The Stylized SMILE:
Mouth Shapes that Work
Mouth Shapes that Work
KEY CONCEPT: Joy, in its many degrees, is by far the most complex and interesting facial expression.
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As many artists have discovered, the smile is quite difficult to render and can come with an almost unlimited degree of nuance. Realistic smiles, in particular, which are judged in terms of sincerity and inflection, require an understanding of how to depict tiny differences in detail.
 | Artists who create characters with stylized faces tend to be quite conservative with their smiles, sticking very close to the human model. From the point of view of aesthetics or character design, this can make perfect sense, but it turns out that stylized smiles can be successfully expressed with an array of shapes that can be both crude and only vaguely connected to human anatomy. This is clear in my sample array of emoticons which all get the joy message across quite effectively, with the exception of the squiggly line with the two mismatched eyes, where it’s not at all clear what expression the artist intended. |
Below, I've sketched three extremely stylized geometrical smile shapes that nonetheless work for conveying joy in simplified faces: the “U”, the triangle, and the wedge. Although the relationship between the wedge and the shape of the human open-mouthed smile is obvious, both the "U" and the triangle depart quite markedly from their anatomical counterpart, especially in their more extreme versions, suggesting the creative possibilities open to animators, cartoonists and CG artists who which to push their face design a bit further from the literal.
 "U"-Shaped Smiles |  Triangle-Shaped Smiles |  Wedge-Shaped Smiles |
While I find that all three of these shapes are completely plausible and recognizable as smiles, even stylized expressions have an envelope of legibility, beyond which things become unreadable. Below, I’ve included three failed smiling face examples that seem to exceed the boundaries of acceptable shapes. In the first, the "U" is too narrow to be legible as a smile (although some might disagree); in the second, the triangle as a recognizable smile loses its communicability when the angles are softened to a more rounded shape; and, finally. when the wedge is modified so that the shape is virtually a rectangle, its readability as a joyous expression fails.
 Failed "U"-Shaped Smile |  Failed Triangle-Shaped Smile |  Failed Wedge-Shaped Smile |
 Closed-mouth Smile ("U")  Open-mouth Smile (Triangle or Wedge) | Clearly, there are certain graphic triggers that we require in order to see smiles, but I’m not completely clear as to all the elements involved, or how they succeed in suggesting the anatomy of the real smile. Here’s my conjecture: in these three examples there are two factors at work, the "U" which involves a curved line, inflected so that it bows upwards. This simplification most likely works because it suggests the curve of the line between the lips in the closed-mouth smile - see my realistic drawing, left. The other version, the wedge or triangle, requires a straight upper edge, and a lower border which is narrower than the upper. It also must be angular, simulating the tight, stretched look of the upper lip of the open-mouth smile - see my realistic drawing, left. (The wiggly line in the failed emoticon is perhaps an attempt to suggest a slack or twisted mouth, but neither of those configurations is associated with joy.) |
The reason our criteria for seeing smiles in the crudest of shapes is so inclusive is because smiles are dramatically different than all of the other mouth configurations with which they might be confused. We really can’t mistake the arc or "U", the wedge, or the triangle, for any other mouth expression. Add to that, the fact that we have an enormous social need to see smiles, if given the slightest opportunity. It's why we can detect joy with the slightest and most abstracted of cues, as long as certain basic shape and angle criteria are met.
Of course, all bets are off when we deal with human or very realistic faces, when we use an entirely different brain mode to do our analysis, one which is much pickier. But as far as stylized smiles go, artists can be, and have been extremely inventive; look at what the geniuses at Disney did to make Donald Duck, with his rigid beak, and Winnie the Pooh with his big curved line for a smile, appear happy.
Of course, all bets are off when we deal with human or very realistic faces, when we use an entirely different brain mode to do our analysis, one which is much pickier. But as far as stylized smiles go, artists can be, and have been extremely inventive; look at what the geniuses at Disney did to make Donald Duck, with his rigid beak, and Winnie the Pooh with his big curved line for a smile, appear happy.
Credits: Top: 3 Disney characters: Winnie the Pooh from "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" movie (1977), Aladdin from the "Aladdin" movie (1992) and Donald Duck, the character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions; Emoticons by www.FreePik.com; 9 smiling face sketches by Gary Faigin; 2 realistic smile drawings from "The Artists Complete Guide to Facial Expression," by Gary Faigin © 1990 .
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