It's all in the hands...

While listening to Animation Mentor's podcast about "What Inspires Enrico Casavosa" (http://www.animationmentor.com/resources/podcasts/), they mentioned a fun fact about Italian gestures which they studied while making Pixar's new Oscar-nominated animated short La Luna.
Naples was conquered by so many different countries through the last 4 or so centuries that they could never really learned the language of whoever invaded them! This taught them to really communicate with gestures.

I found the video they mentioned on the podcast with the Italian gesture's here:
BEST COMPLETE GESTURE'S LESSON

As an animator I am always looking for new ways to use gestures in my own work. The hands are already so expressive, and when combined with pantomime acting, can become a seriously awesome combo!

Scared/Excited, Relaxed, and Anger               

Here's a few poses I whipped up to show a few different hand gestures with "feeling". They show a variety of feelings (from left to right) such as Scared/Excitement, Relaxed, and Anger.