5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION

FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION -

When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through.  Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. "DRAG," in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.


From "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life"  page 59 , an example of Follow Through and Overlapping action .  Animated by Les Clark, from the film "Mickey's Grand Opera" (released 1936)   .    The authors write:  "Squash & Stretch have now been combined with follow through and overlapping action on the feather and other parts to give a feeling of weight and living form" .






Again, the authors use this example shown earlier (to show Anticipation) which also showed the development of the principles of follow-through and overlapping action  (on Elmer's ears , trunk, and costume) : 




⇒ If it isn't obvious by now , I should mention that it's very difficult to separate these Principles from one another as distinct examples of just ONE principle in play ... all good animation will involve ALL of the 12 Principles of Animation being utilized .   Depending on the type of action it is you might emphasize some of the principles more than others , but there would never be a time where you would consciously decide : "well, I'm only going to use 5 of the Principles in this scene and ignore the others " .   

This scene of Minnie Mouse shows a lot of follow through and overlapping action, as well as the principle of "Slow-in" at the end as she comes to a stop  - 



Magician Mickey shows solid use of follow-through and overlap on the cloth , as well as strong use of squash and stretch , arcs, slow-in/slow-out  (as well as the other principles) - 



In this scene Tillie the tiger shows Follow-through and Overlap (as well as "Slow-in") as she says "OH!" and clasps her hands together . Notice as she goes up into the extreme she doesn't just hit a dead hold and stop there , but she continues in a "moving hold" (retaining the basic key pose , but continuing to move and settle subtly) , while her costume details also overlap and settle -

(in the movie clip this action is repeated several times to let you see it more clearly) 



Again , this fine example by Preston Blair shows all the Principles of Animation in play , but particularly the strong use of follow-through and overlapping action on the loose bits of the character (tail, ears, costume) which give great flow and believability to the action  - - 

(the last two drawings would probably have several more inbetweens added to show the tail, ears , and his costume settling and slowing-in to a stop several frames after his head and body have reached their final positions.  So it doesn't all come to a stop at the exact same time .)

A 1940's era Disney training handout on Follow-Through and Overlap -  




In Eric Goldberg's "Character Animation Crash Course" he shows clothing has drag, follow-through, and overlap : 


Another example from Eric Goldberg's book (a GREAT resource, GET IT if you don't have it )  showing the Principle of Overlapping action with these key drawings of Norman falling into the scene and sitting up:

Notice the multiple application of drag and overlap on these poses to make the action appear to flow naturally.
I find that a common mistake students make would be to go from drawing #1 (of him falling -in)  to drawing #3 (contacting the ground)  then they will just do three or four straight-in-the-middle inbetweens from #3 up into drawing #7 (last drawing) and come to a stop  , skipping the other positions shown in this example , which robs the student's work of the necessary drag and overlap for the action to flow naturally. 

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