Roja media welcomes you to a tutorial on character lip shapes. Friends. This tutorial is about making your cartoon characters speak. Speech makes the character get a life of its own. It also gets a personality because of the way he talks. And that's the aim of animation to convince the audience that your cartoon character is a real person.

To create the effect of a character speaking, it's lip movements must match with the words spoken. The process of synchronizing the words with the movement of a character's mouth is called as character lip sync short form for lip synchronization. In this tutorial, we'll learn how to draw the lip shapes for various sounds. Let's open the file in which we dissected a character first, since we are going to make important changes in this file. Let's save a copy. Instead of working on the original file, we'll go to the File menu Click on Save as will name the copy of the file as character lips shapes will need to work on the mouth of the character.

So let's magnify the mouth. Select the character and press Ctrl plus alt plus s to bring up the scale and rotate dialog box and enter the value 200%. Bring the character to the center of your work area, we need more magnification. Let's scale it again to say 120%. Okay, this is a good size to work with. Shuffle the character till the face comes right in the middle of the stage.

If you remember our tutorial on character, the section and rigging the lips symbol is inside the head symbol. Let's enter it with a double click and then double click again on the lips symbol. Observe the levels of your work in our file. Here's the main stage then come The boy symbol, the boy underscore head symbol, and then inside is the boy underscore lips symbol. For an animator, it is very important to be able to jump from one symbol to another. This systematic convention saves precious time and accelerates the work.

Now, what we are planning to do is to draw the different lip shapes for the characters inside the lip symbol, zoom into the lip part of the face. Before we go ahead, let's understand some basics about lip shapes and the pronunciation of words. If you have observed, our mouth assumes specific shapes when we talk, the movements change according to whether we are pronouncing a consonant like b, m, B, C, Zed, T, or whether we are pronouncing a vowel like a e, i o You as we go about drawing the lip shapes, we'll use a chart for an easy reference. As we just said, you learn to draw a total of 16 common types of lip shapes, eight for happy lips, and the other eight for sad lips. Also, if it is possible, we recommend you to keep a mirror with you. This will help you check the lip shapes with the shapes your mouth takes.

When you say the concerns and wobbles. You will soon realize that this tutorial is one of the funniest in the set first, happy lips. To start with, select the lip. You'll remember that when we dissected the boy character, we created the mouth shape as a group to transform the lip group into an editable object. break it apart by pressing Ctrl plus b. All right, let's begin the work now.

The lip shape that we have on our first frame For the concerns be m p. There is a simple way to check this. Just pronounce the word mama or bum puppy. If you have the mirror with you look in it. As you say the word, you would find that the lips turn into the shape we have on the first frame. Now, since we want eight shapes here, we'll click on the eighth frame on the timeline, and press f5 to add a frame. Let's create the lip shape for the sound a Now, check out the shape in your chart and say the alphabet to yourself to be doubly sure, say the words.

Yay. Hey, bay, or a it matches the reference shape, right. Okay, let's draw the shape then. On the timeline, click on the next frame and press f6 to add a keyframe here. Choose the line tool from the toolbar. And begin drawing the lower part of the lip first, when you draw lip shapes, it's good practice to first construct the borders of the lip object.

This helps you easily locate whether the volume and the position of the mouth matches the character design at the very beginning. Observe that the color of the line you have drawn is black, and the stroke is thick, you will need to match the outline and stroke size with the original shape drawn. To do this, select the eyedropper tool from the toolbar and click on the upper lip. Now, use the ink bottle tool and click on the new line you have drawn. You will see that the new line has assumed the stroke size and color as per the detected model. Now, select the line tool again to draw and adjust the shapes to match the one we are using for reference for this switch on the snap to object button.

Now the work will be easier Now, draw another line to complete the other half of the lower lip. Here's an important point for you. When we talk. Generally, our lower lip moves more. The upper lip stays unchanged or will only need very slight changes. Check it by talking by looking into the mirror.

At present, we will concentrate on matching the shape in our reference. After the lower lip, we'll create another vital part of the lip shape the teeth. Here's the upper line of teeth and that's the lower one. Then we draw a circular shape for the tongue. Then the left side tonsil shape. Now here again, instead of drawing another line, reuse what we have drawn already, simply select this side tonsil press and hold down the Alt key on the keyboard and drag and drop a copy to its new position.

