Exaggeration

Exaggeration is one of my favourite principles of animation as i believe that it adds more personality to the characters and makes them more interesting to watch.

Exaggeration, in a classical 'Disney' sense is the over emphasis of certain actions to give a greater impact whilst still keeping them realistic.

Disney's Monty from 'The Country Cousin' (1936)

This example is very effective in helping us empathise with the characters, making them more realistic and human like. However exaggeration in animation has been over-exaggerated itself and characters can be distorted along with the storyline, making the whole product more surreal.

A good example of this is John Kricfalusi's Ren and Stimpy, where a lot of the characters are broken and stretched beyond belief along with the surreal and exaggerated stories. Personally I find this type of exaggeration is the most playful and intriguing.



I decided to sketch out a couple of my own examples that show my use of this principle. They are only basic sketches and I would like to continue my own exploration into this principle further.