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!

With no further adieu, let's start off with the first principle: Squash and Stretch

Considered to be the most important animation principle, squash and stretch is what gives flexibility to an object. We see the best example of this in real life with respect to the bouncing rubber ball which squashes upon impact and stretches as it falls to or rebounds off a surface.

Squash and stretch can be used with great effect to exaggerate movement in animations and also to help add more appeal to a movement.

In our example animation above, we apply the Squash and Stretch principle to the brown bag as it jumps up and drops back down as you can see from the image below:

Hope you've enjoyed our interpretation of the first principle, tune in next month for principle number 2: Anticipation!