How to make birbs speaketh

Lip sync can be tricky for some, all those mouth shapes and how to time them...
But what about if you gotta make birds talk? They got beaks, not mouths! Impossible right? WRONG.

Of course, this depends on how cartoony your animation is.
If you're attempting to make a photo realistic crow sing a Capella then I haven't got much advice for you. However, if you are drawing on the more stylistic side of things, allow me to other some advice as I have been distorting beaks in weird shapes for the last few days with my upcoming documentary project.

First of all, you should have at least a decent enough idea as to what mouth shapes are like. Here's some examples that I've done bellow, we'll be using this art style as reference. If you struggle with mouth shapes - grab a mirror! Pull faces in it, make the sounds... you'll look dumb, but that's part of the job!

These are just my way of drawing them, you might wanna do them differently.
Here's a few bullet notes:
> ay/I/ah and eee both require the mouth wide open, so what makes them different? Well, try saying "cheese" in as exaggerated a manner as you can. Your mouth stretches, right? Almost into a smile, that's the "eee" sound. With "ah" your mouth hangs lower and is more vertical.
>When animating a "buh" or "muh" sound, start with the "em" mouth and then open it with the one beside it in the example pic. Again, say these sounds in an exaggerated fashion; your mouth has to open to let the sound escape. You could always use the same mouth shape as "ah" but I prefer making it a little softer/smaller. It just seems to fit better.
>"Oh" and "u" sounds are technically made with different shapes but I find the difference minimal. That said, if you want to differentiate the two, have the "oh" mouth be fatter and "u" be thinner.
>Always pay close attention to how prominent your teeth and tongue are with each sound in order to know what to prioritise drawing.

Okay, now with that out of the way, here's how we translate those shapes into bird beaks.
For reference, here's the beak I had to animate in its resting position:

As I mentioned earlier, the idea of having to make a beak move like a human mouth might sound daunting, but it's actually pretty straight forward. Take a look:

You'll notice that these are basically just the normal mouth shapes but with a bill on top. However, there are some interesting exceptions, so let's analyse further:

"Oo" "u"

I think this is the one that scares people the most, which is understandable since this is an impossible beak shape. However, all you need to do is make a long tube with a mouth hole at the end (again, this is if you're animating in a cartoony style). There is also a less exaggerated version:

You can use either, though I prefer the first because it's funnier.

For further reference, look at Aardman's Chicken Run - the memories of that film are what helped me visualise these shapes better.

"cuh" "el"

"BUT BIRDS DON'T HAVE TEETH" I hear you cry "HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO SAY CAT!?!?" Calm down, son, the answer is simple: (drum roll please)

....

Just don't draw them!

All you need do is draw the lower part of the beak in the somewhat crooked shape your mouth makes when you emphasise a hard "kuh", that alone gets the impression of the sound across perfectly.

Some birds also lack tongues, but the same principle applies. However, since tongues are more noticeable in human speech than the teeth, I'd recommend making the bottom half of the beak smaller, perhaps even curling upwards to the top even more.

Some more general pointers:

>With cartoony animation, especially in lip sync, you don't need to worry if the mouth increases and decreases in size in huge amounts. In fact, I think the bouncier the mouth, the better. You'll find this comes in handy with beaks, which is another reason why I prefer that tube version of the "Oo" sound.

>Use the nose(?) of the beak as an anchor point to make sure it doesn't wobble about on the bird's face.

>You can always give your birds teeth and tongues if it makes it easier (again, see Chicken Run), but first make sure that your character designs are appealing with those. Ever seen a bird with teeth? Its creepy. Make sure to avoid the uncanny valley.

And that's pretty much all I have at the moment.

I hope this helps anybody out.

Thanks for reading!