Now, while it is still selected, go to the Modify menu, select the transform tab, and click on flip horizontal. Now, zoom out of the screen to see the shape with the other parts of the face. Compare it with the reference shape for the moment will only focus on drawing the shapes will fill color in the shapes later when we are done with all the shapes. Let's recap the six parts of the lip shapes the upper lip, the lower lip, the upper line of teeth, bottom line of teeth, the tongue and the tonsils. Note that in some shapes, we will Keep some parts. You'll see it as we go on to create the remaining six shapes on the timeline, click on the next frame, and press f6 to add a keyframe.

This time, we'll learn to draw the happy lip shape for the sound. Ah, or I. Now look at this reference lip shape we have and say the words art, tada look in your mirror to double check. Let's see how this shape is done. Now, since all the six parts of lips shapes are drawn, concentrate on reusing and adjusting them to create the rest of the shapes. Why should we do this?

The reason is that when we draw new objects, there are chances that the design proportions might change. This would look odd, our main objective should be to draw all the lip shapes in such a way that they look like they belong to one character. All the shapes should match each other exactly involved. Do and should be consistent in proportion and style. till you get complete mastery over drawing in Flash, we recommend you stick to this simple approach. All right, now since we are aiming for a big R sound, the mouth must open more.

To do this, select the lower lip and start pressing the down arrow on your keyboard. It is advisable to use the keyboard to move the objects to ensure that they move in a straight line. Remember, we don't want to disturb the volume of the drawing. Remember that in the previous sound of a, the bottom lip was Angular. Now with the our sound, its curve becomes softer. Attach the two ends of the bottom lip to the corresponding ends of the upper lip.

Also, observe that we are not touching the upper lip at all. refer to this sketch the lower line of the teeth needs to go down further to match the extra our sound, it will become wider to as the mouth opens wider, we widen the upper line of teeth to now, if you see the effect of the sound in your mirror, you will find that the dark cave of the throat becomes more visible and the tongue stays small. So, push the tongue down till it touches the lower line of teeth. Let's see the result. Simply drag the seeker on your timeline slowly over the frames. If there is any error in the drawing, you will be able to fix it at this stage there.

The a clip shape is not in the right position. To move it, select the keyframe and then use the up arrows on your keyboard to move it to the right position. Again, check the result by dragging the timeline Sica over the three keyframes. Now, the eye shape is looking out of sync. So Select its keyframe and move the lips shape to match the previous and next mouth positions. Again, drag the seeker over the three frames.

That's it. Do you see the M A, and I sounds animated one by one. Good. Now, here is how to reuse the shapes you have. Look at the lip shape we have in front of us. Let's look at the shapes we have to make, you'll see that it quite closely resembles the shape for the L sound.

So why not create the shape First, the shape or the L sound is second last in our sequence. So go to the seventh frame, and press f6 to get the exact copy to work with. All right, the lines of teeth are exactly the same. We'll only have to redraw the tongue. Let's simply select and delete the unrequired parts one by one. Take care.

Do not select the lips and the teeth lines now Before you had to drawing the shape, refer to the picture and say the words Lily, or lol. Observe the way the tip of your tongue curls upwards to touch the roof of your mouth. Only the lower part of your tongue is visible. Okay, let's go to work on the drawing then. Select the line tool and draw the tongue shape joining the upper and lower lines of teeth. The same lip shape suits consonants like and as well.

Now, time to check if it suits the volume of the face and whether it is consistent in style with the other shapes. Go to the timeline Sega and drag it over the various keyframes slowly. Okay, looks good. Next, look at the reference shape we have. Let's go to draw the shape Okay, and so on. It's like C, Zed and the wall E. You can say the words eel cheese Observe the shape of the mouth.

So, let's go on and draw this one quickly. Go to the next frame, and press f6. To create a keyframe, delete the extra parts like the tongue and the tonsils. The teat lines also need to be redrawn. So, delete them as well. Here, the distance between the upper lip and the lower lip should reduce so select the lip objects and click the keyboard shortcut q for the free transform tool, scale it down vertically and adjust it a bit.

