What’s in a face

The unusual use of the baby face bias makes us uneasy.

Baby Face Bias – We tend to see people with baby-face features as being more naive and helpless, innocent and honest, than people with mature facial features. ‘Baby-face features’ include round features, big eyes, small nose, high foreheads and high chins.

If we look again at the band Gorillaz you can see that the baby-face proportions are in place but it has been deviated by the replacement of certain aspects. Some have beady eyes, others have low foreheads or big noses. This throws us off because of another bias.

Princess Clara

Attractiveness Bias – In Gorillaz the have been given asymmetrical and exaggerated features which is in contradiction to the baby-face bias. This puts us off because of the attractiveness Bias. Attractive people have a tendency to appear more intelligent, moral and friendly. Inversely, unattractive people come off as shifty, slow and unsociable. It’s these things we see in the Gorillaz’s characters that make us uneasy.

So we know that people tend to like attractive people more, but what is considered attractive? Just take a look at Princess Clara o the left. Would you say she looks innocent and friendly?

Most Average Facial Appearance Effect. People with facial features closer to the average of the population are considered more attractive. In Princess Clara’s case, she was given big eyes to make her appear innocent, (baby-face bias), and the rest of her features are underplayed and of average proportions, (attractiveness bias). This has created an apparently trustworthy and moralistic character. This is because of yet another bias.

Would you approach this guy?

Classical Bias – You may have figured out that Clara is a conglomerate of classical Disney princesses. She is in fact a send up of those character from a show called Drawn Together which takes her to many dark places Disney wouldn’t go near. The reason this is so strange is because we are classically conditioned to see pretty young woman as sweet and innocent, (and most times in need of protecting). Another example is big, unattractive men being seen as menacing and slow-witted.

Classical conditioning is something we learn from social input at a young age. Much like the attractiveness bias and average facial feature effect, the biases it produces are culturally different. What is considered average or attractive changes around the world. So know the mindset of your audience.

Creating a Distinctive Character

Mickey's ears are always the same shape

When you watch Mickey Mouse you can notice that the shape of his ears are consistent no matter at what angle Mickey is standing. This distinctive shape allows Mickey to be quickly and easily recognised, even at a distance.

When creating a character, keep in mind that it wont always be front and centre. If your characters are in the distance, in shadow, or otherwise impeded, a viewer should always be able to tell which character is which.

Another example of using distinctive features and consistent shape is the virtual band Gorillaz. The music is created by real people, but each member of the band is presented to the public as a two-dimensional illustration, (the characters are also animated for the music clips). Thought not as well-known as the image of Mickey Mouse, these characters are unmistakable to the fans. Individuality is in the form of hats, hair styles and other accessories. These thing are also smaller details than Mickey’s ears, (other than some of the hair), but when put in combination which consistency of shape they mark each character.

Gorillaz Album cover