Author: Alex Heberling

So all week I’ve been rewatching Crystal episode 1, and mulling over what I think hasn’t been working for me.  While I was fairly satisfied with Usagi’s face acting once I saw it, her eyes still look kinda lifeless and soulless, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly isn’t gelling with me.

And I think it’s her pupils.

I’ve had a similar problem with my OWN art in the past, paying so much attention to carefully and lovingly rendering eyes that they kind of turn into soulless globs of color in the characters’ faces.  Honestly, the solution, for me, was to simplify shading in eyes and let the characters’ expressions do more of the work. (Plus, being comics, the eyes are about an eighth of an inch in size anyway, so no one sees what I did most of the time, anyway.)

But for Usagi specifically, I think the teeny tiny pupils, coupled with the attention to shading that the animators did with her irises, are kind of combining to suck some of the life out of her expressions, just like it did with my own artwork.  So I just did a VERY quick edit in Photoshop to compare what a larger pupil would do for Usagi in these two screencaps.

For me, it does a lot.  I think it makes her look less vacant.  Simplifying the shading/rendering in her eyes further would probably add some more Usagi back in.  This close-up on Ami’s eyes from the next episode preview suggests that the animation team may end up doing exactly that:

My guess, is that they’re going to dial it back, but they had the extra budget to go all out on the first episode, so they spent time making everything extra shiny and sparkly. As you do.

So that’s my take/opinion on the animation so far!  Apart from this one thing that was bugging me, I really loved the first episode.  And of course, this is no judgement on anyone who loves the new animation as it is!  It’s just my opinion as an artist, and you are welcome to disagree with me. :D