969919

research-article2020
ANM0010.1177/1746847720969919AnimationThesen

Article

animation:

Reviewing and Updating the an interdisciplinary journal

2020, Vol. 15(3) 276­–296
© The Author(s) 2020
12 Principles of Animation Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847720969919
DOI: 10.1177/1746847720969919
journals.sagepub.com/home/anm

Thomas P Thesen
Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, Digital Animation, Singapore

Abstract
This article suggests a discussion on the reconfiguration of the 12 principles of animation and
their necessary refinement for contemporary animation to address the growing complexity and
expansion of the animation industry. The expansion of the 12 principles of animation into the
various animation techniques requires a consideration of their development, which, in the 1930s
and 1940s was sufficient for animation’s hand-drawn animation needs; since then, the principles
have proven themselves accurate and incredibly helpful for subsequent decades. Nevertheless, this
article indicates that a refinement of the principles is required to accommodate a broader range
of animation techniques. The great advantage of the 12 principles of animation is their simplicity
and logic; however, they do not apply in their entirety (as the full set of 12) to hand-drawn
digital animation, stop-motion animation, experimental or digitally animated media. Therefore,
this article explores the initial 12 principles with additions and variations suggested by artists and
scholars over the last 30 years, and concludes with a reorganization and expansion of most of the
principles’ content, a breakdown into sub points and an updated terminology to reconceptualize
the 12 principles of animation for all animation techniques. 

Keywords
12 principles of animation, anticipation, appeal, arc, exaggeration, follow through and
overlapping action, secondary action, slow in and slow out, solid drawing, squash and stretch,
staging, straight ahead action and pose to pose, timing 

Introduction
The 12 principles of animation were first developed and refined by the Walt Disney Studios from
the late 1920s to the mid-1930s during an intensive process of research, study and understanding
of natural human, animal and object motion and action. With the illusion of life as their target,
Disney’s animators translated physical laws and realistic movements into a set of 12 aesthetic and
behavioural principles as a way of producing believable and life-like qualities within hand-drawn
animation. Such principles were designed to produce convincing action on screen that was not only
based on real-life physics and forces but would likewise produce characters that were believable in

Corresponding author:
Thomas P Thesen, 33B Nanyang Avenue, App 04-04, 639805 Singapore.
Email: thomasthesen@gmx.net
Thesen 277

their emotional state and capable of stirring empathy in the audience. The publication of ex-Disney
animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (1981)
explained the 12 principles through their importance to Disney’s character-animation style, while
solidifying the Studios’ own central development of principles that would be highly influential
across the Hollywood animation industry. The strength and appeal of the 12 principles were, ini-
tially, their exceptional simplicity and conciseness of design. This brevity, however, gives them the
appearance of being just that: rules to follow in pursuit of successfully producing high-end com-
mercial character-animation, while neglecting their high degrees of complexity and vast artistic
capabilities. In comparison, the set of 12 expands dramatically when dissected in content and
artistic scope, which this article will explore further and offer a restructured set of the original
principles to fit all animation techniques alike, not just traditional hand-drawn Disney character-
animation for which they were initially intended.
The original principles focus solely on hand-drawn animation produced within the Disney
Studios, and yet it is possible to produce a list of principles that might fit a broader range of ani-
mation techniques and better serve the technical and artistic scope of animation as a creative
medium. Separating out the principles from their historical and industrial connection to Disney-
style animation therefore provides a set of principles that is more inclusive of all animation tech-
niques, processes and methods of image-making. Animators working in stop-motion animation,
with more experimental techniques,1 from the 1960s on computer animation and from the 1970s
on video/computer game design, are often selecting from the original Disney list of animation
principles only those that fit their individual needs. Those principles that are not fully suitable for
their specific techniques are then ‘adjusted’ and often bent precariously in their content to a seem-
ingly comfortable fit that, unfortunately, does not always work successfully. The principle of
‘solid drawing’, for instance, is repeatedly challenged in digital animation and stop motion, as
apparently it does not apply as a principle to their techniques.
Animation is an artistic field and therefore the extent to which artists use the principles in their
animation is a matter of preference and artistic interpretation. The broad range of experimental
techniques, including sand-animation, paint-on-glass animation, pixilation, or animating on the
pin-screen are techniques that, as this article contends, can all use the same animation principles,
but do so to a varying degree compared to traditional hand-drawn animation. Artists using an
experimental technique might choose to ignore most of the principles in their work to achieve a
unique design that is artistically independent from commercial animation. The terminology and
content of the original 12 principles are therefore in need of restructuring and breaking down into
sub points in order to, on the one hand, be helpful to animators across all animation techniques
while, on the other hand, to assist animation scholars with a clearly structured terminology for their
aesthetic evaluation.
While it is not possible to compile a full list of principles, this article therefore has two goals:
firstly, to restructure Disney’s original 12 principles of animation to embrace all animation tech-
niques equally and at the same time adjust the terminology; and secondly, to reconceptualize most
of the principles to clearly list their artistic possibilities, which will lead to greater precision in
defining the 12 principles of animation.

Historical overview of the principles of animation

With the assistance of the Disney animators’ intense study of anatomy and live-action footage
to grasp physics, motion and movement, the Walt Disney Studios specifically saw their artistic
interpretation of movement based directly on real life, and so real life had to be observed and
thoroughly understood. The knowledge of movement, starting with Newton’s Laws of Motion
278 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

and the detailed photographical studies of human and animal motion, explored in the last quar-
ter of the 19th century by artists like Eadweard Muybridge or Étienne-Jules Marey, were
already-existing scientific aids for animators trying to translate this knowledge artistically into
animation. Building upon these, the additional studies that took place at the Walt Disney Studios
included test-screenings of the character animation, which were then critiqued and further
improved, though this was a method other studios did not initially follow. This ongoing
improvement of the work processes elevated the quality of Disney animation above the work of
other studios at the time. The studios’ growing artistic repute derived additionally from the
application and exploration of the 12 principles of animation, which, around the year 1935, had
evolved into the following principles:

1. Squash and stretch

2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose
5. Follow through and overlapping action
6. Slow in and slow out
7. Arc
8. Secondary action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid drawing
12. Appeal

Although they were central elements of Disney’s illusion of life aesthetic style (what Paul Wells,
1998, calls Disney’s ‘hyper-realism’), many of these principles had already been in use in anima-
tion’s infancy prior to their adoption by US studios. The principle of ‘arcs’,2 for example, is the
very foundation of movement and has been used in its simplest form for animation since the late
19th century. The less the movement follows the arc as its leading path, the more nervous and
hectic the movement will appear. The arc is therefore crucial in even the most basic action and
movements. Its application to animation was already apparent in Charles-Émile Reynaud’s short-
film Pauvre Pierrot (1892). A very rudimentary use of the next principle ‘timing’, and even a
simple form of ‘slow in and slow out’, is where Gertie moves her head left and right in Winsor
McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), a character that anticipates the principle of ‘appeal’.
‘Staging’ and ‘exaggeration’ can also be found in Reynaud’s and McCay’s short films. Thus, at
the Disney Studios, the principles were explored as to their ability to produce life-like animation,
following Walt Disney’s aesthetic direction of bringing movement that is based on reality onto the
screen. Disney himself wrote:

