extent does the body type, body language, dress and situation affect our impression of what the animal might be thinking?

• How much does the impression our emotion in an animal depend on how its face is set?

• Does the addition of a written description of the character enhance or emphasize our impression of it?

Appropriated Imagery