#lawll

here are our beloved examples WY + LZ, our Expressive to Brick Wall emotional range!

a lot of expression drawing guides mention squashing or stretching the face shape itself (like when your mouth is hanging open, your face appears longer bc ur jaw is lower) but if im being quite honest i dont do that a lot in my style personally unless its for Really Pushed expressions or comedic effect? its worth looking into if u want more realistic or fluid expressions but i dont bother with it 90% of the time

if we're getting angry or sad, we wanna narrow the eyes Down as if the eyelid or eyebrows are coming down over the eye, if you do this a whole bunch and make them really angled like \/ then it looks angrier (See my darling xianxian) , if you don't move them a lot or theyre less angled it looks less intense overall (which is perfect for my darling zhanzhan!), and obviously if you do more of a /\ angle, then you can make them sad rather than angry.

mouth wise for angry or sad expressions im usually making the lips thinner, maybe the mouth a little wider overall (see: LZ's example) because the mouth is pressed in a hard line. or in the case of more of a disgusted vibe like WY's example, the lip comes out past the mouth a little more than usual to make a bit more of a curled lip/sneer impression.

and wrinkles ! love em! a wrinkle between the eyebrows makes them look furrowed + therefore more angry, sad, confused, etc. and u can push a bit more with wrinkles at the top of the nose (like when you scrunch your nose up!) + under the eyes, which is very helpful for making characters look Even Squintier or tired. i dont usually do it around the forehead or mouth unless im going for smth real pushed, just bc i personally think it ages them a bit too much, but when it works it works!

happy/lovey dovey ass expressions r my fave thing in the world and one hundred percent something ive stolen hardcore from cartoons and anime LAWLLL

in the case of more expressive characters like WY i tend to scrunch the eyes UP from the bottom, as if their cheek is coming up over the eye (rather than their eyelid or eyebrow coming down over it) like when u smile.

eyebrows wise i like to at the very least Slightly raise them or angle them Up. for characters that are being super sappy and lovey dovey if you make the eyebrows. look...kinda sad? like angled in a similar /\ way as you would if they were sad. but with the slight raise + the slightly smiley scrunched up eye, then it makes em look sooooo hearteyed <333

the joy of drawing simplistic ass eyes that r just a plain colour + a pupil is that taking away/adding that pupil, or changing its shape or colour immediately changes everything, if i add the white pupil they look way happier than if i dont include it, if i make it a black pupil (when the eye is coloured and not just a black blob) it looks a little bit like the smile is fake because their eyes arent 'lit up', and if i make it a heart then theyre even More hearteyed than previously stated, wow, joys.

mouth wise, the lil ovals at the ends of the mouth do a LAWT of heavy lifting, angle them up and uve got a smile even if the mouth otherwise is perfectly flat, angle them down and its a frown

shocked expressions.... my enemy... drawing eyes wider is such a pisstake to draw most of the time for some reason! just make the top of the eye more round instead of the flat thing ive got going on usually and it already looks more wide-eyed, even if i keep the iris exactly as i usually draw it. usually when i draw irises theyre sort of. more of a slanted rectangle than a circle, so when i make the shape more circular literally just by erasing part of the iris that meets the top of the eye, it looks wider and more shocked p much immediately. just make everything rounder.

lighting + colours + shading do SO much heavy lifting also, like if you add shadows around the eye area it looks much more ominous than without, a little shadow under the eyes and youve got some eyebags going, blush is obvious, eyeshines, etc etc