does anyone have a good head nod tutorial?

[Mayfly]

i've tried and it just doesn't look right. i'm trying to get my character to nod yes, but it just doesn't look organic. if you guys could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

[slowtiger]

Do it on paper first. I suppose you're doing a head nod facing the camera? That's always the difficult one. Do the two extreme positions first, and make them perfect. Do the inbetween in the middle, make it perfect as well. Use these as reference in AS.

To deal with the difficult perspective, use some reference. A doll head (something adult, with a real nose and eye brows) may give you enough ideas, just turn it in your hands and observe how features shift in relation to each other. Bigger productions create maquettes of their characters so animators can do just this. If you can, create your head in Play-do or whatever.

[Mayfly]

Thanks, I'll try that. Should have been my go to, since I do that for still poses.

[3deeguy]

I started by taking photos of someone's face with my camera mounted on a tripod. Straight ahead, 3/4 up, 3/4 down, 3/4 left, 3/4 right. The 'nod' is tougher than the 'turn'. As slowtiger pointed out you have to get the perspective right. In the '3/4 down' position the neck bends. That would move the head 'lower' and 'closer' to the camera. This is in addition to changing the angle-of-view of the face. Practice by tracing reference images and develop a 'feel' for it. Do it with SmartBones.