The eye's have it!

Helllooo readers!

Well the past weekend/week so far have been rather busy! But I've managed to squeeze in some eye research of course.

Firstly, towards the end of last week, my friend Amar pointed me the direction of this video from National Geographic, Eyes: The Windows to Your Health

I love the close ups of the eyes, the patterns are so interesting, definitely something there to take away and play with.

I had seen this one a while ago, but thought it was relevant to the subject, and definitely worth a re-watch, plus, it's interesting (well to me anyway!). But another cool source for patterns!

Another friend, Chris, contacted me through twitter and mentioned how Animation Collaborative did a lecture about eye darts, but unfortunately they contacted saying nothing had been put online....yet! There's still hope!

What I took away from Chris' notes, was that the eyes are the most relateable source of contact, the windows to the soul. As humans, we look there first. I'll digress a little....but this also made me think about how I am with my cats; I know why they don't like eye contact instinctively, but it feels wrong or unnatural, from a human perspective, for this to happen. 

Anyway, so the eyes darting, or saccading (as Alex taught us about last time), help us to build an entire picture. Darts are an important visual aid too, as it signifies a thought process. We can build internal images and memories but these are also important for human's interaction and body language. On top of that, these are important details for animators, character designs, drawers, you name it, to take on board. Capturing those moments are telling tiny stories, and that's what's it's all about, isn't it?

I also started to look into animal eyes too, especially with the senses programme from the first Eye post. They are quite incredible to look at, but I do want to go into more depth about these in terms of research, instead of getting distracted by just the pretty colours....

Check out these crazy close up animal eyes too, they look like portals to other dimensions. 

Bit of a mixture of things today, I'd like to focus on the movement of the eye next and the body language too! So I'll see what that entails for the next few days.... 

I hope you enjoyed reading/looking/watching this post and was in someway helpful, or interesting.

I've started get the pen's and pencils out now, I'm rather excited to start exploring, who's with me?!

P.s thank you to all the contributors so far, you guys rock! I love getting your suggestions, links and what not. So if you have any cool links, feel free to add them below, and if you have any suggestions for topics be sure to comment with those too! If you would prefer to email me, click on the "My Email" link in the right hand column