Posing Foundations 02 – Facial Posing by Miren Delgado

Faces sell the shot. This course teaches you to stop pushing random controllers and start building expressions that actually read — eye mask first, mouth shapes second, then the full performance. You get a simple system for facial posing that keeps things appealing and clear without overworking the rig.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Break down complex expressions into simple, readable symbols
• Isolate and pose the eye mask for focus, weight, and mood
• Shape the mouth for clear emotion and intent
• Combine eyes and mouth for believable emotional depth
• Avoid over-posed, noisy faces that kill readability

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic understanding of posing fundamentals and 3D navigation
• Tools: Maya or any 3D animation package with a facial rig
• Hardware: Standard workstation, 3-button mouse

📝 Description

Most beginners treat the face like 50 controllers to fiddle with. Miren flips that. You learn to see the face in two big blocks — the eye mask and the mouth — and get the read right before you touch anything else.

The method is super practical. You isolate regions, push clear shapes, check the silhouette of the expression, then layer. No guesswork, no mushy half-smiles. You start to spot why a pose feels flat and fix it fast with brow shapes, lid tension, or mouth corner direction.

It is built for animators, not modelers. Expect lots of visual examples, breakdowns of real expressions, and posing drills you can reuse on any facial rig. By the end, you have a repeatable way to get to appealing, readable faces for shots, not just lucky accidents.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Beginner 3D animators who want cleaner facial poses
• Students coming from body posing who struggle with faces
• Anyone whose expressions look busy, flat, or hard to read

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Miren Delgado is a character animator and instructor at Animawarriors, focused on facial performance and posing foundations. She teaches a structured, symbol-based approach to expressions, helping students get clarity and appeal without overcomplicating the rig. Her work centers on readable acting choices for 3D animation production.

🏁 Final Result

• A set of clean, portfolio-ready facial poses showing clear emotional states built from eye mask and mouth isolation