Animated portraits

[Alex V.Sharp]

perhaps the blinking period is too slow.

Could be; I don't know. Quoted from Wikipedia: "Blink speed can be affected by elements such as fatigue, eye injury, medication, and disease. The blinking rate is determined by the "blinking center", but it can also be affected by external stimulus". I just tried to make it look realistic - even this is too fast for natural blinking...

You could also combine into talking and blinking.

Actually, my original idea to animate the portraits was from about four years ago, and they were suppose to be a combination of blinking and talking. I found a back-up of this old test flash I done back then to see what it would look like (note: the dummy lip movement was just horrible ) so check it out if you wish.

However, while studying modern anime facial movement I noticed that characters mostly don't blink while they talk, or at all for that matter. The animators usually change a lot of camera positions and so avoid having to animate blinking - it's an illusion to make the viewers think the actor already blinked. Sneaky devils...

What about breathing

Might be an interesting idea - I'll look into it while preparing those "special" portraits I've mentioned earlier.

It look nice but you'll need to add the upper lip and some kind of tongue so it won't look like a hole just happen to open.

The upper lip? Perhaps. Not all characters seem to have it drawn anyway... As for the tongue, it isn't really necessary. It could be a nice detail but once the portraits are shrunk even a little it would be nothing more then a red dot. And to be honest: I've got other resources to prepare then fixing missing tongues...

You could do it for me? Help is always welcomed. 8)

I can't wait to check out that flash movie.

It'll be a loooooong wait, but I promise you I'll try and see it through!
The more people join up the faster (and more qualitative) it will be.