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Principles of Animation

The 12 principles of animation are techniques used to create the illusion of life and movement in animated characters. The principles include squash and stretch to simulate weight and volume, anticipation to prepare audiences for actions, and staging to clearly communicate attitudes and ideas to advance the story. Animation can be done straight ahead or pose-to-pose, and techniques like follow through, overlapping action, arcs, exaggeration, and solid drawing help make movements appear natural. Timing, secondary action, appeal, and understanding these principles are essential for animators to master.

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84 views2 pages

Principles of Animation

The 12 principles of animation are techniques used to create the illusion of life and movement in animated characters. The principles include squash and stretch to simulate weight and volume, anticipation to prepare audiences for actions, and staging to clearly communicate attitudes and ideas to advance the story. Animation can be done straight ahead or pose-to-pose, and techniques like follow through, overlapping action, arcs, exaggeration, and solid drawing help make movements appear natural. Timing, secondary action, appeal, and understanding these principles are essential for animators to master.

Uploaded by

darewarrior
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Principles of Animation

1. SQUASH AND STRETCH


This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch
is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and
stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it's broader in a short style of
picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to
the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master
and will be used often.

2. ANTICIPATION
This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as,
starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards
motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic
effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all
real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher's wind-up or a golfers' back swing.
Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a
characters personality.

3. STAGING
A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of
the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long,
medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited
amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story.
Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the
idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs
the audience's attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it
isn't obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation.
Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.

4. STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION


Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a
scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and
freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted
with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are
controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his
assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn't have to draw
every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning
of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation.

5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION


When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of
the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these
follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when
the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a
new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. "DRAG," in
animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and
clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example:
When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but
catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner.
Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.

6. SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN


As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more
drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the
action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we
may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more
snap to the scene.
7. ARCS
All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or
slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give
animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a
pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an
arcs.

8. SECONDARY ACTION
This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character
animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking
toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just
short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the
walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head
to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these
actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and
arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action.

9. TIMING
Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error
method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the
action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a
scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing
photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film).
Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and
occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character
to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of
actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters.
This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation.
This is a great way to learn from the others.

10. EXAGGERATION
Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. Its
like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live
action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move
more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as
broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will
give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical
and excessively animated.

11. SOLID DRAWING


The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply
to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical
sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and
movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is
movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.

12. APPEAL
A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not
mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic,
villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing,
and personality development that will capture and involve the audience's interest. Early cartoons were
basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned
that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher
quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to
appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

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