Animation Foundations: Gesture

- Hi, my name's Andrew Gordon, and I'm a directing animator at Pixar Animation Studios. I'm really excited to be sharing with you guys the subject of gestures. Gestures are the things that we do, without even knowing it, that make our characters look believable. And as a human acting we can do it normally, but we have to get this stuff back into our characters. We're gonna study and look at a lot of different clips and footage of actors and reference, in order to kinda understand better what makes a character look believable.

We're gonna study cliche gestures, what not to do when you're gesturing. We're gonna look at the physicality of a gesture, how to make something look heavy or light. We're gonna research a little bit about patterns, texture, the different things that we do without even knowing it, but again that we have to pay attention to in animation. We're also gonna take a look at a Maya scene, where we're gonna analyze what it takes to polish gestures. So come along with me today as we learn about gestures.