I've been looking for a simple expression guide for a while.  I actually checked quite a few drawing books but couldn't find what I was looking for. Specifically since I came to Japan I noticed they seem to have a very set way to draw simple happy face style expressions and I wanted a couple of pages with examples.  My guess is that Japanese kids are all taught from the same books in school so a lot of them end up drawing the same types of simple characters. I don't mean to suggest the Japanese are not creative, only that many of them must have studied the same happy faces since they are so common

Anyway, I never did find a Japanese book with a list of the different faces but then I found the Ed Emberley books and he had a great page with lots of very simple faces.  Looking at it it was pretty clear there was pattern, 3 types of eyes, 4 mouths, 3 eyebrows and every combination of those make quite a few expressions.

Here's my interpretation so now I have my reference.

Of course that's not every possible face but it's surprising how many expressions those 10 parts cover.  Here's a few they don't.

Apply your own interpretations of what they each express but please be nice 😊

Now if someone could point me to a stick figure action pose guide!