A technique for eyelashes

[Barry Baker]

I thought I'd share this with you. I made a couple of custom brushes for a single purpose, drawing eyelashes. Instead of drawing out a lot of vector shapes which are a pain to animate, I thought it might be much easier to simply design a brush that could be used in a single outline to give the same effect with less work. Here is an example quicktime:

View eye.mov

I've zipped up the brushes and the example Moho file so you can see how it's done.

Download eyelash brushes here

There are two sizes of brush, 128x128 and 256x256. I noticed that all of the brushes that come with Moho are no bigger than the smaller size, but I tried doubling it, and it works for me, with much better results, in this case.

Copy the pair you want (there are left and right eyelashes) to your brush folder in Moho, then start or restart the program. They won't appear in the pull down list unless they were already there when the program started. Make a line with linewidth 64, then apply either brush. Use the tapering tool to narrow the line at each end. You only need 3 points for the line. The two outer points then stay anchored with the corners of the eye, and you only need to move the middle point around to open and close the eye. The eyelashes won't appear in the editing view unless you have turned on "Brushes" in "Display Quality", but they will still render in any case.

Hope someone finds it useful.

[myles]

Instead of drawing out a lot of vector shapes which are a pain to animate, I thought it might be much easier to simply design a brush that could be used in a single outline to give the same effect with less work.

That is a great tip - looks good - thanks, Barry!
It's very nice how the lashes move in relation to one another as the eyelid closes.

I've zipped up the brushes and the example Moho file so you can see how it's done.

Thanks!

You only need 3 points for the line. The two outer points then stay anchored with the corners of the eye, and you only need to move the middle point around to open and close the eye.

Delightfully simple but effective design.

Regards, Myles.

[Banterfield]

Really neat. What a clever technique.

[bupaje]

Thanks Barry, work and look great.

[AcouSvnt]

Excellent! Nice work on the pupil movement too ...

[bupaje]

Have to come back and give you another thumbs up. I took a look at the animation and brush and liked it; I needed to add some eyes to a character and now started through the moho file you provided and realized that a simple 'nice job' didn't do it justice when I saw all the different switch examples for the eye and eyebrow etc. Really nice, useful and very cool.

[Barry Baker]

I'm glad you're finding it useful. When I've finished the film I'm working on, I should have some more tips to share - I've learned such a lot through the job!