1. Squash and Stretch – This principle ads weight and flexibility to an object or character and makes the animation look realistic or if exaggerated comical.
2. Anticipation – Anticipation is used to focus attention on something in the animation and make actions look realistic. The movement of an action generally has a build-up and also a slowdown period, e.g. running and then stopping.
3. Staging – Is about the design of a scene and where objects and characters are and how it conveys a message to the audience, much like in film and theatre changing the angle or lighting creates different effects.
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose – Are two different styles of animation, straight ahead action is when an animator draws a scene frame by frame from start to finish. Pose to pose is where an animator draws a few keys frames and then fills in the intervals, this has also become more popular due to computers ability to fill in these frame automatically
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action – This principle helps make a character look like they follow the laws of physics, it is the technique of making the body look like its moving at different rates. E.g swinging your arms as you walk will create a character with multiple moving parts and at different speeds.
6. Slow In and Slow Out – This principle is about movement, when a character begins to run it takes a few frames to build up the large movement of lunging forward and with speed. This means that there needs to be some frame that focus on the speeding up and slowing down of actions and movements.
7. Arcs – Human and animal movement is similar because of our bone structures, this principle is based on the way limbs move and also the trajectory of an object due to speed and gravity.
8. Secondary Action – Secondary action is things such as a character showing emotion with things like facial expressions or the way the walk. The key factor in secondary action is that it emphasizes something. E.g. a sad man walking will slump down and maybe look at the ground and show an audience that he is sad without directly telling you.
9. Timing – This technique is important for the little details in animation such as a characters mood or emotion. It can be shown by timing a characters movement or reaction to something. E.g. a sigh after hearing bad news will show they are upset.
10. Exaggeration – Exaggeration depends on if your animation is meant to be realistic or in a particular style, it can show an event in a more obvious style and more cartoon like form.
11. Solid Drawing – This principle is focused on three-dimensional design, creating a character with weight, balance and shadow.
12. Appeal – Is how a characters personality or charisma is shown, a more appealing character is more entertaining and enjoyable to watch. It can work for good guys or bad guys and everything in-between as long as the characters emotions can be easily read.