A good many of the men misinterpret the idea of studying the actual motion. They think it is our
purpose merely to duplicate these things. This misconception should be cleared up for all. I definitely
feel that we cannot do the fantastic things, based on the real, unless we first know the real. (Walt
Disney, 1935)

Walt Disney comments on the need of the exaggeration of the real for it to assist with the fantastic.
For instance, in the Disney Studios’ short films, the important principle of ‘squash and stretch’ and
‘exaggeration’ can be seen, in their artistic application, in Trolley Troubles, from 1927. Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit is drawn in the short film with subtle squash and stretch, but the trolley in particular
Thesen 279

is being squashed and stretched to the audience’s delight, expanding the initial physical need for
this specific principle to organic movement, by giving it an artistic spin for the sake of storytelling
and comedic effect, and applying it to the inorganic matter of the trolley. This does not yet have the
sophistication of the later application of ‘squash and stretch’, but it deploys a significant morphing
of characters and objects that supports storytelling and entertainment value.
Disney’s goal was always to bring onto the screen animation characters that the audience could
believe in. Therefore, the animators had to explore ways of bringing this believability into their
characters and the 12 principles were the way of achieving this life-like movement and emotional
connection. Life-like, however, does not mean realistic, and Walt Disney himself never wanted to
mimic nature or create realistic animation. Here, I am purposely using the term ‘life-like’ instead
of Wells’ established term ‘hyper-realism’ since the application of the term by Wells for Disney’s
traditional character animation not only significantly increases animation’s ability to recreate natu-
ral movement through digital animation, but also hyper-realism conflicts with the very same term
in fine arts, represented by artists like Ron Mueck or Duane Hanson (Wells, 1998).3 Walt Disney’s
goal was clearly focused on life-like movement and subtle stylization as he stated in an inter-office
communication on 23 December 1935:

The first duty of the cartoon is not to picture or duplicate real action or things as they actually happen – but
to give a caricature of life and action . . . The point must be made clear to the men that our study of the
actual is not so that we may be able to accomplish the actual, but so that we may have a basis upon which
to go into the fantastic, the unreal, the imaginative – and yet to let it have a foundation of fact, in order that
it may more richly possess sincerity and contact with the public. (Walt Disney, 1935)

Disney’s goal of producing characters that additionally ‘contact with the public’, required the anal-
ysis of the characters’ personalities and their performances to be based on psychological traits. The
rising complexity of the characters’ ability to feel and express believable emotions in Disney’s film
output during the 1930s required such a step if the characters were not only to be believed in, but
empathized with, by the audience. Slowly, the importance of the principles crystallized and became
the creative guidelines for Disney animation. Thomas and Johnston (1981: 47) describe the devel-
opment of the 12 principles from their perspective as follows:

The animators continued to search for better methods of relating drawings to each other and had found a
few ways that seemed to produce a predictable result. They could not expect success every time, but these
special techniques of drawing a character in motion did offer some security. As each of these processes
acquired a name, it was analysed and perfected and talked about, and when new artists joined the staff,
they were taught these practices as they were the rules of the trade. To everyone’s surprise, they became
the fundamental principles of animation.

These explorations permitted a cartoon aesthetic to evolve that was life-like, believable and emo-
tionally engaging, which would ultimately culminate in the ‘Disney style’ or period of ‘Disney
Formalism’ (Pallant, 2010). The studio’s refined animation pipeline allowed all artists to follow the
same production path with its 12 principles, thus structuring a young and still evolving industry’s
workflow towards a streamlined and professional production.
Over the last 40 years, since the publication of Illusion of Life: Disney Animation in 1981, the
12 principles of animation have been widely discussed and applied, not just in traditional anima-
tion production but likewise increasingly so in digital media. In 1987, John Lasseter wrote an
article on how to translate the 12 principles of animation into new forms of computer animation.
Lasseter slightly adjusted the list by surprisingly ignoring ‘solid drawing’ without giving a reason,
and therefore listed only 11 principles, despite mentioning ‘drawing’ repeatedly. Lasseter also
280 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

added ‘personality’, not as one of the principles, but as an added point dominating all other princi-
ples. Lasseter states ‘Personality in character animation is not a principle unto itself, but the intel-
ligent application of all of the principles of animation’ (p. 43). The missing principle of ‘solid
drawing’ seems, at first glance, to be obvious as drawing is clearly not a requirement for computer
character animation. Drawing is not necessarily an obligatory step towards the final computer
graphics (CG) image; however, it can be rather helpful if the animator is in control of the task of
using drawing in the thumb-nailing of the performance’s development (Hosea, 2010). The question
of how removing the principle of ‘solid drawing’ affects the totality of the principles in CG anima-
tion negatively will be explained later in this article. By adding the facet of ‘personality’, Lasseter
extracts personality from Disney’s principle of ‘appeal’ and makes it its own overreaching element,
very much like ‘story’ being the driving force of all that is done in animation, as story is the founda-
tion of not just every storyboard and design decision being made but likewise every decision in
character animation has story at its core.
Subsequently numerous other writers and animators have worked with and against Disney’s
principles. In the publications From Script to Screen (1990) by Shamus Culhane, and in Preston
Blair’s treaty Cartoon Animation (1994), the 12 principles of animation are mentioned in detail,
but are embedded into a long list of further aspects including technical features as well as artistic
qualities related to character size, colour, shape and form. Many of the points mentioned in these
publications are sub-points within the explanations of the principles of animation in Thomas and
Johnston’s Illusion of Life (1981), while some are more helpful additions. Explaining the anima-
tion principles that are significant to stop-motion animation, in 1998, Aardman Studios published
their book Cracking Animation, The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation by Peter Lord and Brian
Sibley. In the section ‘Animation and performance’ the animation principles, which are named as
such are defined as follows:

•• Movement: deals with the character’s performance and reference footage.

