Character Animation and Expression with Maya by Sagar Arun

If you’ve ever watched an animated film and felt a genuine laugh or a lump in your throat, that’s the animator doing their job right. This course is all about learning how to do exactly that. Sagar Arun, an animator who’s worked on films like Frozen 2 and Spirit: Untamed, walks you through the fundamentals of animation in Autodesk Maya. You’ll build a solid foundation with bouncing balls and overlapping action, then push into character work by creating an expression test that’s full of life and personality.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Apply the 12 animation principles to your own work
• Use Maya’s channel box, graph editor, and Tween Machine for clean animation
• Create a bouncing ball animation and add a tail with overlap
• Block out key storytelling poses for an expression test
  *ine your animation to achieve smooth, polished motion
• Present your expression test in a professional, showreel-ready format

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic understanding of Autodesk Maya
• Tools: A character rig for Maya
• Hardware: A computer capable of running Autodesk Maya

📝 Description

This course skips the fluff and gets straight into the mechanics of animation. Sagar starts with the basics—getting comfortable with Maya’s animation tools and understanding how the channel box, graph editor, and Tween Machine work together. You’ll animate a bouncing ball first, which sounds simple but is where you’ll internalize timing, spacing, and weight. Then you’ll add a tail to that ball, which is your first taste of overlap and follow-through.

Once the fundamentals are locked in, the real fun begins. You’ll design a set of emotions for your own character and sketch out thumbnails to plan the performance. Sagar shows you how to use a character rig to push facial features and create readable, exaggerated expressions. Then you’ll block out the animation, focusing on key storytelling poses that carry the emotion, and refine it through splining until the motion feels smooth and natural.

What makes this course stand out is Sagar’s industry perspective. He’s not just teaching buttons and menus—he’s teaching you how to think like an animator. Every lesson is framed around the 12 animation principles and how they apply to real production work. By the end, you’ll have a polished expression test that demonstrates your ability to give a character genuine emotion, which is exactly what studios look for in a demo reel.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Anyone passionate about animation who wants to create entertaining, appealing characters
• Animators with basic Maya knowledge looking to strengthen their fundamentals
• Students and hobbyists who want to build a portfolio piece focused on character emotion

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Sagar Arun is a California-based animator with an impressive list of credits, including major animated features like Frozen 2 (2019) and Spirit: Untamed (2021). His work focuses on bringing characters to life through subtle performance and expressive motion. With years of experience in the animation industry, Sagar brings a practical, production-oriented approach to teaching, sharing the techniques and workflows he uses on real films.

🏁 Final Result

By the end of this course, you’ll have a completed character expression test—a short animation showcasing your character going through a range of emotions. This piece is perfect for your demo reel and demonstrates your understanding of animation principles, posing, and emotional storytelling in Maya.