12 Principles of Animation

The principles of Animation are essential guidelines created by OLLIE JOHNSON and FRANK THOMAS for the book (The Illusion of Life). These guidelines are quotes because, when these rules are broken we can get amazing animation in the form of cartoons film etc which all of us love to watch, but in order to exaggerate these we must first master them.

The 12 principles are as follows:

1.Stretch and Squash:

This is the principle of applying a contrasting change in objects and shape, which gives a shape of flexibility and life to an object. When this is applied we can feel it in the motion but it can’t be seen.

2. Anticipation:

It is the next movement given before the actual one occurs. It signals the audience that a new idea is about to happen. Without the anticipation, the animation can end up looking robotic.

3. Staging:

This is connected to acting, timing etc. The animator controls and creates the line of focus, the attention of the audience and helps to drive the story.

 

4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose:

In Straight Ahead the animation starts from the first drawing to the last drawing for a particular scene. Pose to pose requires more planning and the timing is done with the key drawing done at particular intervals throughout the scene.

5. Follow-through and Overlapping action:

The main objects which when are moving have a follow through but when this same object stop the secondary action moves ahead of the main objects then settles is known as overlapping action.

6. Slow-in and Slow-out:

It is the spacing of the in the in-between frames between the two key positions. Rather than having the same speed and time of an object. It is more appealing and realistic to have an object move at the extremes. An animation looks more real when there are more frames at the beginning and the end of an action.

7. Arc:

The visual path of an object or action is called an arc in animation. Circular arc makes a movement look real was as linear or angular arc look mechanical.

8. Secondary Action:

Is a movement that is depending on another action or movement. This gives life by supporting and enhancing the main action.

9. Timing:

It’s the speed of an action which gives meaning to an action of a movement.

10. Exaggeration:

Is an effect that animators strive for a perfect reality look in the action of a scene.

11. Solid drawing:

This is the ability to render a 2-dimensional drawing to a 3 dimensional with weight, volume, and balance.

12. Appeal:

It is used to create characters that appeal to the audience, it is like the hook of a good novel or a story which grabs the interest and attention of a reader or audience.

Conclusion:

So those were the twelve principles of animation! You now know the basic road map to create fundamentally sound animation, so get to work!

If you are interested in animated video production, be sure to check out more of our works in our portfolio.