Of the five phonemic parameters in sign language (handshape, location, palm orientation, movement and nonmanual expressions), the one that still poses the most challenges for effective avatar display is nonmanual signals. Facial nonmanual signals carry a rich combination of linguistic and pragmatic information, but current techniques have yet to portray these in a satisfactory manner. Due to the complexity of facial movements, additional considerations must be taken into account for rendering in real time. Of particular interest is the shading areas of facial deformations to improve legibility. In contrast to more physically-based, compute-intensive techniques that more closely mimic nature, we propose using a simple, classic, Phong illumination model with a dynamically modified layered texture. To localize and control the desired shading, we utilize an opacity channel within the texture. The new approach, when applied to our avatar “Paula”, results in much quicker render times than more sophisticated, computationally intensive techniques.