Stop-motion animation principles

Stop -motion animation principles

I have chosen four principles of stop-motion animation to present. My four are: Timing, Exaggeration, Solid Drawing, and Appeal.

Timing
The idea is that the more drawings you have between poses, the slower and smoother the animation will look. The fewer drawings you have between poses, the faster and crisper the animation will look. Combining slower movements and faster movements makes the animation more visually interesting, and adds more texture to the animation as well. Generally animation is done on twos (a drawing photographed twice on frames or film) or ones (a drawing photographed on one frame or film). Twos are mainly used, but ones are used when a subject is moving (car moving, pan flipping) or for a small movement with a little bit of dialogue. Timing is also used to display emotion in a character, especially when one character is reacting to another characters movement or situation. Actors are often studied to help animators create movement when using animation. Film is an excellent way to study and understand this process of "timing".

Exaggeration
The principle 'Exaggeration"in animation is completely opposite of the word "exaggeration". The principle actually means the facial expressions and actions of a person. Actions traced from live action film can be accurate, but not life-like. For feature animation, characters only move broadly to look life-like, this also applies to facial expressions, but the action shouldn't be as broad to resemble a cartoon style. Exaggeration can help make even the smallest movements make your animation have more appeal. Use common sense and ideas to make sure that your animation doesn't become to life-like.

Solid Drawing
Solid Drawing refers to the way that you display form, weight, volume solidity, and the illusion of three dimensional styles to make your drawing look professional. This refers to the way you draw drawings, while using pencil sketches to reproduce life. You can transform these into colour and movement, thus giving your characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space, while fourth dimensional is movement in time.

Appeal
Appealing animation isn't cute or cuddly, it's something useful that all characters have, even when they are evil, heroic, cute, etc. Appeal is a clear drawing, easy to read design, and personality development which helps build a character. Artists have learned how to produce a feature that was needed for story continuity, character development had started to increase and evolve to create a higher quality of artwork. The feature had to be mentally appealing as well as visually appealing.

Here's a video that shows all twelve principles of animation.

Hope you enjoyed this video, and in your spare time try to search up other techniques in art and animating, you'll never know what new things you might learn! Have a happy day!