Anticipation for Jumping

The second principle of animation is anticipation, which is used to show the preparation for an action. All important actions should have anticipation as it is arguably the most important part of an action because it directs the viewer's attention to the movement and suggests what action is going to occur.

Keeping the squash and stretch principle in mind, I have created a simplistic character in Adobe Flash which has been animated to jump.

I found that the 'onion skin' tool was particularly helpful as it allowed me to animate the character straight ahead - creating a good level of fluidity. The use of colour also allowed me to control the body's volume throughout the animation. I also played different music and sound effects alongside my animation to experiment with the impact that sound can have. On the other hand, I found it difficult to maintain a consistent line thickness due to Flash's smoothing.

To overcome this I removed all outlines, leaving the character's motion unchanged.