•• Posing the character: this not only deals with the character’s poses, but also with the
moments between the action, the still moments of the performance.
•• Changing the pace: variation in the pacing of the action.
•• Anticipation.
•• Weight.
•• Momentum: this deals with ‘follow through and overlapping action’.
•• Acceleration and deceleration: different term for ‘slow in and slow out’. (p. 132)

The principles in Aardman’s publication do not differentiate, other than in their terminology and
the missing principle of ‘solid drawing’, from the original 12, an argument for the veracity and
longevity of Disney’s 12 principles and their applicability, for the most part, into non-2D tech-
niques. Nevertheless, Richard Williams further explored hand-drawn animation in 2001, with his
expansive work on character animation, The Animator’s Survival Kit (2001). He divides character
animation into various topics that not only include the principles of animation but also discuss a
wide array of topics.4 Williams’ work includes knowledge of some of the famous character anima-
tors from Disney and other Hollywood studios, like Milt Kahl, Art Babbitt, Ken Harris and Grim
Natwick, who were all employed at various periods by Williams at his London studio and he him-
self improved his skills in the art and trade of animation by learning from their teachings. Williams
does not explicitly mention the 12 principles of animation in his book but he discusses their physi-
cal and artistic applications in the various sections. Williams’ book adds to the 12 principles’ uni-
versality in animated movement and their broad artistic utilization, yet additions have since been
suggested. In 2007, Carol McGillivray argues:
Thesen 281

The fact that the twelve animation principles have stood the test of time and have been adapted successfully
to new methods of animating such as 3D CG means that they underpin most animators’ work today every
bit as much as they did the animation on Disney’s first feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a lifetime
ago. (p. 1)

Nevertheless, McGillivray expands the initial principles to 13 by adding ‘isolation’, which refers
to the fact that movement attracts attention. As she argues, ‘Isolation refers to centralizing a char-
acter and its movement. If one character is gesticulating wildly in a scene, you don’t want another
to join in or the viewer’s eyes will shift away from the main action’ (p. 5). Lasseter (1987: 38)
likewise refers to this point of ‘isolation’ in his paper from 1987 on the principle of ‘staging’. He
writes:

It is important, when staging an action, that only one idea be seen by the audience at a time. If a lot of
action is happening at once, the eye does not know where to look and the main idea of the action will
be ‘upstaged’ and overlooked. The object of interest should contrast from the rest of the scene. In a still
scene, the eye will be attracted to movement. In a very busy scene, the eye will be attracted to something
that is still.

Where Lasseter stays for the most part within the expansion of the initial 12 principles and
exclusively applies them to CG animation, other writers and animators have refined the principles
further. More recently, Walt Stanchfield, an animator and lecturer at the Disney Studios, in his
publication of Drawn to Life (Stanchfield, 2009), a compendium of his many lectures at the studio,
expands the 12 principles of animation dramatically and actually lists 29 points that the drafts-
person and animator need to know and use as part of their artistic trade. Stanchfield wrote his
articles over a time period of 20 years, and his 29 points clearly go far beyond the initial 12 and, in
some cases, are like those in the treatise by Culhane, Blair and Williams, expanding on elements
already within the 12 principles of animation. His ‘28 principles of animation’ (p. 26) actually
contain 29 principles, and include some of the initial 12. A similar approach to refining the princi-
ples took place in 2011, on the official webpage of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (2011), which
further divided the ‘principles of physical animation’ by adding an additional set of ‘12 principles
of emotions in animation’, which, in the form of questions, deal with the characters’ performances
and the reasons for their actions, reactions and emotions. Many of the questions are also integral
elements of storytelling, character personality and performance. Question 10 covers ‘simplicity’
(an aspect that will later be added to the final principles ‘staging’ and ‘pose’, see Table 2), question
11 deals with the procedure of preparing the animation and question 12 addresses the target audi-
ence. The 12 principles of emotions in animation are also all included in Hooks’ (2011) and
Webster’s (2012), more recent lists of principles of acting. The previously mentioned expansion of
the 12 principles’ application can be juxtaposed by a noteworthy stylistic interpretation in popular
animation.The animator and animation director Chuck Jones, famous for his unique style of anima-
tion timing and anticipation at Warner Brothers, which he often pushed to its artistic limits, like-
wise confronted the principles of animation, thereby suggesting their influence beyond the Disney
studio. In 2012, he released the video tutorial ‘A Chuck Jones Tutorial: Tricks of the Cartoon
Trade’, which presented a list of eight points: ‘zip-out’, anticipation’, ‘primary and secondary
action’, ‘overlapping action’, ‘cartoon exaggeration’, ‘natural animal movement’, ‘anthropomor-
phism’ and ‘animation of minutiae’ (Looney Tunes Showcase Volume 1, 2012). ‘Zip-out’, the quick
exit of a character from the frame, is an artistic interpretation of ‘timing’ and ‘anticipation’, and
provides a performance moment a specific term. The principle of ‘natural animal movement’ refers
to the possible scale of ‘exaggeration’ as ‘natural animal movement’ is just the natural foundation
of animal locomotion (excluding in Jones’ list human locomotion, which of course needs to be
282 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

added for completion). ‘Animation of minutiae’, the reduction of the character’s performance to a
simple glance or eye-brow movement, is an artistic interpretation of character performance, which
will be discussed later in the section ‘Appeal’. Jones’ tutorial focuses on his own unique animation
style, which does not expand the initial 12 principles by Thomas and Johnston but clearly stays
within their boundaries, similar to other resources, which extract subpoints of the initial 12 princi-
ples and point out that they are sufficiently significant to be stand-alone principles. In 2014, on the
animation webpage of the Animation World Network, a list was posted containing 14 principles,
based on Natasha Lightfoot’s own post on an Animation Toolworks webpage, which adds ‘depth’
and ‘balance and weight’ to the list. Both are actually mentioned in Thomas and Johnston’s
(Thomas, 1981: 53) 12 principles of animation in the principle of ‘solid drawing’.
In other resources, the added principles have more validation and inspire a detailed discussion
about how they work in the development of character. In Webster’s (2012) publication, Action
Analysis for Animators, four more principles are suggested as possible additions to the initial list
of 12 principles, which he discusses in detail. The four additional principles are ‘drag’, ‘balance
and weight’, ‘solid modelling’ and ‘energy flow’ (p. 63). Although Webster suggests in his first
principle ‘drag’, that drag appears in gas or liquids that surround the character, which technically
is effects animation, he also adds the movement of sleeves for instance, as being ‘drag’; however,
this is already part of ‘follow through and overlapping action’, principles that have a rather broad
application. His second addition is ‘balance and weight’ (Webster, 2012: 64). This principle has
been likewise added by other authors (Stanchfield, Lightfoot, Culhane, Blair and Williams), which
suggests there is clearly the need for this principle to appear in the list and be part of one of the
principles. Both, however, are mentioned in Thomas and Johnston’s (1981: 53) 12 principles of
animation in ‘solid drawing’. The third principle of Webster’s additions is ‘solid modelling’ (2016:
64). He describes the aspects of form, volume, space and surface values as an explanation for this
principle and discusses the successful transition of the character’s design and appeal through the
modelling process into the final character. It seems that Webster applies this principle only to char-
acters that are ‘built’ and modelled, so CG and stop motion would be the target; however, this can
also easily be applied to hand-drawn animation. The last added principle is ‘energy flow’ (Webster,
2012: 64), which Webster explains as follows:

With a figure in motion it is possible to track the way energy is directed through the body as an action
progresses. This capability may prove very useful in thinking about how the body shifts and rotates and
how the various tensions and stresses within the figure contribute to an action or how they counter weights
or stresses applied to the figure. (pp. 64–65)

Webster also states that the original 12 principles produced by the Disney studio need updating:

Although these principles may have been useful to animators in the 1930s and 1940s who were striving
to improve not only their own work but to raise the level of craft skills and in doing so develop the art
form, they do not necessarily reflect all forms of modern animation. Since those early pioneers of
animation first struggled with creating animated performances, the craft of animation has moved forward
a good deal, and it may be that today’s principles of animation are slightly different from those identified
in the Disney studio. At least there may be additional identifiable principles to be added to the original
list as a result of those developments. The majority of these principles clearly remain relevant to animators
working in any discipline, despite the fact that these were established before any form of digital animation
was available. (p. 52)

Webster’s suggestion here carries great importance for the development of the principles for the
study of animation. The following detailed analysis of the initial principles of their content and
Thesen 283

terminology therefore provides a restructured list that relies on the suggestions of a number of
animation resources as a way of rethinking and reconceptualizing the original set of principles.

