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 Timing principle, so now with no further adieu, let's continue our series with the tenth principle: Exaggeration

Exaggeration is used to push movements further to add more drama and appeal to an action. The level of exaggeration depends on the particular style you're after - less exaggeration creates a more realistic action, more exaggeration creates a stylised, cartoonish action.

In our example animation above, we apply the exaggeration principle to the brown bag on the right as it jumps up on the screen and twirls around.

The bag on the right hand side jumps higher and twirls with more speed and revolutions than the bag on the left hand side giving it a more exaggerated, cartoony transition in comparison, as you can see from the images below:

Hope you've enjoyed our interpretation of the tenth principle, tune in next month for principle number 11: Solid Drawing and in case you missed it check out our version of the ninth principle here: Timing!