The 12 Principles of Animation - Episode 5

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The Fifth Principle - Follow Through & Overlap

Could follow through apply to reflections of light? Here's an old animation of mine from 2019 for a lack of anything more fitting

This fifth principle is basically the opposite of the principle of anticipation, as follow through and overlapping action is post-action that is dependent on the main action - a character has to anticipate a jump but also follow-through a land or the action becomes unclear. Basically, this principle is all about movement that happens after the main action has already stopped, such as the settling of body parts, clothes and hair - as far as I understood...

In addition to follow through and overlapping action, there is a third technique called drag. These three are all related to continuing movement after the main action, but describe it in different ways. This principle is a bit difficult for me to wrap my head around, so I'll try my best to explain it - not only to you but to myself as well:   

FOLLOW THROUGH: parts of body moving after the body stops. Hardly ever all parts of a thing stop at once, because the laws of physics affect things in different ways. If I were to drop an open bag of candy from two meters, the candy at the bottom of the bag make it fall faster, but some of the candy on top of the pile might become disconnected and follow through or hit the ground later than the bag with the rest of the candy.  

OVERLAPPING ACTION: offset between the timing of the body and its other parts. Overlapping action describes how different parts of the animatable subjects should start at different times (when a long-haired character starts running, their hand or leg leads the movement while the hair starts to move later) and stop at different times (the long-haired character's body has stopped running, but the hair settles when the body is already idle).   

DRAG: technique of delaying movement of body parts in relation to the main body, which describes the amount of overlap or follow through. For example, a character's torso is the core of the body and everything else like limbs, head and hair are all "loose parts". So in the animation context, drag describes how loose parts drag behind the rest of the body (unless of course the action is led by some of these loose parts). 

What does follow through and overlapping action do for the animation?:

1- creates a sense of realism: every object is affected by laws of physics, but to a different extent. And by tracing the subject for a few frames after it stops moving you can keep your animation alive and prevent it from looking robotic.

2- conveys the subject's mass: free-flowing and light elements like hair follow through more than rigid and heavier objects like limbs. 

3- styles your animation: more often than not the more parts in an animation that follow through, the more interesting and beautiful the animation looks. This can be achieved with oversized shirts, scarves, long hair, tails or even with something as simple as having a character's legs land at slightly different times rather than both at the same time.         

Challenges:

No principle of the 12 principles of animation is without its challenges. Here are follow through and overlapping action related challenges you might face:

Where to put follow through and overlapping action to? 

- When thinking of what things should follow through, be sure to ask yourself: What is driving the action? Where is the energy and force of the action coming from? In most of the cases it's the torso, but sometimes it can be hands or legs, like when a character does pull ups... I believe?

- A foolproof way to check what things have follow through and overlapping action - and how much - is to jump into the shoes of your character and try out the action yourself. A reference video or image is always a handy helper for artists! 

How much overlap?

- Generally, follow through and overlapping action become stronger the further the loose parts drag behind the driving force of the action. If I were to go jogging wearing my hair on a pony tail, my arms wouldn't drag behind because I keep them near by body (unless of course I let myself loose and jog like a weirdo). On the other hand, depending of my speed, my ponytail would fly behind and swing around until I suddenly stop and it flings forward. 

        

-  Because we probably want our animations to be believable and compelling, it's wise to be careful not to add too much follow through or overlap. If a character offers a glass of water at a normal speed, the water shouldn't splash around too much or it looks unrealistic - unless that is what you're going for, in which case let loose... Haha. Get it?    

The techniques of follow through, overlapping action and drag illustrated by Alan Becker. Hopefully this clears up my sorry-attempts at explanations

Practise exercises:

- Character doing a hair flip: not only is a hair flip by swinging one's head a sassy showcase of personality, it's a great opportunity to practise follow-through!  

- Caped character speeding forward and suddenly stopping: the torso or hands probably lead the action and the cape lags behind until it catches up after the body has already stopped 

- Fist coming down, full arm visible: it could hit a table or a button. Regardless, this action is surprisingly enough lead by the elbow: first by rising in air and then by slamming down, the forearm and fist drag behind

- Hand throwing a ball, full arm visible: same with the fist, elbow leads the action and catapults the ball via the fling of the forearm and hand. You can try this motion yourself to see! 

I hope you enjoyed reading or even skimming through my blog. Feel absolutely free to comment more ideas or even share your own animations! I'd love to hear and see some of what you can come up with for practising this principle! And with that...

Thank you for reading and see you next post!