Lesson 2 - Animation Principles 1
In this lesson we will explore some of the basic animation principles, first devised by Disney animators in the 1930s and finally outlined in the 1981 book "The Illusion of Life" by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. Throughout animation history, these principles became the guiding rules to create more dynamic and believable animations. They have been adapted and applied to every kind of animated medium, starting with traditional hand drawn movies, all the way to stop motion and 3D. We will examine each of these principles with animated examples, and discuss how they can be applied in your own work.
For this lesson we will look into 6 of the 12 animation principles:
- Timing and Spacing
- Ease in and Ease out
- Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
- Squash and Stretch
- Exaggeration
- Arcs
At the end of this lesson you will work on a simple animation exercise and will expand the outline you have created in Exercise 1 into a short story.
Additional Examples and Resources
CMYK, by Ronda (2015)