Analysis
The enumeration of some of the examples of animators and educators who discuss and offer addi-
tions to the 12 principles of animation suggests that the initial list by Thomas and Johnston, though
exceptional in its simplicity and ongoing validity, is in need of expansion as a response to the
artistic and technical demands of animation and its variety of approaches. To open up the applica-
tion of the principles into all animation techniques alike, a cross-section of the original principles
of ‘squash and stretch’, ‘anticipation’, ‘follow through and overlapping action’, ‘arcs’, ‘staging’,
‘straight ahead action and pose to pose’, ‘solid drawing’ and finally ‘appeal’ can be further dis-
sected and discussed in detail. Stop motion, computer animation (including games and motion
graphics) and a number of experimental techniques will be included in this discussion, giving the
principles a wider scope, but also unifying the range of animation techniques rather than focusing
on their differences.

Squash and stretch

The most common application of ‘squash and stretch’ in animation is warranted by physics. A
character that is jumping, when gaining the momentum for the jump, will crouch down and squash
and then stretch when leaping up into the air, releasing the stored energy of the squash into the
stretch. In another example, a character who is chewing food with pleasure can show the forces
created in the deformation of the face through exaggerated squash and stretch, thus pushing the
entertainment value. Both examples go back to the physical needs of that action. However, there
are also the emotional and mental aspects of ‘squash and stretch’ for organic or inorganic elements.
For instance, in Tex Avery’s short film Red Hot Riding Hood (1943), the wolf’s eyes stretching out
longingly towards the female dancer, Red, signify his highly aroused state. It is the same with the
bouncing ball: it can either squash and stretch because of the physical needs of its weight and mate-
rial, with external and internal forces causing the bounce, or the ball eagerly wants to bounce, thus
reaching out (stretching) to get closer to the ground in anticipation of hitting the ground. ‘Squash
and stretch’ can therefore be divided into two sub categories relating to its application: physical and
emotional/mental.
‘Squash and stretch’ is a principle that is easiest to apply in hand-drawn animation, but it is also
widely used in CG animation. In stop motion, this principle is less feasible, however, applied in
part. George Pal, the inventor of replacement animation for stop motion, was using the technique
of squashing and stretching the wooden puppets in his Puppetoons series already in the late 1930s.
Replacement animation is also applied in Claymation: for instance, in Aardman Animation’s work
(the Wallace and Gromit series or The Pirates! Band of Misfits, 2012). With the rise of replacement
animation through digital printouts at, for instance, Laika-Studios (starting with Coraline in 2009),
‘squash and stretch’ has been rising in its importance in stop-motion shorts and features. This intro-
duction of digital processes into stop-motion animation is starting to blur the lines between the two
animation techniques, shifting the handcraft quality and unique aesthetic of stop motion toward the
precision of digital animation.

Anticipation
This principle was explained by Thomas and Johnston5 as follows:
284 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting
to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs
before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. (Thomas, 2011)

O’Connor (2018) also adds to ‘anticipation’ the aspect of ‘overshoot’, the idea that an action starts
with the anticipation, then is overshot in its movement to finally settle down. This is again an exag-
geration of natural occurrences, so it does not necessarily need its own sub point but could be
added for completeness. Richard Williams (2001: 285) calls ‘overshoot’ an ‘accent’.
As with ‘squash and stretch’, ‘anticipation’ can be divided into two sub categories: a physical
anticipation (the example of the dancer leaping off the floor) and an emotional or mental anticipa-
tion, mentioned on Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s webpage (Frankandollie.com) as ‘. . .
change expression’.
As a result, ‘anticipation’ not only prepares the audience for a physical action that is about to
happen, but also prepares for an organic or inorganic character’s emotion or thought. Emotional or
mental anticipation deals with the preparation of a character’s thought, an emotional action, reac-
tion or change. It provides the audience with an additional aid in understanding how the character’s
inner life is increased in its readability and understandability. This type of anticipation is not needed
for the physical action to be performed, but does often accompany it (for instance, in the form of a
simple blink of the eyes to prepare the physical anticipation with a mental one).

Follow through and overlapping action

The principle of ‘follow through and overlapping action’ deals with the continuous progression of
forces through the body and its effects on the various appendages. Limbs, clothing and accessories
or hair are affected in their timing and motion, and so their movement is affected by an external
force (like wind for instance) and/or a force that has been transmitted by a connected body part.
These forces usually reduce steadily outwards and release their energy at their furthest point from
the body. If we see this principle as ‘progressing forces’, which ‘follow through and overlapping
action’ contains, we can add Webster’s principle of ‘energy flow’ to the list as it does give this
principle an additional aspect that is rather significant. Webster (2012: 6465) explains:

With a figure in motion it is possible to track the way energy is directed through the body as an action
progresses. This capability may prove very useful in thinking about how the body shifts and rotates and
how the various tensions and stresses within the figure contribute to an action or how they counter weights
or stresses applied to the figure.

As ‘energy flow’ does deal with the translation of energy/forces from one part of the body to the
next, it is within the same realm as the principle of ‘follow through and overlapping action’ where
likewise energy/forces progress through the body. The question arises whether those specific forces
Webster is describing are a very complex combination of the principles that deal with physics
already, or are their very own aspect within this principle of ‘follow through and overlapping
action’. The concept of ‘energy flow’ is part of what Mike Mattesi (2008) describes as ‘directional
and applied forces’ which is more of a concept in figure-drawing and then applied to hand-drawn
animation but does not yet have a counterpart in either of the two other animation techniques (in
experimental animation it depends on the technique applied). In Mattesi’s concept, these forces are
not only the actual physical forces of the body, but also the aesthetic forces that can be exaggerated
through the line itself and its design and flow. Webster’s suggestion of ‘energy flow’ not only
includes Mattesi’s concept, but also allows it to be expanded to stop motion, CG animation and
experimental animation equally.
Thesen 285

‘Drag’, the principle that Webster also added, is not dramatically different from ‘follow through
and overlapping action’, so can perhaps be eliminated, and in its place the term ‘progressing forces’
ultimately covers the following three sub points:

1. Follow through
2. Overlapping action
3. Energy flow.

Arcs
Arcs, in animation, define the trail of the movement of the character and its single elements, as
everything moves on its own arc if a smooth, life-like movement is to be achieved. In reality,
movement does not just happen on single arcs, of course, but on continuous paths. Breaking
them into arcs is not only a necessary simplification of the continuous paths, but also defines
what happens between two keyframes, which the arc is so clearly attached to. If we then break
down arcs into their single elements, we arrive at the two keys that frame the beginning and end
of the arc, and all single frames in between. Those are already defined as keys, extremes, break-
downs and inbetweens, and all form the arcs as their subdivisions. The hierarchy for movement
would then be:

Paths → arcs → keys, extremes, breakdowns → inbetweens.

