Shake head no

A clear no; the head turns side to side three times while the whole body leans with it, then both settle back to centre.

A cartoon person with its head turned to one side and the body leaning slightly the same way, and a dog beside it.

Use it in a cartoon Open it in the block editor The pack file (JSON)

What it is for

Shake head no answers a question, refuses a plan, or disagrees with a line, without a word, in well under a second. Because the body leans along with the head rather than staying still, it reads clearly even at a distance or on a small screen, where a head turn alone might be too small to notice.

The principle it shows: exaggeration

A plain no could be just the head turning. Here the whole body leans 1.5 degrees in the same direction as the head on every turn, more than a real person's body actually moves for a head shake. Adding that extra motion to the main gesture, rather than drawing it exactly as small as life, is exaggeration, and it is what carries the no past the face and into the whole body.

The program, line by line

when it starts
  repeat 3:
    glide head 11, rot 1.5 over 0.12 s
    glide head -11, rot -1.5 over 0.12 s
  glide head 0, rot 0 over 0.1 s

when it starts — begins when the move is put on a character.
repeat 3: — the turn happens three times.
glide head 11, rot 1.5 over 0.12 s — the head turns 11 degrees one way and the body leans 1.5 degrees with it.
glide head -11, rot -1.5 over 0.12 s — and both swing back past centre to the other side.
glide head 0, rot 0 over 0.1 s — the head and the lean settle back to centre.

Try this

Shake the head 5 times instead of 3. The same turn, repeated more often, reads as a far more adamant no.
In the program: repeat · n 3 → 5
Turn the head 22 degrees instead of 11. The shake becomes much wider and more obvious, closer to an exaggerated cartoon refusal.
In the program: ramp · to.part:head 11 → 22

How it differs from Nod yes and Shrug

Nod yes dips the head down and up instead of turning it side to side, the opposite answer in the same short, repeated shape. Shrug holds a single raised-shoulders pose rather than repeating a turn, a different kind of non-answer.

Works on

Worked out by the build: it plays the move in the engine on each body and checks what moves on screen. Nobody types this table.
Body	Moves?	What moves
2 legs (a person)	yes	whole body, head
4 legs (a dog)	yes	whole body, head, ears
no legs (the monster with no legs)	yes	whole body

c4c:beh:shake_head · version 1.0.0 · c4c-free · by Jabbertoon