The Twelve Principles of Animation Explained with Simple Exercises
We still remember the first time someone walked us through the twelve principles of animation. It was a rainy Thursday at a Montreal animation meetup in a cramped studio near Mile End, and a veteran animator pulled up a clip of a bouncing ball on a projector. “Everything you’ll ever animate,” she said, “lives in these twelve ideas.” At the time, we thought that was an exaggeration. Years later, after working on personal projects, submitting to festivals, and helping friends build portfolios for animation programs, we can confirm she was right. Whether you’re drawing figures at a café on Saint-Denis or rigging characters for a game studio, the twelve principles are the grammar of movement. This guide breaks them down into plain language, with simple exercises you can start this week.
Why the Twelve Principles Still Matter in Montreal
Montreal has one of the densest animation and game development communities in North America, and the twelve principles are baked into how work gets made here. From indie short films to AAA game cinematics, the same fundamentals show up again and again.
A Brief History of the Principles
The twelve principles were codified in the 1930s by animators at Walt Disney Studios, most notably Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, who later published them in The Illusion of Life. They were developed to solve practical problems: how do you make a drawn character feel like it has weight, personality, and intention? The answers became a shared vocabulary that spread across the industry, and that vocabulary is still taught in every serious animation program today.
How Montreal Studios Use Them Today
At Ubisoft Montreal, animators working on franchises like Assassin’s Creed rely on squash, stretch, and timing to make parkour feel weighty and readable. The National Film Board of Canada, headquartered here, has a long tradition of auteur animation where staging and appeal carry entire stories without dialogue. The Montreal International Animation Film Festival showcases work from around the world, and you can usually spot which films understand arcs and follow-through and which ones don’t. The principles aren’t nostalgia — they’re the difference between movement that reads and movement that doesn’t.
The Core Principles: Squash, Stretch, and Anticipation
Squash and stretch give objects the illusion of weight and flexibility. Anticipation prepares the audience for an action before it happens. These three principles are usually the first things taught in animation courses Canada-wide, because they’re easy to practice and immediately reveal whether you understand timing.
Exercise: Bouncing Ball with Squash and Stretch
Draw a ball falling, hitting the ground, and rising again. At the moment of impact, squash it flat. At the top of the arc, stretch it slightly. Keep the volume consistent — a squashed ball should look wider, not smaller. Repeat the exercise with a bowling ball and a beach ball to feel how weight changes the timing.
Exercise: Anticipation Before a Jump
Animate a character preparing to jump. Before they leave the ground, they should crouch, pull their arms back, and lean forward. That crouch is anticipation. Without it, the jump feels weightless and sudden. Try the same jump with and without the crouch and compare — the difference is immediate.
Staging, Straight Ahead, and Pose to Pose
Staging means arranging your scene so the audience knows exactly where to look. Straight ahead and pose to pose are the two main workflows: straight ahead means animating frame by frame from start to finish, while pose to pose means drawing key poses first and filling in the in-betweens later. Most animators use a mix of both.
Exercise: Staging a One-Person Scene
Sketch a single character reacting to news. Use silhouette, contrast, and camera angle to make the emotion readable without any dialogue. If someone can’t tell what the character is feeling from the silhouette alone, restage it. This is the kind of thinking that figure drawing sessions in Montreal reinforce — clarity of pose first, detail second.
Exercise: Walk Cycle – Straight Ahead vs. Pose to Pose
Animate the same walk cycle twice. First, straight ahead — draw each frame in sequence. Then, pose to pose — block out contact, down, passing, and up poses, then fill in. Most beginners find pose to pose cleaner for cycles, but straight ahead teaches you spontaneity. Both are worth practicing.
Follow Through, Overlapping Action, and Slow In Slow Out
Follow through is what happens after a character stops — a cape keeps moving, a ponytail swings. Overlapping action means different parts of the body move at different rates. Slow in and slow out refers to easing: most actions accelerate and decelerate rather than moving at a constant speed.