With the selection tool. Make the lower lip a bit Angular. Now, take the line tool and draw a line between the two lips give it a curve. while drawing the shape. You can view the previous frame to help get it in the right position. To access the previous frame, click the lesser than symbol on your keyboard to come forward again, click the greater than symbol it's a good practice to keep referring to the earlier and subsequent frames, it helps keep the new shape consistent with the previous shapes and leads to smoothly movements.

Look at the reference shape. Again, the two lines of teeth are touching each other, but there is a slight gap between them at the sides. So, again, take the line tool and draw small lines as per the reference. delete any extra lines that extend the boundaries of the mouth. Now, take the eraser tool and begin clicking on the parts of the teeth that you want to delete. Now, again, we'll check if the shape of the E sound resembles any other shape in our reference chart.

Remember that you must reuse the shapes as much as possible. Let's look at the shapes we have to make. You'll see that it quite closely resembles the shape for the F and V sound. So, let's go on to the shape. Now. The shape for the F and V sounds is last in our sequence.

To create a copy of the E lip shape, click on that keyframe, hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and drag and drop it on to the last frame. Now release the Alt key, okay, say the word of or cover, check it with your mirror. See how your lower lip verses into your mouth so that only the upper line of teeth is visible from the front. So the first thing we do is we delete the lower lip in this frame to give the feel that the upper line of teeth is pressing into the skin under the lower lip. We need to draw some extra lines. Always remember, when you want to draw an extra shape, use the group concept, press Ctrl plus G to create a group and then select the line tool now Follow the reference shape image that we have here.

Draw little lines and give them the curves as shown. After getting the proportions right, double click outside the group to come out to the lip shape. Delete the smooth teeth line that we drew before. To see the results, go back to the timeline and drag the seeker bar. See how the lips are changing their shapes to indicate the sounds of alphabets. All right, we have completed six shapes, you will observe that all the shapes are consistent with each other.

This is because we created all of them using the same basic shape. Only two shapes remain. The shape for the O sound and another for the U sound. Let's create the lips shape for the O sound now, go to the fifth frame and press f6 Create a keyframe. Now, observe the reference shape we have for the old sound. It is absolutely different from anything we have drawn till now, but we need to know the right position for it.

So, we won't delete the earlier shape we have yet, we will first use the earlier shape as a reference for the position and volume of our new shape and only then remove it. As said before, whenever you want to create a completely new shape. Always create a group, press Ctrl plus G to do so. Now that you're inside the group, you can begin your work. Select the oval tool and draw an oval. select and delete the default fill.

Now reposition the oval to match the proportions of the face. Now, let's edit the shape a bit to understand the reason for the shape in the reference, pronounce the word over or oval. See that the lips don't make A perfect oval, the edges are just a bit Angular like this. Now, when you say the old sound, the lower lip flattens. So, with the selection tool, edit the shape accordingly. Double click outside the shape and exit the group.

Now that you have the shape ready, you can delete the earlier lip shape. Observe that all the lip shapes are editable objects. The shape we have is a group. So let's break the group apart by selecting the group and pressing CTRL plus V. All right, done. Now, just one shape remains to be drawn the shape of the U sound. Check the reference shape, you will observe that the shapes for the O and u are quite similar to each other.

So we'll reuse the shape that we have created for the O shape. Press f6 on the next frame to create a keyframe. Let's work on the shape now. First, let's see if our dress Friendship is correct. say the words out or loud. Or, you know, do you see the slight difference in shapes in our lips as we say these words, when you utter the sound you the round of the lips reduces.

Let's press Ctrl plus alt plus s to call up the scale and rotate dialog box and reduce the size of the lip to say 80%. Observe that along with the scale, the shape also becomes much more angular from all sides. So choose the selection tool and adjust the curves to match the reference shape. Edit the shape till you're satisfied with his proportions and its angles. This lip shape will be used to synchronize alphabets like Q, and U. Before you go to the next stage.

It's good practice to know if this style and proportion are consistent. Select the Zoom tool and magnify the face apart of the character, run the timeline seek a forward and backward to spot any issues with the shapes. All right, the shapes look satisfactory. For now. We have just completed our first session of lip shapes for the happy face. We have learned to draw eight basic lip shapes so far to animate different alphabets and sounds.

