A pregnant man and a handshake by two arms with different skin colours are among new emojis expected to be released in the next year.

The draft options are included in a large batch of new designs, which also has a mouth biting its lip, a piece of coral, and a gender-neutral person wearing a crown.

The new look emojis, which have been drawn up by Emojipedia, are included in the provisional list of proposals published by US-based organisation Unicode Consortium.

It is the organisation tasked with setting out and approving the icons for use - ahead of tech giants like Apple and Google making their own versions of each one and releasing them to device users, normally in software updates.

Alongside handshakes between two hands with different skin tones there may also soon be male, female and gender neutral options for all existing emojis such as a pregnant person and pregnant man to sit alongside the existing pregnant women emoji.

The designs by Emojipedia are in no way final but represent how the new graphics could look when the final list of fresh releases is approved towards the autumn, with most expected to then begin arriving on platforms from early in 2022.

Among the new popular face emojis could soon be a peeking face, a face with a hand covering one eye and a melting face alongside one made entirely out of dotted lines and another which gives the impression it is holding back tears.

A fairytale looking troll, empty nest and one with eggs, lotus flower, beans, a playground slide and a ring buoy are also among the other suggested additions for people's computers, phones and tablets.

While a crutch and an x-ray could join the existing batch of medical-themed emojis and an ID card has also been designed for the very first time.

Unicode, which opens the potential list up for comments and feedback before agreeing to the final updates, is expected to confirm those which have made the cut around September. To learn more about the new emoji candidates click here.

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