Within animation, there are certain rules to follow to ensure that the overall animation looks correct and so in turn, it can be effective. There are 12 of these principles according to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston:
1. Squash & Stretch
Objects become longer or flatter to emphasize speed, momentum, weight and mass. The softer the object the more squash and stretch and the stiffer, the less. The volume of the object must remain consistent in this process. For instance, with these balls, you can clearly see a difference in material showing how this principle can greatly determine what the object comes across as to the audience.
2. Anticipation
This is when a character prepares for the action to communicate to the audience what might be occurring next. However, it also helps to make the action seem more realistic. For instance, if a character is about to throw a punch, they might draw their arm back to show build up.
In turn, this also indicates that more power is put into it and so it appears to be stronger. A punch without anticipation would then appear weak.
3. Staging
This is the presentation of an idea so that it’s completely and unmistakably clear. This is a broad term as it can apply to the acting, timing, camera angle and position and setting of a scene. Within animation or filming anything, you need to be in control of where the audience’s attention is, otherwise you’ll end up with bad staging where the characters are competing for stage presence and so the audience becomes confused with where to focus their attention.
Here is staging in action. There is a fat person eating pizza and so you can use staging to present the idea of him overeating so that it is effective.
To emphasize the glutton, the setting can have piles of pizza boxes in the background to emphasize how much pizza they’re eating as well as having more pizza in front of them.
The camera angle can be changed to a worm’s eye view to accentuate his size.
The acting is then changed so that he can’t get the drink without falling off the chair due to his weight.
Finally, correct the timing so that he notices the drink before taking it to make his actions seem more natural and realistic. Now the whole scene is set and the idea has been expressed to its fullest.
4. Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose
Straight ahead is where you animate as you go, drawing the whole scene frame by frame. This is more effective when animating something unpredictable. For instance, if you were to animate fire, explosions or water splashes, the complex shapes and movements would make it impossible to predict with pose to pose animation as there aren’t definitive steps. This method allows you to work as you go along resulting in a more natural progression throughout the animation.
Pose to pose is where you draw the beginning and end of each main pose before going back and adding the stages in-between. This is generally better for most actions as it gives you a fairly clear idea of what the action will look like early on.
Within the pose to pose method, there are main poses called keys, secondary poses called extremes and further broken down poses known as breakdowns.
5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action
This technique involves having body parts and appendages dragging behind the character or object and also continue moving after the subject stops moving. The two techniques are also associated with another method called drag and whilst they all generally mean the same thing, they tackle about different aspects of it.
Follow through describes how the appendage continues to move after the body stops.
Overlapping action describes the offset between the timing of the body and its other main parts.
Drag involves delaying the movement of body parts and appendages relative to the main body.
These techniques make movements of the character or object seem more realistic and so the scene will be more natural. A principle to follow is that, when the main body of a subject moves, the top of the appendage or body part should be the last to move and last to catch up before returning to its original position.
In general, the amount of drag that is applied should link to the mass of the object. Here’s an example of that difference and what it can convey.
6. Slow In & Slow Out
This principle describes the way that movement starts slowly before building up speed and finishing slowly and is important when trying to create life-like movements. Without this, motion can look mechanical and unnatural.
When achieving this is within 2D animation, you draw the extreme poses, draw one in-between and then only draw frames between the in-between and the extreme poses to an extent of which you are happy with the progression of the slow ins and slow outs.
To ensure that this works smoothly, you should make sure that the frames are evenly spaced apart from when the drawing should be closer nearer to the beginning and end of the action.
7. Arcs
When objects are in movement, they don’t move mechanically but use arcs, moving in a circular path. An example of this is if you were to animate a ball being thrown in the air. If given three key poses where a ball was at its lowest point, highest point and back to the lowest point, you wouldn’t simply draw the mid-point poses between them because that would result in an unnatural path of travel.
Instead, you use an arc, to show the realism of an object easing into the movement and also applying the laws of gravity to an object.
8. Secondary Action
Secondary actions are gestures that support the main action to add more depth to the character animation.
For instance, if a character was going to knock on a door, the primary action would be the arm that is knocking on the door. Secondary actions could be assigned to the other arm to convey different things about the character or the situation that they might be in.
A clenched fist indicates the character knocking in anger whilst having the hand held close with the head looking back and forth implies that the character is in fear of something. These secondary actions can change the whole atmosphere of the scene and the portrayal of a character.
9. Timing
It is said that the personality of an animation is largely affected by the number of frames placed between each main action. For example, having many drawings close together will create a slow animation whilst if there are fewer drawings that are spaced out, the overall animation will be fast.
10. Exaggeration
This involves taking basic poses, actions, and expressions and exaggerating them to convey a stronger message and in turn, create a more lasting effect on the viewer. It is applied in the sense that the drawing should become more convincing rather than more distorted.
11. Solid Drawing
This principle talks about making sure that forms feel like they are existing in a three-dimensional space by utilizing volume, weight and balance.
It helps to know how to draw your character or object from all objects and so you should also know about three-dimensional drawing. For example, when drawing a sphere, the lines drawn on it must follow the contours of its surface.
When drawing characters, it’s a good habit to form the figure using solid shapes such as spheres, cubes and cylinders rather than circles, squares and rectangles so that you can interpret the space they’re in and be aware of it.
When drawing the clean line version, it helps to think about overlap – whether it’s applied to body parts of the character or their clothing, it adds dimension and stops things from looking flat like they’re all on the same plane.
It is also good to avoid what is known as twinning, where the paired features of a character are doing the same thing. Try to variate poses and lines so that they look more natural, as though the character has weight and actually needs to balance in their space to make them seem more realistic.
12. Appeal
This principle is about making your character appealing to the audience – giving them a charismatic attribute to like about them. This applies to all characters and appealing doesn’t always mean handsome or beautiful but ca mean interesting otherwise you’ll end up with an array of boring characters that dulls the experience of the animation.
To do this, you can use a variety of shapes across your characters as there are many possibilities.
You can also play with the proportions of your characters, sometimes blowing up or bringing more attention to the part of their design that conveys their personality and nature.
Example: proportions as the defining feature
Finally, keeping it simple can bring appeal to your characters because too much information can make it difficult to animate, having to redraw every detail. Choosing which details to keep will determine how your character comes across; this is where drawing for animation and illustration differ. If you choose aspects that you like the most or feel are the most important before bringing more attention to them or accentuating them, you can create a well-rounded character without going overboard with their features.
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqjIdI4bF4
Jasmine Cooper 