Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 11, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The so-called 12 principles were summarised in 1981 by the now-deceased Disney veterans Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in the book "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation". You will find the Wikipedia excerpt after the Modo tutorials, which we will begin with right away.
Episode 1: Introduction and Scope
Episode 2: The Squishy Box Rig
Episode 3: Bouncing the Squishy Box
Episode 4: Anticipation
Episode 5: Follow Through & Overlap
Episode 6: Pose to Pose & Straight Ahead
Episode 7: Continuing with Posing
Episode 8: Spacing Chart and Staging
Episode 9: Arcs, Sow in-Slow Out, and Timing
Episode 10: Secondary Action and Exaggeration
Episode 11: Solid Drawing and Appeal
Episode 12:Bringing it all together
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on the 12 principles of animation:
In 1981, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas published the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. In it, they summarised the experiences of leading animators at The Walt Disney Company that had emerged since the 1930s in order to create believable animations. From this they derived twelve principles that were essential for creating the illusion of living characters and worlds.[1]
1. Squash & Stretch
The shapes of the characters are compressed or elongated, but the total volume of the shapes must be preserved. This serves to depict weight or external forces acting on the character.
2. Anticipation
A character’s main movement is introduced by a countermovement, such as winding up before a throw or taking a run-up before a jump. This makes the actual movements easier to read and appear more natural.
3. Staging
This concerns both the arrangement of the characters within the scene and the design of unmistakably recognisable poses. The character’s silhouette serves as a check. Ideally, the body’s expression should be understandable even if only the character’s outlines were visible.
4. Straight Ahead & Pose-to-Pose
The sequential creation of individual frames and the construction of animation around extreme phases that define the movement. Straight Ahead animation is more dynamic; Pose-to-Pose animation is more controlled.
5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action
Follow Through is often used to describe how inanimate elements of characters (e.g. hair or worn fabric) follow the main movement of the limbs with a delay during forceful movements, then shoot beyond the endpoint of that movement and only afterwards fall back into their resting position. Overlapping Action describes how not all limbs necessarily perform or finish a movement at the same time. The definitional boundaries between Follow Through and Overlapping Action are often fluid.
6. Slow In & Slow Out
A principle describing how natural movements usually begin slowly, then accelerate and become slow again towards the end. Specifically, this means that more individual frames are used at the beginning and end of a movement than in the middle.
7. Arcs
Limbs generally rotate around a joint. Their movements are therefore more curved than linear. The animator must define these arcs of movement within individual movements and ensure a harmonious transition between the movements.
8. Secondary Action
Simultaneous movements of a character that support the main movement, e.g. the swinging of arms while walking or gestures that accentuate dialogue.
9. Timing
Describes both the duration of movements and the period between movements. This aspect depends strongly on the character depicted and draws on the artist’s experience. It is necessary to understand how quickly or slowly a character can move because of their body, how quickly or slowly they will do so because of their inner attitude, and how many individual frames are required to depict the period.
10. Exaggeration
To make the poses and movements of drawn characters particularly clear, it is often necessary to exaggerate their appearance and movements. It must be controlled so that the exaggeration makes the movement neither too hectic nor too imprecise and remains appropriate to the statement of the scene.
11. Solid Drawing
Describes an artist’s fundamental ability to draw consistent characters. They should be correctly proportioned and perspectivally accurate, and should not lose these qualities in motion.
12. Appeal
Describes how both the appearance and design of characters and their poses and movements should be pleasing and appropriate to the character. There is room for interpretation here too: an evil character can look beautiful but reveal their true character through their acting, while an ugly character can also be lovable through their behaviour. Appeal does not automatically mean beauty, but effectively portraying characters’ inner qualities.
