Animation drawing eyes

[Morisato]

This has been bugging me for a while now. A lot of animes (maybe all?) in the last several years have this style where the character's eyes actually clip through their hair. If the character's hair is moving/waving, their hair actually goes BEHIND their eyes. It never feels right to me whenever I see that.

It's like the eyes are on a separate layer. Do animators nowadays just draw the face and hair and add the eyes on the computer?

[Kyuu]

Wait. Show some video evidence of this plz.

If the character's hair is moving/waving, their hair actually goes BEHIND their eyes.

I haven't noticed any of that myself. But, I'd like to see.

[Morisato]

Well this is the most recent anime I watched but it happens in a lot of other animes too.

Spoiler for Images:

[Kyuu]

Hmmm. Chances are: I've seen that pattern myself. However, I tend to view it as: the eyes are seen through the hair. After all, hair (even as a bunch) isn't one large solid object. Yet, looking at those pictures, I can also interpret it as a product of lazyness.

[fertygo]

Goddamn, OP just put the worst example ever.

Yamauchi's art style is always like that, go watch some Saint Seiya. and that is like 80ish anime.

Older anime like Utena and others also use same effect, if anything that style is so "retro".

Originally Posted by Kyuu

Hmmm. Chances are: I've seen that pattern myself. However, I tend to view it as: the eyes are seen through the hair. After all, hair (even as a bunch) isn't one large solid object. Yet, looking at those pictures, I can also interpret it as a product of lazyness.

lolwut?

[brocko]

This use to really irk and bug the hell out of me before. So much that I was contemplating in creating a thread like this myself.

You can kinda justify it in the examples above, since you can treat it as though you're seeing the eyes through and pass the covering hair. In this case it's hard to tell whether it's done on purpose as an artstyle or whether it's due to bad production values.

However when the eye just overlaps and covers the hair completely is when it just looks bad and an obvious sign of either bad production values and/or laziness (but animators don't exactly often work under the best of conditions, so i guess they can be forgiven for something as minor as this). I'll post some examples of this specific case when I eventually find them (it's a lot harder than I thought it'd be tbh lol 15 mins of searching and nothing so far haha).

EDIT: lol i knew i could rely on shuffle!



It's physically impossible dammit! How can the hair actually go beneath the eyes?!

[Ichihara Asako]

I doubt it's simple laziness/poor QC. It's an artistic design choice in the vast majority of cases, I'm sure. The eyes are important, so they're given priority over other facial features. Pretty much nothing more to it.

[sukidanica]

I think this just happens on episodes.That's why I like reading more than watching.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by fertygo

Goddamn, OP just put the worst example ever.

Yamauchi's art style is always like that, go watch some Saint Seiya. and that is like 80ish anime.

What's wrong with Saint Seiya? As long as I can remember, they drew/animated the interaction between the hairs and the eyes correctly:




Nothing's wrong with them, right?

[Endless Soul]

The hair/eye thing doesn't bug me that much. However if a character is wearing glasses where parts of the frame disappear so you can see the eyes, that bugs me a bit. I've seen a few examples but the most obvious one I can think of is Tsuruko from Ano Hana:

Spoiler for Picture:

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by brocko

It's physically impossible dammit! How can the hair actually go beneath the eyes?!

I never interpreted it as "going beneath the eyes". The hair is made to look transparent so the expressive eyes are able to be seen. Covering the eyes with opaque hair loses the effect of the expression in the eyes.
Artists do this all the time, including myself.

The hair/eye thing doesn't bug me that much. However if a character is wearing glasses where parts of the frame disappear so you can see the eyes, that bugs me a bit. I've seen a few examples but the most obvious one I can think of is Tsuruko from Ano Hana:

Now that would bother me....

[4Tran]

While some cases of transparent hair can be attributed to poor animation, I belive that it's done on purpose most of the time. I can even remember seeing character design notes instructing the animators to always show the eyes.

Originally Posted by Morisato

It's like the eyes are on a separate layer. Do animators nowadays just draw the face and hair and add the eyes on the computer?

Usually, no. Most character art is hand drawn in black and white and then scanned into the computer for compositing and coloring.

[Coldlight]

Originally Posted by brocko

EDIT: lol i knew i could rely on shuffle!

<snip>

It's physically impossible dammit! How can the hair actually go beneath the eyes?!

Those are some good examples of what I think the OP was trying to say. That "effect" used to annoy and bother me a lot as well, and they still do a bit when I focus too much on the character's closeup appearance. But for the most part, I've become able to just ignore and forget it. After all, there's still the story to focus on.

In those examples, to me, the hair just doesn't look like it was made transparent, unlike the earlier examples by the OP. The way the hair tips were cut off really looked like the hair... well, went beneath the eyes. Even though the original intention was likely to expose the eyes to the viewer.

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by Coldlight

The way the hair tips were cut off really looked like the hair... well, went beneath the eyes. Even though the original intention was likely to expose the eyes to the viewer.

Couldn't it be that the character cut her bangs so they would not hang in her eyes?

Arina Tanemura does this but her way is a bit more convincing as the hair frames the face so it looks more like an actual hairstyle.



If I had to choose, I much prefer the characters to have long bangs that frame their face. While it's not always realistic, characters who have very short bangs look like they have GIANT foreheads and it's kinda....well, unattractive.


As far as animation goes, I suppose what animators should do is make parts of the eye lighter so you still have the transparent hair look yet you can tell it's unmistakably in front of the face like it should be.
I'll post an example later unless someone beats me to it.

[DXMichael]

The hair doesn't bug me too much when I see things such as that.

But as Endless Soul posted in the picture, I hate when actual objects disappear.

[Rethice]

I don't mind it at all, to be honest, even clipping out glasses to see their eyes. Why? Simple.

An animated character only has so many ways to express themselves - they lack the detail and features to truly express themselves far beyond their eyes, eyebrows and mouths. For this reason, it is a tradeoff the animators choose to make, sacrificing realism for expression, which I think is necessary most of the time.

When was the last time you saw the wrinkles of a character's cheeks beyond pulling an intentional funny face? If you look at people a lot, you'll find minor things that we see to read emotions which just can't always exist in the anime medium due to the fact that adding in that kind of detail is usually ugly, or at least takes away from the "moe" aspect of a character.

Now it isn't always a bad situation, adding in extra details. Take for example the art style distinct to Boku wa Tomodachi and Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko. The illustrations in that involve a very unique addition of lips, and I hoenstly find this adds a lot to the character's expression. Small things like that make a big difference.

Next time you see a moment where the eyes show through an object or hair, just imagine it didn't. Try to picture how much more distant and hidden that character would seem.

"The eyes are the windows to your soul."

[brocko]

Well intentional or not, regardless, it gets jarring as hell to look at sometimes. I'd still prefer it if they'd try to avoid it altogether, since it's a tradeoff that I'd much rather didn't happen.
But meh w/e guess I'll just chalk it up as another case of anime logic whenever it occurs then



I'm glad this thread got made though, the thought that they'd draw the hair and eye interactions like that on purpose to emphasise the eyes for extra expression would've never occured to me otherwise.

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by brocko

I'd still prefer it if they'd try to avoid it altogether, since it's a tradeoff that I'd much rather didn't happen.

Avoid it? I'm sorry my friend but with a character who has REALLY long bangs, it's just not possible!

See, I took our little friend Merry here from the screencaps Morisato posted and edited her hair.




Now this looks fine. The hair is covering her eyes in a realistic fashion and it doesn't really take away anything from her face.

BUT if I do the same thing in a shot where her hair is covering most of her face?

This doesn't work so well. As you can see (or not see) her pout face is no longer visible. We can't really tell what she's feeling here.

So.......what option is left over to fix this problem?



This. What I did is use the eyedropper tool to get the color of her hair, paint over the black parts of her eyes and lower the opacity of the layer.
The hair now looks like it's in front of her face but you can still see her face. This looks better than either option, yes?

(yes, I know the editing in the second one is somewhat obvious but F*CK LIGHT GRADIENTS!! ) That's not the point anyway.

[Morisato]

Originally Posted by Chiibi

Avoid it? I'm sorry my friend but with a character who has REALLY long bangs, it's just not possible!

See, I took our little friend Merry here from the screencaps Morisato posted and edited her hair.

Spoiler for Image:

Now this looks fine. The hair is covering her eyes in a realistic fashion and it doesn't really take away anything from her face.

BUT if I do the same thing in a shot where her hair is covering most of her face?

Spoiler for Image:

This doesn't work so well. As you can see (or not see) her pout face is no longer visible. We can't really tell what she's feeling here.

So.......what option is left over to fix this problem?

Spoiler for Image:

This. What I did is use the eyedropper tool to get the color of her hair, paint over the black parts of her eyes and lower the opacity of the layer.
The hair now looks like it's in front of her face but you can still see her face. This looks better than either option, yes?

(yes, I know the editing in the second one is somewhat obvious but F*CK LIGHT GRADIENTS!! ) That's not the point anyway.

I should mention that this example was more of a split second frame. as she was lifting her head up. So the expression on her eyes is less important. I noticed it cause the way her eyes were popping out her hair was really jarring to me. If it was the way you edited, I wouldn't have even noticed (lasted for like less than 0.5 second).

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by Morisato

If it was the way you edited, I wouldn't have even noticed (lasted for like less than 0.5 second).

Which edit did you mean thar? The first or second?