The 12 Principles of Animation: A Timeless Guide for Animators

In 1981, during the Golden Age of American animation, Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston published "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life." This book describes the behind-the-scenes of a Disney production, including a quick overview of the character animation process.

In retrospect, The Illusion of Life was among the first resources to present a framework for animators, which we would later know as the 12 principles of animation.

Walt Disney Co. is now worth $193 billion, and it all started by creating compelling animated characters!

In this article, we give you a quick overview of the 12 principles, but you can find more detailed articles on our blog about animation principles with additional actionable tips and illustrated examples.

1. Squash and Stretch

A bouncing rubber ball squashes when it hits the ground, then stretches as it rises back into the air.

Similarly, squash and stretch is used to exaggerate the actions and emotions of a character, giving it cartoon-like aesthetics.

Even in more realistic animations, squash and stretch subtly enhance the sense of weight and timing: when a person runs, their members, head, and skin will naturally squash and stretch.

2. Anticipation

Anticipation is the preparation for a significant action. It sets the audience for what will happen, making the movement more realistic.

In real life, actions have preparatory movements: a person crouches down before jumping, and it could feel weird if you don't include this anticipation movement.

Anticipation also guides the audience's attention to where the main action will occur. This is particularly important in scenes with multiple characters or complex backgrounds.

You can also use anticipation to add drama and increase impact. In a suspenseful moment where a character is about to open a mysterious box, a slow build-up with hesitant movements and a tense pause add suspense.

3. Staging

Staging is about placing characters, props, cameras, and lighting in environments for a scene to convey a story. It guides the audience's eye to the most important aspects of a scene: you can control what the viewers see and when they see it.

But staging isn't just about where you place things.

By arranging characters and their actions purposefully, you make sure the audience understands the context without confusion: if a character is supposed to feel isolated in a crowd, staging them at the edge of a large gathering, looking towards the center, will visually communicate their loneliness. Simple but effective.

Staging elements like lighting, camera angles, and composition significantly influence the mood of a scene. In a suspenseful scene, for example, a character in a low-lit room with looming shadows creates tension.

4. Straight-Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose

Straight-ahead action means drawing each frame in sequence, one at a time, from start to finish. This method emphasizes fluid, organic movements for maximum creative exploration―a bit like improvising in music or dance. It's perfect for elements like fire, smoke, or character animations where spontaneity is key.

On the opposite side, pose-to-pose is all about planning and control. You start with key poses to define major movements or expressions, then fill in with in-betweens. This approach is key for clarity and timing, especially when animating complex scenes that require specific keyframes, like a character performing a dance move. This way, each step or pose is correctly timed and executed to maintain the beat of the dance.

Most professional animations use a blend of both. Creating key poses first with Pose-to-Pose ensures that the primary story points and actions are clear and effectively conveyed. Then, using straight-head action between these keys can add fluidity and life to certain movements.

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Follow-through and overlapping action describe how parts of a character or object continue moving even after a primary action has been completed.

When characters or objects move, they don't stop all at once. If a character with long hair comes to a sudden stop, the hair will continue moving forward for a bit before settling. This principle mimics the laws of physics and makes the animation feel more alive.

Overlapping action makes sure that different parts of a character move at different rates to smooth the whole movement. A character throwing a ball would first have their arm accelerate before the hand follows through to release the ball. Overlapping these actions makes the throw more dynamic by breaking the motion into parts.

How a character moves reveals volumes about their personality or emotional state: a confident character might have a sharp, controlled follow-through, while an indecisive one could have a more jittery, prolonged movement.

6. Slow In and Slow Out

As previously mentioned, objects never start or stop moving instantaneously in the real world: a car will gradually pick up speed and then slow down before coming to a halt.

Slow In and Out replicate this natural acceleration and deceleration to make animations more realistic. The transition looks smoother when the frames are gradually spaced closer together at the start (slow in) and end (slow out) of a movement.

The pacing of your transition is a great storytelling tool. A character who slowly raises their eyebrows before they widen quickly in shock uses this principle to underscore the surprise element.