By renaming the principle of ‘arcs’ into ‘paths’, we can add the subdivisions ‘arcs’ and ‘keys,
extremes, breakdowns and inbetweens’. Breakdowns are rather crucial as they add more complex-
ity to the movement by defining the movement’s unique path and timing in more detail.

Staging
‘Staging’ in Thomas and Johnston’s definition, not only deals with the character’s positioning
within the frame (clarity, camera shots and angles, composition, mood), but also with the char-
acter itself (clarity, recognizable personality and silhouette), which is also part of the principle
of ‘appeal’ in Illusion of Life (Thomas, 1981). The first aspect of ‘clarity’ is important to any
kind of artistic expression for, without clarity, the point of communication, the very basis of
image making, is obsolete and is therefore an overreaching aspect that affects all principles
equally.
Nevertheless, adding character personality into the principle of ‘staging’ is unnecessary, as it is
an overreaching aspect, like story, that affects all the principles significantly. This article suggests
staying within the realm of the principle of ‘staging’ concerning the topics of composition and the
frame, and not to include any character aspects as this would dilute this principle. If so, we clearly
need to expand Thomas and Johnston’s description of ‘staging’, whose primary purpose is solely
life-like Disney animation that reduces the visual and artistic possibilities.
By reconceptualizing the given aspects that this principle incorporates within its initial descrip-
tion, we obtain one that has a long list of sub points. The list here is again a compilation of options,
where the animation artist applies each of the given aspects (to a degree) to their work. Not all have
to be applied equally and some might not be applied at all. This article therefore suggests the fol-
lowing list of 19 points that bring together all possibilities of composition and background with the
cinematic effect in mind. Some points in this list, such as ‘character staging and film language’ or
‘music and sound’, need to be further subdivided.
286 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

1. Composition
2. Character staging and film-language (including camera shots and angels)
3. Vectors
4. Directions
5. Shape and form
6. Mood (emotional expression of setting and background)
7. Size
8. Depth
9. Light and shadow
10. Colour
11. Contrast
12. Perspective
13. Texture
14. Movement
15. Music and sound
16. Variation
17. Simplicity
18. Readability
19. Believability (within the established rules of the created world)

By removing ‘personality’ and ‘silhouette’ from the original list of ‘staging’, as both deal with the
character, the focus of ‘staging’ is solely shifted towards composition and framing, not the character.

Straight ahead action and pose to pose

This principle has a very clear explanation in Thomas and Johnston’s typology, though Williams
(2012: 61) also mentions a combination of straight-ahead action and pose to pose. This principle
explains how the animation is achieved and which technical approach is used in hand-drawn ani-
mation. The initial hand-drawn approach to his principle often seems to easily lead itself to being
ignored by practitioners in the fields of other animation techniques, as neither stop motion nor
computer animation deal as much with drawing, aside from the developmental and preparational
work in the form of thumbnails (in experimental animation it again depends on the technique
applied). However, Lasseter (1987) does include this principle as applying to computer graphics’
use of keyframes, but he also writes about the ‘layer by layer’ technique where animators first deal
with the trunk of the character and then work their way down a hierarchy.
Applying this principle’s content across these four techniques gives us the following:

•• 2D traditional animation or 2D digital animation work very similarly, so a distinction is not

required. However, the technical approach not only includes the actual animation process in
hand-drawn animation, but also the preproduction work in the form of thumbnail drawings,
the preparational work that then leads to animating. Thumbnails are also part of stop motion,
CG and experimental animation. A unique technique in 2D animation is Rotoscoping,
invented by Max Fleischer in 1915 and applied since 1918 in short films and then features.
This technique works with a sequence of live-action frames and either traces the successive
stills accurately or uses the movement as inspiration for the animated shot. Rotoscoping can
be approached either through ‘straight ahead action’ or ‘pose to pose’.
•• Due to its artistic and technical range, more experimental animation is able to use either one
of the two approaches of ‘straight ahead’ or ‘pose to pose’.
Thesen 287

•• Stop-motion animation by its very nature is produced with the straight-ahead technique and
cannot be achieved by pose to pose as the inbetweens cannot be inserted later. The entire
animation must be finished in one go. For the initial blocking, keyframe animation is a com-
mon aid to staging and planning the poses and action; however, this is only done as a test for
compositional purposes, but the test frames do not appear later on screen. It is a very differ-
ent approach to stop-motion animation when it comes to facial replacement animation or
digital print-out animation. So, the following points apply as this type of animation is pre-
pared as CG animation, printed three-dimensionally and then shot frame-by-frame.
•• CG animation: in CG animation, the discussion of ‘straight ahead action and pose to pose’
is rather more complicated, as more techniques are still being developed or refined which go
beyond the scope of the initial meaning of this principle, like motion capture, for instance.
‘Straight ahead action’ is impractical in computer animation as the computer calculates the
inbetweens, so ‘pose to pose’, or keyframing is more functional for the animator (the same
is true for some digital 2D animation or 2D digital puppet animation, which use the same
practice of computer-calculated inbetweens).

Due to the different approaches in the four techniques, the term ‘straight ahead action and pose to
pose’ again does not seem to be the most appropriate one as it refers to a hand-drawn approach. As
a result, this article suggests ‘technical approach’, following Culhane’s (1990: 157) own term of
‘approach’ for the same principle. This terminology allows not only the inclusion of all animation
techniques into one principle but also allows innovations, such as motion-capture, procedural pose
animation and other techniques specific to digital animation, to be easily included into this princi-
ple. For stop motion, the term ‘technical approach’ could also include facial replacement animation
and digital printing.

Solid drawing
If drawing is used as the foundation of this principle, we are missing the very point of what this
principle is trying to achieve. During the process of drawing, shapes and forms are created, poses
with a working line-of-action are developed accurately, poses are also artistically constructed
(containing a myriad of technical and artistic decisions) and lines are obviously used to draw and
interpret the character. If drawing is cut out of the equation, stop motion and CG animation do the
very same: they deal with shape and form, still have to guarantee that the character’s pose is accu-
rately constructed, have tension in the poses and make artistic and technical decisions. As Webster
(2012: 52) writes:

If one original principle laid down by these pioneer animators might not have made the transition to
universal relevancy for all forms of animation, it is Solid Drawing. This is a principle clearly more
appropriate to animators who work in 2D classical animation. Solid Drawing is still relevant and very
useful for animation, but it generally applies to drawn animation of a particular type – one that depends on
a more academic approach to form, the understanding of form often gained through observational drawing
and academic life drawing.

Here, Webster only considers the technique of drawing, but does not take into consideration what
is actually achieved with the character and the character’s pose during the process of drawing,
aside from the technique of interpreting the character with lines. Drawing is about bringing the
character onto the screen (or any other medium that is not projected on screen) in its physicality
and interpreting the story moment through the pose. Does this idea of ‘pose’ then overlap with the
principle of ‘staging’? Not if in ‘staging’ the position of the character within the frame is
288 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

maintained, and in the principle of ‘solid drawing’ it is only dealt with in the character’s pose. This
distinction will give each of the two principles its own unmistakeably and clearly defined field.
The principle of ‘solid drawing’ is described by Thomas and Johnston (1981: 66) as containing
depth, weight, balance, dimensionality, twinning,6 shape and volume. All clearly deal with the
character’s pose. These, nevertheless, are only a few of the many aspects that are being used by a
professional animator/drafts-person in creating and designing character poses, as Stanchfield
(2009: 26) has demonstrated in his 29 principles, or Culhane, Blair or Williams in their publica-
tions. Many more aspects need to be mentioned for a comprehensive list to include more artistic
options. The following list contains all the aspects that seem significant (the first seven aspects
have already been mentioned by Thomas and Johnston, 1981).

1. Depth
2. Weight
3. Balance
4. Dimensionality
5. Twinning
6. Shape
7. Volume

The additional aspects that I suggest should complete the list are:

8. Form
9. Exaggeration
10. Anatomy
11. Body ratio
12. Colour design (mostly for character-design purposes)7
13. Contrapposto
14. Forces (Mike Mattesi, 2008)
15. Tension
16. Tension and compression
17. Pivot point and balance
18. Perspective
19. Fore shortening
20. Size relationships
21. Movement and twist
22. Light and shadow
23. Line of action
Thesen 289

24. Vectors and directions

25. Contrast
26. Tangents
27. Reading direction
28. Surface and texture
29. Extroverted and introverted pose
30. Silhouette
31. Negative and positive space
32. Line quality (2D)
33. Straights and curves
34. Clothing design, folds and fabrics
35. Design of facial expressions
36. Textures and materials
37. Readability
38. Simplicity
39. Symmetry and asymmetry
40. Ground connection
41. Composition of pose and image
42. Relationships between characters
43. Storytelling and drama (as the foundation of all design decisions)
44. Believability (within the established rules of the created world)
45. On model

All of the 45 (except one, 32 line quality) can easily be applied to computer and stop-motion ani-
mation as posing is shared by all techniques. ‘Line quality’ (32) is the single aspect that only
applies to hand-drawn animation, as there is no equivalent in either stop motion or CG animation
(that is, CG animation that does not render a 2D aesthetic). However, it is not just the line itself, but
the ‘quality’ of the line, how it has an artistic quality of tension, compression, flow, body and the
line’s aesthetic ability to interpret story.
There is, nevertheless, some overlap in the content of the various principles. Silhouette (30) is,
for example, already included in the original principle of ‘staging’, so there is clearly overlap in the
system. For that reason, ‘silhouette’ was removed from the principle of ‘staging’ and added to this
list, as it deals solely with the character’s silhouette, and thus is part of the pose.
‘Exaggeration’ (9) has its own principle in the 12 principles of animation, but could also be
mentioned in these 45 aspects as well because it is not only the exaggeration of the action, forces
and the movement, but exaggeration in every aspect of the figure’s pose to strengthen its visual
communication. However, this is not a requirement as exaggeration is an overreaching principle
that applies to all other principles.
290 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

‘Tension and compression’ (16) deals with the overall deformation of the body and the distribu-
tion of mass due to forces (very much like the principle of animation ‘squash and stretch’, however
less focused on movement and more on the details in the pose), whereas the principle of ‘tension’
(15) deals with the pose’s and design’s compositional tension.8 ‘Textures and materials’ (36) is a
seemingly odd choice for character poses; however, the readability of the pose is also dependent on
the overlapping elements of the pose in one or multiple characters, and the relationship between
background and character. ‘On model’ (45) deals with maintaining the character’s design, based on
its initial character turn-around and model sheets. This applies to all animation techniques equally,
to sustain the character’s unique physical language and facial expressions, and therefore its
recognizability.
As a result of the previous discussion, ‘solid drawing’ is clearly not the right terminology if we
want to include all the other animation techniques in the list, so I would suggest the term ‘pose’ to
describe the character’s physical communication via body language and facial expression, which
nearly all 45 aspects in the list relate to. This new term is also in line with the principle of ‘solid
drawing’ in CG animation, as mentioned in David Andrade’s educational video series 12 Principles
of Animation for CG Animators (2016), in which he also expresses that ‘solid drawing’ ‘meant
focusing on clean, clear lines for all the 2D animators. As a CG animator, it means focusing on
clean poses, and using only the controls that you need, and not any more.’

Appeal
Appeal is the one principle that is the most elusive and the least comprehensible. It is defined
by Thomas and Johnston (1981: 68) as a quality of charm, pleasing design, simplicity, com-
munication and magnetism, though this is not precise enough to fully convince. Much of this
definition seems to go back to personal preference and ‘liking or not liking’ a character or how
convincing a character is to the audience, which unfortunately does not help in defining this
principle sufficiently. Thomas and Johnston’s definition of ‘appeal’ is geared towards tradi-
tional hand-drawn animation and vague terms like ‘pleasing design’ or ‘magnetism’ are rather
subjective. Therefore, the initial description of the principle of ‘appeal’ cannot easily be applied
to other styles of design (outside of the Disney aesthetic) or all other animation techniques.
Many animated projects go for ‘awkward’ design which cannot just be dismissed as lacking
appeal. So, again, the language needs adjusting to be more practical in its definition, with new
terminology and the term ‘character’ instead, which then deals with the character’s personality
and how its compilation goes hand in hand with the story and all related characters. Personality,
as expressed by Lasseter, is an overreaching aspect that affects everything we do in animation,
very much like story. But what exactly is ‘personality’? The complexity of personality and its
composition of various traits is so vast and has so many variables, though most scientists at the
moment agree on the HEXACO personality model (Ashton et al., 2004).
The next point within ‘character’ is character design and the visual representation of the charac-
ter. This includes the character’s development from the first sketches to the final character, includ-
ing character turnarounds in hand-drawn animation, character construction in stop motion and
construction, rigging and texturing in CG animation.
Following the character’s design is the moment where Webster’s (2012: 64) suggestion of ‘solid
modelling’ would fit in as it is then the entire process of character development from start to finish
that is addressed (Webster’s point shares, however, elements with the aspect of ‘on model’ in the
principle of ‘character/former solid drawing’). ‘Solid modelling’ includes the construction of the
puppet in stop-motion animation, the modelling, rigging and texturing in CG and the character’s
proper turn-around all in strong connection to the initial design. The principle of ‘character’ is
Thesen 291

