Phoneme Shapes Reference Guide

You have probably have see the Preston Blair phone shapes, and these are great for cartoons. But what if you are not doing cartoons, when then?

You really cant use the shapes as they are exaggerations, cartoons are, that's why we've decided to publish the basic 9 phoneme shapes in pdf form, both front and side images, to help you get the "real world", shapes right.

1. There are some very important points to remember, and we'll explain why too.
2. There is no such thing as an exact phoneme shape.
3. These images are approximations.
4. Male and female are different.
5. Emotions come in to play.
6. Age comes into play.
7. What else do i need to know?

1) Every body is different, every character is different, while we all have the same facial muscle groups, the strength and weakness as well as our facial shape is different for everybody. That's why you have to take some creative licence when creating these shapes.

2) After studying1000's of hours of video, we can give you a reasonably good interpretation for a 30' something white european male, even though the model looks a little older. There are differences, albeit slight, in different races, and these you should look at when developing your characters. More importantly is the age of the character, the obesity level, the fitness level, the BMI (body fat index) and the muscle development, and the sex of the character.

At 20, women are generally 10 percent shorter than men.
At 20, women are generally 20 percent lighter than men.
Female cranium is about 10% smaller than a mans.
The Mandible (lower jaw) bone of a woman is rounded, while the male's is squared.
A males gonion (most posterior inferior point on angle of mandible) is more flared out and sharply angled.

So what difference does all this make? Well, its about how when you see a woman speak you tend to see more of here teeth that of a male's. And if you think about it, because of the differences, and nature as she always does, uses the minimum amount of energy to achieve the goal, the woman would have to open wider to get the volume that a man achieves. Take a look at a typical news show, the Ken and Barbie presenters, look at the amount of movement, and you'll see it in play.

4) Well of course they do, but it's important to note the amount of variation, e.g. the amount of movement in anger, is greater in the male then the female. And the greeting's emotions, the movement amount is reversed.

5) Yes age gets us all in the end, and with respect to facial movement, it's generally more than a 20 year old saying the same sentence. Also if you look are carefully you see much more of an old persons bottom teeth than upper. Why? Gravity and age, the muscles that hold you bottom lip in place, are not as strong, and gravity pulls you bottom lip down, which shows more bottom teeth, and by the same logic, less upper teeth.

6) There is not enough time and space here to explain all that we know, and if you are just looking for a guideline, these should serve you well. Its important to have creative input too, but with respect to facial moment, don't go too far, as most of the time, photo real characters are often given away by not following these guidelines, and exaggerating too much. Remember the Preston Blair was for cartoons, not photo real characters.

Next the phoneme table, and the download of Letterbox's Phoneme Shape Reference Guide