7. Arc

Because of gravity, movements are rarely linear and instead follow curved, arched paths.

Following arcs in your animations mimic this natural motion. For example, a person's arm swings when they walk following a gentle arc rather than moving up and down in a straight line.

Arcs are also way more expressive than linear motions. Exaggerated arcs can also serve storytelling purposes, adding to character designs.

8. Secondary Action

Animated movements can be broken down into functional primary actions and aesthetic secondary actions that support the former.

A character walking could have their hair bouncing or their arms swinging slightly as secondary actions. This adds depth to the animation while making the primary action (walking) appear more natural. In the real world, movements are rarely isolated. Multiple things often happen at once. This variety prevents animations from looking too mechanical.

Secondary actions can also give additional insight into a character's emotional state. You could have, for example, a character nervously tap their foot while talking. This additional movement provides a clue to the viewer about their anxious state without disrupting the main dialogue. These little touches can really level up your animation.

9. Timing

Timing determines the speed of an animation, or a part of it, to control its narrative rhythm.

Timing greatly impacts how an audience perceives a scene. For example, a quick movement conveys that a character is excited, energetic, or perhaps even nervous, while slow movements can suggest a character is relaxed, tired, or feeling depressed.

Timing also contributes to the realism of motion by obeying physical laws like gravity, momentum, and inertia: the timing of a bouncing ball communicates its weight and material. Like a bowling ball, a heavy ball will have slower bounces with more hang time between each contact with the ground, while a light, bouncy ball, like a beach ball, will have quicker, more frequent bounces.

Lastly, timing sets the rhythm of a scene to create moments of tension or comedic relief. In a suspenseful scene where a character slowly reaches for a door handle, the extended time before touching the handle builds anticipation and suspense. Comedic timing could involve a series of rapid actions followed by a pause to let the audience absorb the humor.

10. Exaggeration

Exaggeration is the principle of stretching reality to add energy and dramatics to an animation.

In animation, clarity often relies on larger-than-life actions to convey the intended message quickly and effectively. When animating a fast action like a punch, exaggeration depicts powerful movements. By extending the arc, making the first move slightly faster, and adding an unrealistic but impactful follow-through, you can highlight the speed and force of the punch. This makes the action more readable for the viewer to understand, even in a fraction of a second.

Too much realism can remove the fun of an animation, while strategic exaggeration emphasizes emotions and actions―a character experiencing joy should have a broad smile and gleaming eyes! It's an important tool for animators to express themselves.

11. Solid Drawing

Solid drawing emphasizes creating characters and objects that feel three-dimensional.

For example, thinking about basic shapes like spheres, cubes, and cylinders help form a clear visual structure to maintain consistency in shape and proportion when viewed from different angles.

This principle involves understanding the basics of drawing, like anatomy, composition, balance, and perspective, to create consistent scenes.

Solid drawing shines when animators need to create dynamic poses effectively.

12. Appeal

Appeal is about creating animations that grab the audience's attention: regardless of their role as heroes or villains, characters should be engaging.

Just like a charismatic actor can hold an audience's attention, characters developed with a unique design and personality facilitate the viewer's connection to the story.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the character has to be cute or pretty―unique quirks or exaggerated features can make a character memorable. Shrek is an ogre, not traditionally beautiful, but his personality and design have undeniable appeal.

Conclusion

The 12 animation principles are foundational best practices―you can find them in any animation project!

As you acquire more experience, you'll notice that each principle overlaps with the others. For example, it's not possible to master slow in and out without a good sense of timing, or you can't do anticipation without a bit of exaggeration, and so on.

But the twelve principles are not the end of the journey. They were developed when traditional hand-drawn animation was the dominant form, and we have since developed many new techniques to create art. Eastern animation is a prime example: you can easily guess which is which from glancing at a single frame. Many techniques also originate from cinema, like the extensive use of virtual cameras.

In any case, it's important for you as an animator not to stick rigidly to these principles and instead find your own workflows and techniques.

Animation is also not limited to character animation―environments and props are just as important!