12 PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION

The principles of animation is introduced by Disney in 1930s, by the work of their animators. It is introduced by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. These principles are followed religiously by the animators for creating more realistic and appealing animations. Here are 12 principles of animation.

STRETCH & SQUASH

Stretch & Squash is applied to give sense of weight or flexibility or both to objects or character. Bouncing ball is the best example to explain this principle as it hits the ground, you can squash the ball flat and widen it. Although exaggerated, this animation is grounded in reality, because it creates an illusion of the ball being distorted by an outside force just like real life. You can apply squash and stretch to more realistic animation, but volume of the ball also should be considered. If the ball is vertically stretched, the width must be contract horizontally.

STRAIGHT AHEAD & POSE TO POSE

Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose are in sense two principles in one, each have their own perspectives in drawing. Straight ahead action is done by animating frame by frame from the beginning of the animation to the end. This create creates an illusion of movement. With pose to pose, animators draw key frames and fill the intervals later. In computer animation, the problems of straight ahead action are removed and also can remove proportion problems. They can also fill the missing sequences in pose to pose.

STAGING

When staging is considered, one is in the role of film director. One need to think about where you are putting camera, what’s in focus and what’s not on focus. One can grab the audience’s attention only if staging appropriate. A perfect staging is considered when lighting, framing and composition.

ANTICIPATION

Anticipation helps to add realism, when you want to prepare the audience for some action. Consider what a character would do when they prepare to do something. A footballer about to take penalty would steady themselves with their arms or swing their foot to get them ready for a kick.

ARC

Most of the actions are in arched trajectory in real life. To achieve realism animators should follow this principal. Traditional animators often draw lightly on paper to use as a reference and to erase when they are no longer needed. Speed and time are also important with arch, which is another principal of animation. Movement that follow natural arcs will create fluidity and avoid unnatural animation.

APPEAL

This is one of the most important principle in animation. Appeal is co related with another principal of animation, which is staging. When staging and other factors are done right, the scene would be appealing for the audience to watch. In film, TV and theatre, directors want their actors to have charisma. It doesn’t matter whether they are a hero, villan or other supporting character.

SECONDARY ACTION

This animation helps to emphasise the main action within a scene by added an extra dimension to your characters and objects. For an example when a person swings their arms while walking down the street, give colour to the creations and make them appear more realistic movement. Providing they don’t take attention away from the main action.

EXAGGERATION

Many of the 12 principles of animation are grounded in realism and there is no exception. If exaggeration is totally avoided, animation can often be too real and is in danger of looking dull. An example for this is a jaw drop animation. When a character is surprised, shocked or falls in love in first sight, animators don’t often don’t show opened mouth expression. Instead they show character’s mouth dropping way beyond realism.

SOLID DRAWING

This is the most difficult principles to get right, especially in traditional animation. This is because you need to make the character looks 3D and realistic, so it is important give weight, balance, gravity, light, shadow and more. Where as in computer animation, the character pose should be in balance and should make sense.

CONCLUSION

Understanding these 12 principles of animation and applying them while animating will result in best animation production. Hence it is important for animators to learn this. Bangalore Animation College is one of the best animation, VFX and gaming college in Bangalore which offers well-structured animation courses in this subject.

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