Animator Nancy Beiman demonstrates how animators need not be constrained by the bodily limitations that restrict human actors. Students will learn how species, weight, and design affect character actions, so that no two character performances are ever alike. The book also examines the ways in which an individual character's movements vary with the emotional or narrative context. Hundreds of thumbnail drawings show how cloth, paper, wood, stone, animal, invertebrate, winged, aquatic and mechanical beings can live and move without losing their non-human qualities.