#12 principles

I finished watching this and I enjoyed revisiting the 12 Principles of Animation! This video shares many examples to illustrate the Principles (Disney, Pixar, Warner Bros., Studio Ghibli, and more).

A little breakdown of a pixel art bunny animation following the 12 principles.

Here I did some brief research into the 12 Principles to help me get a better understanding of them and what they can be used for before doing any more of my animations. Overall I found this research very helpful in solidifying my understanding of the fundamentals of animation. I will be incorporating these into my own work to make it more interesting and visually appealing to a viewer.

1 – Squash and Stretch This principle states that as objects move the shape of them should alter realistically – as a ball falls, it will stretch downwards (and squash inwards sideways) as it is being stretched downwards by gravity. Then as it hits the ground, all that energy that was falling down is now dispersed onto the ground and the ball stretches sideways upon impact and squashes downwards, before bouncing back up again. Squash and Stretch has a range of uses: it can be used to show what an object feels like by mimicking the flexibility and material of it – e.g. a rubber ball or water balloon will have a lot of squash and stretch as they are soft materials but a bowling ball would have none as it is hard and solid. It can also show the speed, momentum, weight and mass of an object, as well as the effect of gravity in general. It can be used on objects or characters bodies to exaggerate movement and on faces to exaggerate expressions. This can be for both comedic effect and for making a movement clearer (and more visually appealing) to a viewer.

2 – Anticipation This principle states that actions should have a build up before they happen, both to follow how momentum and energy works in the real world and also to help prepare the audience for what is about to happen. For example, a character would bring their leg back before they kick a ball, as their foot is about to move forwards very fast so it needs to build up momentum first. This helps apply realism to animation as in real life, you couldn’t kick a ball without winding up your leg first or jump without bending your knees. These preparations often happen in the opposite direction of the anticipated movement – if you want your character to start sprinting to the right, you should have their wind-up action going to the left. This also makes movements more interesting and life-like, as opposed to being stiff, sudden and awkward.

3 – Staging Staging is the composition of a shot, and where objects/characters are placed within a frame. This can mean using photography principles like Framing, Leading Lines or The Rule of Thirds to guide the viewer’s eye to where they should be looking. Staging is all about keeping the focus on the important information/movement within a scene.

4 – Straight Ahead vs Pose to Pose These are two different ways of animating; Straight Ahead means drawing frame by frame in the order that the movement is happening whereas Pose to Pose means drawing in keyframes, or important poses, first before filling in the in-between poses Straight Ahead is best for fluid movements such as fire, or unpredictable poses such as in action scenes. Pose to Pose is best for having a lot of control over exactly how the movement will look. It can be useful for extreme poses and figuring out how to get the character into them. It can also be helpful when trying to incorporate Follow Through and Anticipation. Often, these are both combined as needed for a more cohesive effect.

5 – Follow Through and Overlapping Action Follow Through is the principle of momentum within animation and that different parts of a character or object will move and stop at different times. This is used to make actions more visually interesting and to mimic how real life works, for example when someone comes to a sudden stop after running, their hair or jacket might still move forward for a little before also coming to a stop. If an object has built up momentum, it will take it a while before it comes to a complete stop, especially for lighter objects like hair and clothes. Overlapping Actions are actions that are happening simultaneously but at different rates to each other. For example, when a character is running, their arms and legs will move at a different pace to their head

6 – Slow in/Slow Out This principle is used to show the build-up of momentum – how an object can’t go from still to fast in motion instantly. It has to build up this speed by starting slowly, building up speed and momentum and then gradually losing it as it slows down. This can apply to rolling objects, cars, pendulums, characters beginning to move or run. In hand-drawn animation, this principle is represented by having more frames near the start and end of an action and fewer in the middle to show the speed of the object at that time is greater.

7 – Arcs Arcs help the movements of objects look more natural as they follow the laws of physics. Most objects will naturally move in an arc shape when thrown or moving due to gravity. This principle can apply to both characters and objects.

8 – Secondary Actions Secondary actions are smaller, often more subtle actions used to emphasise the main action. They help add more dimension and visual interest to scenes. For example, a primary action could be a character skipping and a secondary action would be their arms waving as they do so, or their hair moving or a facial expression. It should not be overpowering over the main action. They can be subtle things to reflects the mood/emotion of the scene or character, e.g. playing with their hands or tapping their foot to show anxiety; or rolling their eyes and tapping their fingers to show boredom.

9 – Timing Timing is all about the number of frames used for an action to convey how fast it is happening – the fewer frames an action has, the faster it happens and the more it has, the slower it happens. This is an essential principle that when used correctly helps all the other principles work better too, especially things like Slow in/Slow out. It helps show that objects are obeying the laws of physics by demonstrating their weight and how they react to certain stimuli.

10 – Exaggeration Since imitating reality exactly can make something look static and dull, exaggeration is used  in animation  for movements, characters, environments, designs and even storylines can be stylised. However this has to be balanced properly so that if there are several elements in a scene, the viewer knows what to focus on and is not confused (e.g. exaggerate a character design but not a background or exaggerate one of the character’s features but not all of them as then they will all look the same.).

11 – Solid Drawing Solid drawing is all about giving characters and objects volume to make them look like they occupy the space they are set in. This is often achieved by studying from life by doing life and gesture drawing. Using 3D shapes to build up a character’s guidelines before adding their key features to the space can also be helpful. This principle helps to show an artist’s understanding of volume, weight, proportion, perspective and anatomy.

These two principles are quite technical within animation, focusing on the more calculated parts of animation rather than expression or drawing. 

Timing 

In films, it’s known that the number of frames an animation has determines how long it will be. In general animated films will run at about 24 or 25 fps (frames per second), and within this, animating is usually done on twos, so each drawing lasts for 2 frames. Sometimes animation will be done on 1s (one drawing each frame) if there is a movement in the camera such as a pan or a zoom. 

These two principles refer more to the drawing of the animation rather than the animation itself.

Solid Drawing

In the earlier days of animation where there was less technological headway, it was common for animators to need to know how to draw a character from every possible angle and in every possible way, and there were some that thought that unless you could do that, you couldn’t animate them, and this was said by some well know people, such as Grim Natwick that helped to create Betty Boop.