12 PRINCIPLES OF

ANIMATION
1. SQUASH AND STRETCH
• Squash and stretch is debatably the most
fundamental principle.

• This effect gives animation an elastic life-like quality

because although it may not seem like it, squash
and stretch is all around you. All shapes are
distorted in some way or another when acted upon
by an outside force; it’s just harder to see in real-life.
Squash and stretch imitates that and exaggerates it
to create some fun.
 When the letters spring from the ground, they elongate to show the impression of
speed. Conversely, the letters squash horizontally when they come into contact with
the ground. This conveys a sense of weight in each letter.
2. ANTICIPATION
•Anticipation is the preparation for the main
action. The player striking the soccer ball
would be the main action, and the follow-
through of the leg is well… the follow
through.
Notice how the progression of action operates in this scene. We first see the woman as
she’s standing on the box. She then bends her knees in anticipation of what’s about to
happen and springs into action by leaping from the ground up into the air.
3. STAGING
•When filming a scene, where do you put the
camera? Where do the actors go? What do you
have them do? The combination of all these
choices is what we call staging.

•Staging is one of the most overlooked

principles. It directs the audience’s attention
toward the most important elements in a scene
in a way that effectively advances the story.
In the clip below from our video the placement of the character within
the scene allows us to quickly follow his actions and gives us a good
sense of the physical layout.
4. STRAIGHT AHEAD ACTION AND
POSE-TO-POSE
•When filming a scene, where do you put the
camera? Where do the actors go? What do you
have them do? The combination of all these
choices is what we call staging.

•Staging is one of the most overlooked

principles. It directs the audience’s attention
toward the most important elements in a scene
in a way that effectively advances the story.
5. FOLLOW-THROUGH AND
OVERLAPPING ACTION
• When a moving object such as a person comes to a
stop, parts might continue to move in the same
direction because of the force of forward
momentum.

• These parts might be hair, clothing, jowls, or jiggling

flesh of an overweight person. This is where you can
see follow-through and overlapping action. The
secondary elements (hair, clothing, fat) are
following-through on the primary element, and
overlapping its action.
 Take a look at an example, Watch the sleeves of the “Cheese Jedi’s” cloak when he
swings his lightsaber. They move with the momentum of the action, but when it’s over,
the sleeves continue to go before settling to a stop.
6. EASE IN, EASE OUT
• When you start your car, you don’t get up to 60 mph right
away. It takes a little while to accelerate and reach a steady
speed. In animation speak, we would call this an Ease Out.

• Likewise, if you brake, you’re not going to come to a full stop

right away. (Unless you crash into a tree or something.) You
step on the pedal and decelerate over a few seconds until you
are at a stand-still. Animators call this an Ease In.

• Carefully controlling the changing speeds of objects creates an

animation that has a superior believability.
In this clip from an explainer video we did for Tworkz, the woman raises her arm slowly at first, but it
picks up speed as the motion continues. The ease in, ease out technique works to make the action
more fluid and realistic.
7. ARCS
• Life doesn’t move in straight lines, and neither should
animation. Most living beings – including humans – move
in circular paths called arcs.

• Arcs operate along a curved trajectory that adds the

illusion of life to an animated object in action. Without
arcs, your animation would be stiff and mechanical.

• The speed and timing of an arc are crucial. Sometimes

an arc is so fast that it blurs beyond recognition. This is
called an animation smear – but that’s a topic for another
time.
In the above example from Scandis, the man passes the cash along from one person to another by reaching his
arms across the frame. At first glance it may be hard to see the arcs happening, but when it’s outlined on the
second time around it’s quite obvious. The fluid arcing motion of the arms adds grace to the animation.
8. SECONDARY ACTION
•Secondary actions are gestures that
support the main action to add more
dimension to character animation. They can
give more personality and insight to what
the character is doing or thinking.
9. TIMING
•Timing is about where on a timeline you put
each frame of action.
•To see what this means in action, let’s look
at the classic animator’s exercise: the
bouncing ball that we saw earlier when we
were talking about squash and stretch. (The
reason this is a popular assignment is that
there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from
it!)
 Notice that at the top of each bounce, the balls are packed closer
together. That is because the ball is slowing down as it reaches the
peak of the bounce. As the ball falls from its peak it and accelerates,
the spacing starts becoming wider.
Notice also how many drawings there are in each bounce. As the
momentum of the ball diminishes, the bounces become shorter and
more frequent (i.e., the number of frames in each bounce decrease.)
In practice, the success of your animation is going to depend on your
sense of timing. Train yourself to listen to the rhythms and timings of
your animation. You will see instances where a gag might be twice as
funny if you just delay it by three frames more. It often helps to add
sound early – whether it is music, voice, sound effects, or all of the
above – because the ear is better attuned to subtleties of timing than
the eye is.
10. EXAGGERATION
•Sometimes more is more. Exaggeration
presents a character’s features and actions
in an extreme form for comedic or dramatic
effect. This can include distortions in facial
features, body types, and expressions, but
also the character’s movement.
Exaggeration is a great way for an animator
to increase the appeal of a character, and
enhance the storytelling.
11. SOLID DRAWING
•Solid drawing is all about making sure that
animated forms feel like they’re in three-
dimensional space.
This character design by Robert Kopecky for Proscenium is a good
example of solid drawing. Kopecky is creating a character that will live
through various iterations of history in the video.
He starts by defining the volume of the character, which he describes
in this character sheet at a teardrop/bowling pin. Then he adds
different clothing, hair, and accessories to the character to take him to
various parts of history.
Notice how you can see the other side of the body shape on the inside
of the mouth. But also, even when he is departing from three-
dimensionality for graphic effect, as in the position of the eyes, he
defines that in the character sheet too.
12. APPEAL
• People remember real, interesting, and engaging characters.
Animated characters should be pleasing to look at and have a
charismatic aspect to them; this even applies to the antagonists of
the story.
• Appeal can be hard to quantify because everyone has a different
standard. That said, you can give your character a better chance of
being appealing by making them attractive to look at.
• Play around with different shapes and proportions of characters to
keep things fresh. Enlarging the most defining feature of a character
can go a long way to giving the character personality. Strive for a
good balance between detail and simplicity.