In the early days of animation, Disney animators often found themselves confused by what seemed to be conflicting instructions from Walt Disney himself: "When Walt asked for realism, he wanted a caricature of realism. [...] If a character was to be sad, make him sadder;"
The realist approach gets in the way of the magic that animation has the power to harness: what Walt wanted to convey was something that resonated deeply with the child within, yet differed noticeably from the mundane reality viewers experienced every day.
This balance between reality and exaggeration is hard to get: from character designs to poses and facial expressions, exaggeration encompasses the whole production process.
In this article, we explore the basics of exaggeration―what it is and why it's important―as well as simple elements to take into account to implement this principle in your animation.
What's Exaggeration
Exaggeration is about making elements of animation like size, emotions, actions, or expressions larger, better, worse, or more important than they are in reality.
The goal is not to distort reality entirely but to amplify the essence of an idea or action to make it more vivid to the audience. When a character is excited, their movements should display more energy. When a significant moment in the storytelling occurs, a camera can show dramatic angles. Audio cues can highlight important actions.
Exaggeration plays an important role, even in more realistic animations.
Why This Principle Is Important
Exaggeration makes actions clearer for audiences to immediately understand character movements and emotions, even in complex or fast-paced sequences. A character's joy might be shown through a leap that defies gravity, or their anger could be expressed through exaggerated facial expressions that go beyond normal human capabilities.
Exaggeration also plays a role in emphasizing story points: overly dramatic camera zooms or the use of slow motion and exaggerated smirks are for example often used in plot twists.
All these little details help engage viewers emotionally to draw them deeper into the narrative, but it's still important to balance exaggerated and non-exaggerated elements to maintain a believable world. Not just to avoid overwhelming the audience, but also to let those exaggerated moments stand out effectively.
There are many ways to integrate the exaggeration principle in animation, but in this article we focus on four basics.
1. Character Design
One way to use exaggeration is through character design to help viewers instantly recognize and understand characters.
Through shape language, animators emphasize character attributes using simple forms like rounded shapes to convey a friendly and approachable character or sharp, angular forms to suggest a villainous or aggressive personality. It visually communicates the essence of a character at a glance.
Playing with the color palette is also a great way to exaggerate personalities. For example, by using bold, contrasting colors to intensify the character's presence and mood: bright, vibrant colors might be used for a lively character, while dark, muted shades could underscore a more mysterious presence.
Props and their relations to the character design are another way to exaggerate personalities. Zoro from One Piece is hard worker who aims to be "the greatest swordman", so Eiichiro Oda gave him 3 swords to wield―it's a form of exaggeration that makes the character iconic:
2. Poses & Facial Expressions
Another obvious way to integrate the exaggeration principle is to work on your poses.
Animators can heighten the visual impact of a scene by deliberately slightly pushing poses beyond their natural extremes. Take this comparative picture for example:
Exaggerated poses also emphasize key moments, clarify intent, and communicate strong emotional states. Goku going super saiyan is a classic example, but Dragon Ball features many more iconic poses:
Similarly, facial expressions are exaggerated to display emotions more vividly. It's especially effective for comedic effects:
Applying the solid drawing principle with for example a strong line of action or by relying on asymmetric poses is a great way to obtain convincing poses with realistic exaggeration. Look at how quickly you can grasp the following poses thanks to the line of action:
3. Timing
Timing highlights the key actions that need exaggeration: holding a pose for a longer duration can give it more weight and make it more noticeable, for example.
Quick timing can be used to exaggerate speed and intensity while stretching out timing can make a movement feel sluggish to exaggerate a character's fatigue or laziness. Longer hang times during leaps or fast impacts on landing accentuate the heaviness or lightness of a character. Quick changes in expression intensify the feeling of surprise or shock, while prolonged expressions enhance the sensation of sadness or contemplation.
Timing differences create contrast, which is a core element of exaggeration. For example, you can use it to build up anticipation before an exaggerated action: by slowing down or pausing just before a major action, animators build up the suspense to make the exaggerated moment more impactful.
4. Sound Effects
Sound effects are underrated elements of exaggeration: a simple movement like a character jumping can be exaggerated with the sound of a powerful whoosh or a comical boing. Sound creates a hyper-realistic world that goes beyond what is possible in reality: whether it's exaggerated footsteps, overly loud slurping noises, or unrealistically booming explosions, they all contribute to "enhancing" reality.
Animes are well known for this. In Fire Force, energy blasts use bass-boosted sound cues to increase their impact. In Hajime no Ippo, punching sounds turn into jet noise.
We can all remember a sad scene underscored with an exaggerated, melodramatic violin sound, or a joyful scene accompanied by over-the-top, whimsical musical cues or cheerful jingles.
Unique sound effects, sometimes entire themes, are often assigned to specific characters to exaggerate their traits or behaviors. Rengoku's theme from Demon Slayer reinforces his fiery personality traits and fire-themed character design:
5. Camera Work
The way animators use the camera is also a great way to exaggerate story points.
Dramatic zooms quickly move the camera closer to or further from a subject to emphasize an emotion or action.
Quick cuts are rapid transitions between different camera angles or scenes, while jump cuts are abrupt edits within a continuous shot. These techniques show chaos, urgency, or heightened emotions by quickly shifting the viewer's focus and exaggerating the energy of a scene.
A Dutch angle tilts the camera to one side to create a diagonal horizon line that distorts perspective. It can exaggerate disorientation or confusion in a scene by making the viewer feel off-balance alongside the characters.
You can also use follow shots to add momentum to a character's movements, wide shots to show the character's loneliness, etc.
Conclusion
The exaggeration principle is a fundamental tool to create engaging animations. Poses and facial expressions are one way to apply this principle, but you can also use character design, timing, sound effects, or camera techniques. Your creativity is the only limit!
Exaggeration also plays a huge role in other animation principles like timing, anticipation, or squash and stretch, so you not only need to master each principle individually but also understand how they relate to and complement each other.
Experiment with different degrees of exaggeration and observe how it transforms your scenes to find the right balance between realism and storytelling and ultimately find your own style!