It is now time to fill some color in the lip shapes. Here's a pointer for you as you go ahead through the next stage of color filling. Remember to keep an eye on the shapes. You might find some errors in the shapes or some changes in the proportions. So keep an eye on every shape. As we learned before, the rule is fix the error as soon as you spot it.

All right, let's color the teeth First, go to the colorful swatch and choose the white color from the drop down options. Now go to each frame. And fill the teeth with color. In the first frame, the teeth are not visible. So, go to frame number two. Select the paint bucket tool and click inside the space for teeth to fill the color.

On the third keyframe, there is a slight adjustment of proportion. use the keyboard shortcut q to access the free transform tool and make the required changes. Go on each keyframe and fill the teeth with color. Move to the sidewalls of the mouth now. Choose the brown color from the color palette. Just as before, go on each keyframe.

And fill the part with the paint bucket tool. The next part to color is the tongue, choose pink color from the palette, and then go keyframe to keyframe, filling the tongue part. Note that for now, although we are using readymade colors from the color swatch, you can always create the colors you want in the color window. All right now head to filling the Cave of the mouth. Since this is the innermost part of the mouth, it should also be the darkest of all parts. So let's create a new color.

For this. Let's pick the shade that fits in with the distinct colors, click on the fill color drop down color palette, and drag the cursor to pick the brown color used for the sidewall. Now, go to custom color panel. At the extreme right of the color dialog box. You can see the brighter and darker shades of the color selected. Now, select the right dark shade for the inner and outer lines by moving this slider down.

Remember, it should not go too close to black. Okay, now using the paint bucket tool, fill the inner mouth with the color. Run the timeline seeker to see how the character looks now. Do you see how the moving of lips suddenly brings the character to life? All right, the lip shapes for happy face are complete. So exit the boy underscore lips symbol by double clicking on the empty area.

You're now in the boy underscore head symbol with the various parts of faces as we had detected in the last tutorial. Remember that we have eight different lip shapes inside the boy underscore, lips symbol, that is eight frames also see that we have only one frame for each other face bots. So if you want to see the lips animated, you need at least eight frames for every part of the boy character. Let's insert the frames then on the timeline. Select the 25th frames for all the symbols and press f5 to add frames. Let's see if the lip shapes are getting animated outside the lip symbol.

Drag the timeline seeker and check if you can see the character talking. You can Alright, our work in the boy underscore head symbol is over. Let's come out to add frames for the remaining parts of the character. as before. Double click in the empty Note that you're in the boys in ball now, resize the timeline by pulling the extendable borders down. There, you can see all the other parts, the shirt, the legs, the tummy, etc.

Now, select the 25th frame for all paths on the timeline, and press f5. And now to define the addition of frames for the mainstage. Double click outside the boy symbol and select the 25th frame here as well. Press f5 observe that on every symbol level, we have created 25 frames. Here's a point to remember, the total number of frames for all symbols within one character must be the same. You just learned how to create the basic shapes for lips on a happy face.

In the following session, you will learn to create lip shapes for a sad face. Let's see the reference lip shapes for sad face. Begin by double clicking on the boy symbol To enter it here, double click on the boy underscore head symbol. Then on the boy underscore lip symbol, right, you will see the happy face lip shapes we just created. rename the layer as happy lips. Now, we'll create a separate layer for sad lips, click on the Insert layer icon below the layer stack.

Okay, there's our new layer node that we created happy lip shapes for the sounds. I are EOUL L and F will create the same lip shapes for the surface. As we said before, if possible, keep a mirror with you. You can refer to the movements on your face to iron out any doubts you may have. All right, back to the first shape for sad lips. Before you begin, check if the layer of happy lips is locked Remember to double check and make sure no other layer will be disturbed as you work.

Now, instead of drawing another line for the new layer, why not reuse what we already have? Let's copy the first lip shape from the happy lips layer. Simply hold down the Alt key, click on the first keyframe on the happy lips layer and drag and drop it onto the other layer. Now release the Alt key. Now we can edit the shape from happy to sad. Look carefully at the shape we are looking for.

Try to say the word mum with a sad face. If you see it in your mirror, you will find that your mouth curves upward. Here's a good rule to follow the lips shapes. When the face is happy. The lower lip moves much much more than the upper lip. When the face is sad.

