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Animation Principles - 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 stylized, cartoonish action.

The human eye can easily understand the visuals when they are crystal clear and graphic

The human eye can easily understand the visuals when they are crystal clear and graphic

Exaggeration is used to push the moment, and add more appeal to the action pose or expressions

Exaggeration is used to push the moment, and add more appeal to the action pose or expressions

Exaggeration is used to push the moment, and add more appeal to the action pose or expressions

While doing any acting for any character you will have to think about their emotions, what they are thinking what they are feeling, and then push the pose with bold drawing

It can be added by pushing the drawing even further than the realism to make it believable

Think in a way that you are doing the caricature of the pose

In cartoons, we have to make things a bit exaggerated to make them more believable

For an example of anger 3 poses, you can add exaggeration until you get satisfied

When you do animation try and look for the exaggerated key poses so it looks more believable

Squash and stretch/ Arch/ follow through, overlap.. etc has the exaggeration all over

Know More

Know more

Page 1 - What is exaggeration
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Principles of Animation - Exaggeration

Exaggeration - adds more life and meaning to the character's actions

Page 2 - Exaggeration gives clarity
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D'source Exaggeration | Principles of Animation

Page 3 - Exaggeration improves believability(wrongly spelled in live version)
Principles of Animation - Exaggeration - Brown Bag Labs

Exaggeration enhances believability by making emotions, actions, and characteristics more expressive and engaging. It emphasises key emotions, adds impact to movements, and clarifies a character's intentions. By exaggerating gestures and reactions, animators create distinct personalities and fulfil the audience's expectation of a heightened reality, making the animated world feel more alive and relatable.

Page 4 - Where it is used
Exaggeration is used in animation to emphasise emotions, enhance movements, and highlight physical features. It amplifies facial expressions, like stretching a smile, and actions, such as exaggerated jumps or reactions, to convey energy and intent. It's also common in comedic scenes to heighten humour and in character designs to emphasise traits like innocence or strength

Page 5 - How to use exaggeration
The Power of Exaggeration and How to Use the Technique

Page 6 - Experimenting with poses
Principles of Animation - Exaggeration

Page 7 - Exaggeration is everywhere
Exaggeration is found in several of the 12 principles of animation, enhancing elements like Squash and Stretch by amplifying deformations for more dynamic movements. It also works in Anticipation, making actions more dramatic by exaggerating the preparation for movements, like a deep crouch before a jump. In Timing, exaggerated pauses or speeds emphasise key moments, while in Follow-Through and Overlapping Action, it enhances secondary movements, making characters appear more fluid and lively.

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