Exercise: Animated Tail or Cape
Animate a character turning quickly while wearing a cape or having a tail. The body stops first; the fabric or tail catches up a few frames later. Offset the timing of each element. This is one of the fastest ways to make character animation feel alive.
Exercise: Pendulum with Slow In and Slow Out
Animate a pendulum swinging. It should slow at the top of each arc and speed through the middle. Add a small amount of squash at the extremes. Once you can control a pendulum, you can control almost any swinging motion — arms, tails, ropes, and hair.
Arcs, Secondary Action, and Timing
Almost nothing in nature moves in a straight line. Arcs give motion a natural curve. Secondary action adds richness — a character scratching their head while talking, for example. Timing determines how heavy, fast, or slow an action feels.
Exercise: Head Turn with Blink
Animate a character turning their head. Add a blink at the midpoint. The blink is secondary action — it doesn’t drive the turn, but it makes the character feel present. Try the same turn with and without the blink to see how much personality it adds.
Exercise: Timing Variations on a Bouncing Ball
Take your earlier bouncing ball and re-time it three ways: light and floaty, heavy and slow, and frantic. Same drawings, different spacing. This is the exercise that local figure drawing groups in Montreal love to assign, because it forces you to think about rhythm rather than rendering.
Exaggeration, Solid Drawing, and Appeal
Exaggeration pushes poses and expressions beyond reality for impact. Solid drawing means understanding form, weight, and three-dimensional space. Appeal is the charisma that makes a character worth watching. Together, these three principles are what make a portfolio stand out.
Exercise: Exaggerated Pose
Take a simple pose — reaching for a cup, say — and exaggerate it. Stretch the reach, twist the torso, push the expression. Then dial it back halfway. The “halfway” version is usually the one that works in a final shot.
Exercise: Character Turnaround for Your Portfolio
Draw the same character from front, side, back, and three-quarter views. Keep proportions consistent. This is a standard requirement for art portfolio submissions to schools like Concordia University and Sheridan College, and it’s a direct test of solid drawing. If you can’t rotate your character in your head, you can’t animate them convincingly.
If you’re preparing a portfolio, a short list of what to include:
- A character turnaround showing consistent proportions
- A short animated cycle (walk, run, or bounce)
- Life drawings from figure drawing sessions
- A personal piece that shows your storytelling instincts
Conclusion
The twelve principles aren’t a checklist to memorize once — they’re skills you return to at every stage of your development. Practicing them through small, repeatable exercises builds the instincts that studios like Ubisoft Montreal and the National Film Board of Canada look for, and that programs at Concordia University and Sheridan College expect to see in an art portfolio. Keep drawing, keep animating, and keep showing up to local meetups and figure drawing sessions. That’s how the principles become second nature.
FAQ
Do I need to master all twelve principles before applying to animation school?
No. Most programs, including Concordia University and Sheridan College, expect to see strong fundamentals — solid drawing, squash and stretch, and timing — rather than mastery of all twelve. A focused portfolio that shows clear understanding of a few principles beats a scattered one.
How often should I practice figure drawing in Montreal?
We recommend at least one session per week. Montreal has regular figure drawing groups in studios and community centres across the city, and consistent practice directly improves your character animation and portfolio work.
Are the twelve principles still relevant for 3D and game animation?
Absolutely. Animators at Ubisoft Montreal and other studios apply the same principles in 3D software. Squash, stretch, arcs, and timing work the same whether you’re drawing on paper or keyframing a rig.
What’s the best exercise for a total beginner?
Start with the bouncing ball. It teaches squash, stretch, timing, arcs, and slow in slow out all at once, and you can complete it in an afternoon. From there, move to a pendulum and then a simple walk cycle.
Should I submit to the Montreal International Animation Film Festival as a student?
Yes, if you have a finished short. Even a rejection gives you a deadline and a reason to finish work. The festival is a great way to see what other animators in the city are making and to meet people in the community.