The upper lip moves much much more than the lower lip. Check it yourself. Use the selection tool to edit the curves. If you feel the drawing on the happy lips layer is distracting, then you can hide it by clicking the black dot below the eye icon about the layer stack while editing. If you feel that the curves are getting erratic, then you can simply take the pencil or line tool and draw a new line. Do what gets the job done faster.

Let's zoom out to see the effect on the face. Does the character appear sad? Observe how important even one curve of just one little line is in character animation. Let's see and compare the two opposite shapes by clicking unhiding the happy lips layer to make it simpler to distinguish. We'll switch on the outline mode and change the outline color to red. Now you can see same sound MB P, but opposite shapes, you will see that just by curving the happy face lines in the opposite direction, we will be creating lip shapes for the sad face.

Now for the sound a press f6 on the next frame. Now curve the lip upwards a little more to match the reference shape. When we smile, the corners of our lips shift higher. When we are sad, they dip down so gets the corners and pull them down in proportion with the face. Now, draw the lower lip with a very soft curb. Drag the timeline seeker to and fro to check if this second shape suits the first shape in volume now Select the line tool and draw the upper line of teeth.

Try to match the reference lip shape. draw another line for the lower teeth. Then the tongue. follow it up with the tonsils. After you draw one tonsil copy and paste it in place with the ctrl plus C and Ctrl plus shift plus v shortcuts, place it in the right position, and while it is still selected, go to the Modify menu. Select the transform tab and click on flip horizontal.

Whenever you conduct a copy paste operation, always check if the lines are connected. For this, take the Zoom tool and magnify the area with the snap to long connect the ends of the lines to each other. It is important to remember that will fill these areas with color. If the object is not closed, then the fill will not appear correctly. This appears well connect Now, next is the lip shape for the sound of AR and I click on the next frame and press f6 on your keyboard to add a keyframe. Let's look at our reference shape.

It is quite similar to the eye sound. The only difference is that the lower lip has moved a bit downwards. Let's do it. With the selection tool. Select the lower lip and the lower line of teeth and push them down with the down arrow key on your keyboard. Adjust the lip corners to the lower lip and the upper line of teeth.

If you find it difficult to work with so many interconnected lines, you can create groups and then work on each line individually while editing. If you find that some lines are not getting smoother, you can either redraw the lines or select them and press the smooth button at the bottom of the toolbar. Now change the positions of the tongue and tonsils to achieve a result like the reference shape. Drag the timeline seeker from first keyframe to the third to see if you can see the sounds m a, and are animated. Now let's take the list of shapes that remain to be drawn. Observe that the shape for L sound is very similar to the shape for R. So let's reuse it, press and hold down the Alt key on the keyboard and drag and drop it onto the second last frame.

All right, the only difference between the two is the tongue. So let's delete all the unwanted parts from this keyframe. Now, draw the tongue if you pronounce the alphabet l with a sad face, you will observe that the tongue touches the roof of the mouth, like that. Draw the connecting tissue under the tongue. Now, drag the timeline seeker to see if the shape is all right. Stone to this ad lib shape for sound like C, Zed, G, D, or E. If you run this timeline seeker to and fro, you will find that the outer lip shape for the sound eye is quite similar to the shape we are seeing in our reference shape.

So let's copy the keyframe. For this, simply click on that keyframe, hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and drag and drop it onto the required frame. Now, release the Alt key. Let's edit it now. In this sound, the teeth touch each other. There is no sign of the tongue.

So delete the tongue shape. The shape is flat. So select the shape and Press Q to access the free transform tool. Now, scale it down vertically. Delete the extra line. Now with the selection tool active, edit the line between them.

Add small lines at the sides of the mouth, give them an upward curve to give the sad look. Now, remove the common line as shown in our reference shape, you can select and edit the individual lines using the free transform tool. That looks okay. Now before you go ahead to the next shape, see if the shape you created just now is similar to any other shape. You will observe that the last shape for the alphabets like F and V fits the description. So let's reuse the shape we just created.

Let's copy the keyframe. Click on that keyframe. hold down the Alt key and drag and drop it on to the last frame. Now release the Alt key. Next, delete the sideline so the inner mouth Let's scale the upper lip vertically to suit the proportion in the reference shape, we'll need to delete the lower lip. But before that, let's use it as a reference frame for the new shapes to be drawn.

