Animation - Appeal

Appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor. A character who is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic — villains or monsters can also be appealing — the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting. There are several tricks for making a character connect better with the audience; for likable characters a symmetrical or particularly baby-like face tends to be effective.

Animation Techniques - Secondary Action

Adding secondary actions to the main action gives a scene more life, and can help to support the main action. A person walking can simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his pockets, he can speak or whistle, or he can express emotions through facial expressions. The important thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize, rather than take attention away from the main action. If the latter is the case, those actions are better left out. In the case of facial expressions, during a dramatic movement these will often go unnoticed. In these cases it is better to include them at the beginning and the end of the movement, rather than during.

Animation techniques - Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons. The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, for example to create a very cartoony style that is almost the complete opposite of realism. It is important to employ a certain level of restraint when using exaggeration; if a scene contains several elements, there should be a balance in how those elements are exaggerated in relation to each other, to avoid confusing or overawing the viewer

Animation techniques - Arcs

Most human and animal actions occur along an arched trajectory, and animation should reproduce these movements for greater realism. This can apply to a limb moving by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a trajectory to due to the effect of gravity after throwing it. The exception is mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines.

Animation Technniques - Slow In and Out

When animating characters in a realistic style the process of Slow in and slow out must be introduced or else it will look like they are just instantly stopping and starting.

The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down from a major movement. For this reason, an animation looks more realistic if it has more frames near the beginning and end of a movement to display a build up to the motion. This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects to show the effects of gravity or a force being acted against it.

Animation techniques - Pose-To-Pose Action

The technique of 'pose to pose' animation involves starting with drawing a few key frames of the character or objects key poses and positions, and then filling in the intervals later either manually or through an automated process if using animation software on a computer.
'Pose to pose' works better for dramatic or emotional scenes, where composition and relation to the surroundings are of greater importance.

Here is an exmaple of the beginning stages of pose to pose animaiton in which just the main key poses are created first:

Animation Techniques - Straight Ahead Action

"Straight ahead action" means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, "Straight ahead action" is more suited for creating more fluid motions, and is better for producing realistic action sequences. On the other hand, it is hard to maintain character proportions, and to create convincing poses along the way.

Animation techniques - Follow Through & Overlapping

These closely related techniques help make a character or object's movement more realistic, and give the impression that characters follow the laws of physics. "Follow through" means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the for parts of the body to move at different rates (an arm will move on different timing of the head and so on).

Animation techniques - Staging

The purpose of staging is to direct the audience's attention towards a certain character or object and make it clear what the main 'focal point' of the scene is, for example to show what is happening, and what is about to happen, whether that idea is an action, a personality, an expression or a mood. This can be done by various means, such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, and the angle and position of the camera.The main point of this principle is keeping focus on what is relevant, and avoiding unnecessary detail.

Animation techniques - Aniticpation

When anticipation is used in animtion, it is mainly used to prepare the audience for an action, and to make the action appear more realistic. A character who is about to start running or jump over something has to prepare for the action by for example bending their knees to get leverage to start or else it would not look realistic with them just flying off the ground. The technique can also be used for other types actions, such as a character looking off-screen to anticipate someone's arrival, or attention focusing on an object that a character is about to pick up.

Animation Techniques - Squash and Stretch

• Squash and Stretch

Squash and stretch is a very common animation technique used on many different things, from complex characters to very basic objects. The main purpose of the 'Squash and Stretch' technique is to provide an almost cartoonish feel by completly over exagerating something to the point that it would not be physically possible, but at the same time provide realism for more organic type objects and materials as when they interact with anything else their surface deforms depending on the force of the object.

When using the Squash and stretch technique the animator must be very careful to not change the objects size when squashing or stretching it as this would give a very odd effect where instead of the surface of the object being spread out our squashed in it looks like it is just growing and shrinking.

one of the most widly used example of Squash and Stretch is of a bouncing ball. The ball's surface squashes when it hits the ground and stretches just before landing to give the illusion of the effect speed has on the object and after when it is bouncing into the air to show it forming back into the original shape.

An Example of Squash and stretch: