Animate Monty "Smokin!"

In the short beginner's animation tutorial below we show how to animate a character with no mouth saying a line of dialogue.  But how can you animate dialogue and lipsync - with no lips?  The answer is - it's all in the acting and the performance.  If the body language is working, then the audience will believe that the character is speaking - even if the character itself has no mouth.  In this tutorial we animate "Monty" saying a line of dialogue - "Smokin!" - the line originally delivered by Jim Carrey in the 80s hit movie The Mask. 

Lipsync with Monty "Smokin!"

Animate Monty saying "Smokin'!"

This simple Lipsync exercise uses the free "Monty" rig, a green pea with legs, which you can read about here, and download for free from highend3d.com. 

Monty has no mouth, so we have to use his whole body to make the dialogue work.  The audio was originally delivered by Jim Carrey in the 80s hit movie The Mask. 

Thumbnails

As always, start with thumbnail sketches to plan your work.  On the right are some rough planning drawings to figure out how the animation will look.  Start at frame 1, and rough in all the main poses up to frame 49. 

How to Use the "Monty" Rig

"Monty"

To find out how to get the best out of Monty, see this blog post. 

Monty "Smokin" Tutorial

You can find the tutorial at the links below. The password is the same as for all our video tutorials.

https://vimeo.com/showcase/10468912

Vimeo Channel

You can find hundreds of video tutorials at our Vimeo Learning Channel here. 

Lipsync & Dialogue Resources
To find more resources on animating dialogue and lipsync, follow the links below:

• Why Lipsync Should be 2 Frames Ahead of the Audio
• Why Lipsync Needs Wide and Narrow Mouth Shapes
• Lipsync - Open Wide on the Big Vowels
• How to Block Out a Dialogue Shot
• Sesame St Sound Archive
• How to Animate Lipsync
• Lipsync Tutorial with Simone Giampaolo
• Animate Lipsync the Easy Way
  

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