zork/Roth has done a lot of investigating regarding animations, check out his two blog posts over at EJ, especially the first one which mentions existing in-game animations you could perhaps utilize. My comment earlier was in relation to adding custom animations, but if there's a suitable Blizzard one you could probably use that.
http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/zork/4...our_interface/
http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/zork/4...need_onupdate/