therefore the successful translation of the design onto the screen (experimental animation in design-
ing the character and preparing it for the character animation does not deviate from the other ani-
mation techniques).
Last, and very important, is the character’s performance. Here we can add the seven principles
of acting9 by Hooks (2011) on the one hand and Hayes and Webster’s (2012) six principles of per-
formance on the other, as they both, in the author’s opinion, support each other. Additionally, we
add ‘isolation’, which was suggested by McGillivray (2007) and which Lasseter (1987: 38) points
out in ‘staging’. ‘Isolation’ at its core expresses that movement is the one aspect of design for the
moving image that will always attract attention, no matter what; thus, the characters’ actions (or
character and object) must not interfere with each other if there is no strong reason for doing so.
Isolation (in McGillivray’s and Lasseter’s explanation) is strongly connected to the character’s
performance and thus should be added to this principle. The list for the principle of ‘character’
(former ‘appeal’)’ would be:

1. Character personality (with one of the personality models, HEXACO for instance).
2. Character design (with the 45 aspects of the principle of ‘pose/formerly solid drawing’) and
the character’s construction in all animation techniques.
3. Solid modelling.
4. Character performance (Ed Hooks’ seven principles of acting and Hayes and Webster’s six
principles of acting) plus isolation.

With these four points, the evolution of the character from personality through the entire design
process and the character animation is encompassed into the one principle of ‘character’, thus
removing the initial unprecise term ‘appeal’.

Conclusion
This article has identified the need for the refinement and adjustment of the initial 12 principles
of animation in order to better align with contemporary animation’s wide artistic and technical
scope. The digital shift in the last 30 years in animation has not changed the three main topics
that the 12 principles essentially deal with: physics and forces, character and composition, and
technique. Shifting some of the content from one principle to another and renaming various
principles for inclusion rather than exclusion of the miscellaneous animation techniques creates
a list of principles that fit all animation techniques. Using the suggestions of other authors and
artists who have worked both with and against the principles, the list includes valuable artistic
and technical knowledge from a wider variety of sources. With this new list, we can streamline
the content, but also give the principles more depth and structure as each now has a very
defined purpose, no longer overlapping with any other principle. A clarification of each princi-
ple also avoids misinterpretation.
To structure this original list, we need to investigate the foundation of each of the principles
and will find three central areas. Some of the principles deal with physics and forces (‘squash
and stretch’, ‘anticipation’, ‘follow through and overlapping action’, ‘slow in and slow out’,
‘arc’, ‘secondary action’, ‘timing’, ‘exaggeration), others with artistic, character-related and
compositional aspects (‘staging’, ‘solid drawing’, ‘appeal’) and one with the technical approach
of producing the animation on paper (‘straight ahead action and pose to pose’). All animation
principles are equally affected by story and character personality. This rearrangement of the 12
principles also clarifies how the principles relate to each other, but also what differentiates
them. This then gives us the adjusted and new list in Tables 1 and 2 of the 12 principles of
292 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

Table 1.  The 12 principles of animation divided into three themes.

Physics and forces

1. Squash and stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Progressing forces
4. Ease in and ease out
5. Path
6. Secondary action
7. Exaggeration
8. Timing
Character and composition
9. Staging
10. Pose
11. Character
Technique
12. Technical approach

Table 2.  The 12 principles of animation broken down into their various sub points.

Squash and stretch

1. Physical
2. Emotional/mental
Anticipation
1. Physical
2. Emotional/mental
Progressing forces
1. Follow through
2. Overlapping action
3. Energy flow
4. Artistic interpretation: breaking joints
Ease in and ease out
Path
1. Arcs
2. Keyframes, extremes, breakdowns, inbetweens
Secondary action
Exaggeration
Timing
Staging
1. Composition
2. Character staging and film-language (including camera shots and angles)
3. Vectors
4. Directions
5. Shape and form
6. Mood
7. Size
8. Depth
9. Light and shadow
(Continued)
Thesen 293

Table 2. (Continued)
10. Colour
11. Contrast
12. Perspective
13. Texture
14. Movement
15. Music and sound
16. Variation
17. Simplicity
18. Readability
19. Believability (within the established rules of the created world)
20. Storytelling and drama (as the foundation of all design decisions)
Pose
1. Depth
2. Weight
3. Balance
4. Dimensionality
5. Twinning
6. Shape
7. Volume
8. Form
9. Exaggeration
10. Anatomy
11. Body ratio
12. Colour design (mostly for character design)
13. Contrapposto
14. Forces (Mattesi, 2008)
15. Tension (artistic)
16. Tension and compression (physical)
17. Pivot point and balance
18. Perspective
19. Fore shortening
20. Size relationships
21. Movement and twist
22. Light and shadow
23. Line of action
24. Vectors and directions
25. Contrast
26. Tangents
27. Reading direction
28. Surface and textures
29. Extroverted and introverted pose
30. Silhouette
31. Negative and positive space
32. Line quality (2D)
33. Straight and curves
34. Clothing design, folds and fabrics
35. Facial expressions
(Continued)
294 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

Table 2. (Continued)

36. Textures and materials

37. Readability
38. Simplicity
39. Symmetry and asymmetry
40. Ground connection
41. Composition of pose and image
42. Relationships between characters
43. Storytelling and drama (as the foundation of all design decisions)
44. Believability (within the established rules of the created world)
45. On model
Character
1. Character personality
2. Character design and construction (with the 45 aspects of ‘pose’)
3. Solid modelling (with the 45 aspects of ‘pose’)
4. C
 haracter performance (for instance, Ed Hooks’ 7 principles of acting and Hayes and Webster’s 6
principles of acting) plus isolation
Technical approach

animation according to the analysis in this article. Table 1 has the three themes of physics and
forces (1–8), character and composition (9–11), and technique (12) arranged differently com-
pared to the initial 12 in Thomas and Johnston’s (1981) list. In Table 2 each principle is then
broken down into its various sub points.
‘Pose’ and ‘character’ are combined into one principle as they are very much related. ‘Pose’
deals with the technical and artistic aspects of the character, whereas ‘character’ deals with the
design, personality and the performance. However, combining the two into one would increase the
already challenging complexity, considering the myriad of sub points for both and it would also
reduce the 12 to 11 principles of animation. Keeping the number 12 pays tribute to the animators
who developed them.
The new list of rearranged, renamed and adjusted principles will give each a noticeably clear
purpose and its content does not overlap with that of any of the other principles any more. This will
streamline the principles and give them structure, thereby avoiding confusion.
The discussion in this article of the 12 principles of animation is still based on my own back-
ground, which is drawing, design and character-animation for 2D and computer animation, so the
list is still likely to read as incomplete. However, I hope its formulation here will start a broad
discussion that, in turn, leads to an update of the principles of animation. Reconceptualizing the list
of principles, after nearly 85 years of use, seems necessary and will unify the various animation
techniques rather than highlighting their differences.

