Did you know?
The word 'cartoon' comes from the Italian 'cartone', meaning strong, heavy paper. Long ago, a cartoon was a full-size drawing that artists made as a plan for a painting, a stained-glass window or a tapestry.
In 1843, the British magazine Punch began calling its funny drawings 'cartoons', as a joke at first. The name stuck, and today 'cartoon' means a funny drawing or an animated film!
In hand-drawn animation, top animators often draw only the main poses, called key frames. Other artists, called inbetweeners, then draw all the pictures in between, so the movement looks smooth.
Try this: Squash and Stretch
Draw a ball bouncing across a page in five pictures: high in the air (round), falling (stretched long and thin), hitting the ground (squashed flat and wide), rising (stretched again) and high up (round). Keep each ball about the same size overall. Animators call this trick 'squash and stretch'. It makes a ball look bouncy and full of life!
Go further: Rules That Bring Drawings to Life
In 1981, two animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, wrote down twelve basic principles of animation in a book called The Illusion of Life. One is 'anticipation': before a big action, a character gets ready, like a dancer bending their knees before a jump. Another is 'exaggeration': making actions bigger than in real life so they are easy to read. Watch a cartoon and spot these tricks!