Remember, when you want to create a new object without interfering with the existing drawing, use the group's concept. Press Ctrl plus G and choose the line tool. Draw small lines and give them curves to match the reference. We want to create a look of the upper line of teeth pressing onto the lower lip. When you are done, double click outside the group to turn it back into an editable object. Press Ctrl plus B to break it apart.

Now delete the lower lip. Edit the upper lip just a bit for extra effect as before. If the line is not becoming smoother, you can Draw a new line, or simply press the smooth button at the bottom of the toolbar. Only two lip shapes remain now, one for the sound, oh, and the other for you. But before that unhide the happy lips layer and run the timeline seeker to see if we have kept the identical sounds on the same frames in the timeline. Do you observe the error, the sad lip shape for the sound, he is on the same frame as the happy lip shape for the sound?

You let's fix it immediately. Simply click on the wrong keyframe, drag it to the fourth frame and drop it The issue is solved. So what did you learn from this? The lesson is this. Always refer to the other layers at regular intervals, hide and unhide them to see if you're going right. This makes your job easier and minimizes the chances of going wrong.

All right on to the shapes for the sounds. Oh and you hear that? Good news for you look at the reference shapes for them. They're exactly the same for both happy and sad faces. So let's copy them. Here's a simple keyboard shortcut for copying and pasting keyframes in the timeline.

On the happy lips layer. Select the keyframes on frame number five and then press Ctrl plus alt plus C. Click on the corresponding frame on sad lips layer and press Ctrl plus alt plus V to paste the keyframe. Repeat the same for the sixth frame. Now, let's fill the sad lip shapes with colors. Before this, ensure that the happy lips layer is locked. You will also need to switch off the outline mode to see the colors as before.

Use the eyedropper tool to select the colors for the lines of teeth. The tongue, the Cave of the mouth and the sidewalls of the mouth while filling the color, keep an eye on whether the shapes need any finishing. You can reposition, scale and edit the shapes if they appear odd in volume or consistency. To get a better idea, repeatedly move the timeline seca forward and backward that way, it will be easier to spot any jokes or design problems in the shapes As soon as you find the errors, fix them then and they're all right, we have finished filling colors in the shapes. Now, let's look out for any other processes that we have left out. Check the layer stack.

When we copied the first rain from the happy lips layer to the new layer, flash named the new layer as happy lips. This is an error and can cause a lot of confusion. So let's correct it. Double click on the name of the upper layer that has sad lip shapes and rename it as sad lips. Now even if we hide one of these layers here on the mainstage objects on both the layers will be visible. This will create confusion for the animator.

So what is the way out? Let's assume that you only want the sad lips layer to be seen on the main stage. For this. Select the happy lips layer on the layer stack. Right click Select guide, you will find that the happy lips layer gets hidden. Let's see if this is so double click in the empty area to come out of the boy underscore lips symbol.

Double click again to come to the main stage. Drag the timeline seeker back and forth to see that only the sad lips are visible. Now, let's say we want to see the happy lips on the main stage. Enter the boys underscore lips symbol. Right click on the sad lips layer in the layer stack and select the guide option. Observe that even the happy lips layer is not visible.

To make it visible. Right click on the happy lips layer and click on the guide option again to deactivate it. Then unhide the happiness layer by clicking on the cross on the layer below the icon. Exit the symbols to come on the mainstage pull the timeline seek a forward and backward to see that only the happy lips layer is visible. That takes us to the end of this tutorial on character lip shapes. In this tutorial, we learned how to draw the basic lip shapes for sounds most frequently used in character animation.

Remember, these are basic shapes. If you watch 2d animation on TV or in films, you will find that there are various ways to approach these basic shapes. The same sounds can be animated in various other ways too. This depends upon the character design and style of the show or film. Our objective in this tutorial was to clarify the basic principles of drawing lip shapes, we strongly recommend that you take a lot of time to go through this tutorial. practice drawing the lips shapes, not just on screen, but on paper to also use the mirror technique to see if you're going in the right direction.

In the next tutorial, we will be learning about lip sync. The technique used to match the character lip movements according to the dialogues That's not all. You'll also learn to add real expressions to your character. In this tutorial, you made the character talk. In the next you will turn the character into an actor via show. You enjoyed learning this talking tutorial presented by our media.

Thank you for your time. See you again.