Acknowledgements
I especially want to express my gratitude to Christopher Holliday for his invaluable input in shaping this
article. Additional acknowledgement goes to Sean Lacey for editing advice.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and publication of this article, and there
is no conflict of interest.
Thesen 295

Notes
1. Experimental techniques are artistically so varied and have such a wide technical scope that it is impos-
sible to mention them in their entirety in this article. However, all experimental techniques deal with
motion and their artistic interpretation in the widest range, but still deal with the same physical laws and
artistic possibilities that the other three animation techniques of 2D animation, stop-motion animation
and CG animation do. It is, however, the artist’s choice to what degree these principles and artistic possi-
bilities are applied to the animation. There is, of course, the option of abstract animation which excludes
characters altogether. Nevertheless, this kind of animation still deals with motion and the various design
aspects, just to a varying degree.
2. For clarity reasons, the terminology of each of the principles follows the traditional naming conven-
tion that Thomas and Johnston suggest in their publication Illusion of Life (1981) until a new term is
suggested.
3. Hyper-realism as a term refers to a heightened form of reality, which is more accurately created in com-
puter animation, not in Disney’s character animation of the 1940s, better phrased as ‘life-like’. Disney
himself never wanted to achieve realism and definitely not hyper-realism, his goal was a stylization of
realism. The term hyper-real for Disney’s character animation is therefore not appropriate. Computer
animation for games or feature films, however, follows the aesthetics of the hyper-real movement in fine
arts (artists like Gottfried Helnwein, Duane Hanson or Ron Mueck, for instance), where the detail of the
image is refined to such a degree that it exceeds the visual perception of the human eye, which in anima-
tion is only possible through computer animation (as of now). The term hyper-real should thus be applied
to highly refined computer aesthetics or fine arts. To differentiate the term hyper-real from the very same
term for the hyper-real movement in fine arts is differentiating animation from fine arts, which I would
challenge.
4. Williams discusses drawing, historical overviews, spacing, walks, runs, jumps and skips, flexibility,
weight, anticipation, takes and accents, timing, staggers, wave and whip, dialogue, acting, animal action
and directing.
5. The page is also hosted by AWN and the section called ‘Anticipation’ is explained as having been written
by Thomas and Johnston personally.
6. ‘Twinning’ refers to the bilateral symmetry in a character’s pose along a central axis whereas the
movement and posing of each element moves and is timed in the same fashion, creating an inorganic
performance.
7. I included this aspect of ‘colour’ here despite it not really applying to pose. However, I am using the very
same list of the 45 aspects for the principle of ‘appeal’ later and for simplicity it should be the same list
in order not to further complicate things.
8. The design and pose have in their composition of elements either a balanced approach, with an even
distribution, or tension with an uneven distribution.
9. There is no relationship to the 12 principles of animation; they just share the same term ‘principles’ and,
very much like the 12 principles of animation, simplify a complex system into simple rules.

References
Andrade D (2016) 12 Principles of Animation for CG Animators (last updated 24 October 2016). Available at:
https://www.lynda.com/3ds-Max-tutorials/Principle-11-Solid-drawing/474685/542366-4.html?org=shu.
ac.uk (accessed 14 November 2018).
Ashton M et al. (2004) A six-factor structure of personality-descriptive adjectives: Solutions from psycholexi-
cal studies in seven languages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86(2): 356–366. DOI:
10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.356.
AWN (2014) The 12+2 character animating principles (last updated 29 October 2014). Available at: https://
www.awn.com/forum/thread/1020963 (accessed 10 November 2018).
Blair P (1994) Cartoon Animation. Lake Forest, CA: Walter Foster Publishing.
Coraline (2009) (film), dir. H Selick. Portland, OR: Laika.
Culhane S (1990) From Script to Screen. New York: St Martin’s Griffin.
296 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 15(3)

Disney W (1935) Inter-office communication to Don Graham. Available at: http://www.lettersofnote.

com/2010/06/how-to-train-animator-by-walt-disney.html (accessed 2 February 2020).
Hayes D and Webster C (2012) Acting and Performance for Animation. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.
Hooks E (2011) Acting for Animators. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hosea B (2010) Drawing animation. Animation 5(3): 353–367. DOI: 10.1177/1746847710386429.
Lasseter J (1987) Principles of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation. Computer Graphics
21(4): 35–44.
Looney Tunes Showcase Volume 1 (2012) (Blu-ray) various directors. Hollywood, CA: Warner Brothers.
Lord P and Sibley B (1998) Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Mattesi M (2008) Force: Dynamic Life Drawing. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.
McGillivray C (2007) How psychophysical perception of motion and image relates to animation practice.
Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualisation (CGIV): 81–88.
O’Connor D (2018) The 21 Foundations of Animation. Available at: http://www.angryanimator.com/
word/?fbclid=IwAR0miCy-DA-NBjtYJWbBPxEYPtDuMT2CYrz3tmJwHNqxErOc5MU1S-zNGVE
(accessed 12 November 2018).
Pallant C (2010) Disney-formalism: Rethinking ‘Classic Disney’. Animation 5(3): 341–352. DOI:
10.1177/1746847710377567.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) (film), dir. P Lord. Bristol: Aardman Animation.
Stanchfield W (2009) Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Vol. 1: The Walt Stanchfield
Lectures. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.
Thomas F and Johnston O (1981) The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. White Plains, NY: Disney Editions.
Thomas F and Johnston O (2011) Animation tips. Available at: http://frankandollie.com/AnimationTips.html
(accessed 16 November 2018).
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) (film), dir. P Lord. Bristol: Aardman Animation.
Webster C (2012) Action Analysis for Animators. Waltham, MA: Focal Press.
Wells P (1998) Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
Williams R (2001) The Animator’s Survival Kit. London: Faber & Faber.
Williams R (2012) The Animator’s Survival Kit. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Author biography
Thomas P Thesen has worked for animation companies such as Pixar, DreamWorks Animation and Sprite
Animation Studios as computer-animator and visual development artist (Ratatouille, Shrek 2, Bee Movie and
others). He has also done illustration for print media for many publications and projects. For the last 10 years,
he has been teaching animation at Nanyang Technological University, Sheffield Hallam University, SCAD
Hong Kong, Tisch Asia NYU in Singapore, Hongik University in Seoul and other universities. His first pub-
lication in two volumes, Composition for the 21st ½ Century, was published in 2019 by CRC Press.