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12 Principles of Animation

Michael Ford

Updated: Sep 7, 2022

On Wednesday, August 17, 2022 we watched a video on the 12 Principles of Animation. Listed below are the 12 principles along with, some key points I took from it.


1. Squash and Stretch

  • The principle that animated objects will get longer or flatter to emphasize their speed, momentum, weight, and mass.

2. Anticipation

  • Anticipation helps communicate actions to the audience by preparing them for the next action.

  • Multiple levels of Anticipation

    • Instead of begin, anticipate and end

    • Have begin, pre-anticipate, anticipate, pre action, action

3. Staging

  • Staging is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear.

  • Applies to:

    • Acting

    • Timing

    • Camera Angle and Position

    • Setting

4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

  • Straight ahead consists of 1st drawing, 2nd drawing, 3rd drawing and so on. Basically animating as you go.

  • Pose to Pose consists of drawing the beginning and end of each main pose. And going back later to fill in drawings in between.

  • Pose to Pose Vocabulary:

    • Keys: main poses

    • Extremes: secondary poses

    • Breakdowns: further broken down poses

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

  • Technique of having body parts and appendages drag behind the rest of the body and continue to move when the body stops.

  • Both follow through and overlapping action are often associated with another technique called “Drag”.

  • Follow Through refers to the way parts of the body continue to move after the body is stopped.

  • Overlapping Action describes the offset between the timing of the main body and its other parts.

  • Drag describes the technique of delaying the movement of body parts in relation to the main body.

6. Slow In and Slow Out

  • Refers to the way pretty much all movement starts slowly, build speed and finishes slowly.

7. Arcs

8. Secondary Action

  • Is not Overlapping Action

  • Secondary Action is gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to the character animation.

9. Timing

  • The personality and action of an animation is greatly affected by the number of frames inserted between each main action.

  • More drawings = slow

  • Less drawings = fast

  • Standard frame rate for movies 24 fps

10. Exaggeration

  • Every action, pose and expression can be taken to the next level to increase the amount of impact on the viewer.

  • Doesn’t mean more distorted, but more convincing.

11. Solid Drawing

  • Making sure that forms feel like they are in three-dimensional space with volume weight and balance.

  • Avoid Twinning: When arms, legs and other paired features are doing the exact same thing.

12. Appeal

  • Basically, characters that you animate should be somewhat pleasing to look at. Should have some kind of charismatic aspect to like about them.


12 Principles of Animation (Official Full Series)

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Welcome to my Blog! It's my pleasure to present to you my journey as a rising senior through my fall semester of 2021 in both my Photographic Media I and Imaging-Design I classes. Hope you enjoy my work! 

 

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