It's no secret that the 12 Principles of Animation are the fundamental building blocks for any animator. Get the hang of these basic techniques and you'll be on your way to understanding the language of animation.

First introduced in The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, these 12 principles have remained the quintessential roadmap for aspiring and experienced animators alike. Our animators are no exception! In fact, they have created their very own series of animation tutorials to explain the 12 Principles of Animation, using what you ask? Why, a brown bag, of course!

Last month we demonstrated the Arcs principle, so now with no further adieu, let's continue our series with the eight principle: Secondary Action

Secondary Action adds to and enhances the main action and adds more dimension to a character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action.

In our example animation above, we apply secondary action to the two brown bags as one bounces upwards off the other, as you can see from the image below:

Hope you've enjoyed our interpretation of the eight principle, tune in next month for principle number 9: Timing and in case you missed it check out our version of the seventh principle here: Arcs!