Squash and Stretch

Origins

Squash and Stretch is the first most important of the principles of animation. It's what gives characters a fleshy organic look while lack of squash and stretch is what makes hard objects like a metal bat a rigid look. Squash and Stretch was originally discovered in the 1930s by Disney animators who were trying to bring more life into their drawings. They found that living objects tended to change shape while retaining volume and that only lifeless stiff objects stayed rigid while in motion. After discovering this Disney animators started to compete with each other to exaggerate the squash and stretch in their drawings to create more and more extreme poses. 

Examples

There are two common examples used to explain squash and stretch to beginning animators, the half-filled flour sack and the bouncing ball.

The half-filled flour sack was created to practice changing an objects shape to show emotions while keeping the volume the same. What was learned from the flour sack  exercises could then be applied to characters in Disney animations.

The bouncing ball is a common animation for beginners for a variety of reasons, one is to provide a simple scenario to use squash and stretch. It was surprising for Disney animators when they discovered that having a ball squash when it lands and stretch when it takes off would make such a huge impact on their animations.

Sources

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Williams, R. (2001). The animator's survival kit. New York, NY: Faber and Faber Limited.

Goldberg, E. (2008). Character animation crash course!. Los Angeles, California: Silman-James Press.

Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon animation. Tustin, California: Walter Foster Publishing Inc.