21 Foundations of Animation

Times have changed. The 12 principles of animation popularized by Disney are no longer sufficient for teaching animation in the digital age. Enter Dermot O’ Connor’s 21 foundations of animation: universal principles that can be used to create high-quality animation in any style or medium, including hand-drawn and digital animation. Explore how to create a solid, strong, and dynamic poses using the classical drawing rules perfected by golden age artists. Discover how to plan a scene using thumbnails, to have more control over the scene and reduce production time. Find out how to take a pose or expression that is adequate, and push it further. Dermot provides an in-depth review of the other 18 techniques, and then shows all 21 foundations in a single scene, working together.

Learning objectives
Appeal
Strong design
Staging a scene
Acting and pantomime
Keys and breakdowns
Straight ahead and pose to pose
Thumbnails and planning
Timing, spacing, and easing
Squash and stretch
Arcs
Primary and secondary action
Silhouette
Lines of action and reversals
Anticipation, overshoot, and settle
Opposing action
Counterpose
Leading action
Breaking joints
Overlap and follow-through
Accents and dialog
Exaggeration