25 Expressions Challenge

I wanted to take on this challenge so I could work on drawing different expressions for my character. Instead of looking up other peoples interpretation of the 25 expressions challenge, I decided to take photo's of myself doing all the expressions, or at least TRYING to. I understand some of them aren't very good but it was surprisingly difficult to force particular emotions and for the sake of character development they're all very over exaggerated. I tried experimenting a little with different poses too.

Before any of you mistaken this idea for being vain, the reason why I did this was because, I find that after looking at other peoples attempts at this challenge, you end up copying their style or way of drawing each expression and I wanted to make sure I didn't get stuck in that trap. I find that photos make a much more better material for referencing from because you can get a better idea of anatomy and lighting. Sure there are lots of artists that manage to achieve this with their style but anime and comic character tend to have a very different approach to anatomy by exaggerating features. So ultimately, I would press that photos are a better source for referencing.

This is one of the sketches of my character that I've drawn by using the expressions sheet above. This is drawn from the 'Angry' expression in the top right hand corner. I actually found this really difficult because I had problems getting the expression right so, the sheet above didn't really help as much as I had hoped. I think the translation between real life and a cartoon-like drawing was made it hard.  I had to mess about with the mouth and eyes a lot to create a more believable expression.