When Squash and Stretch Broke Me (a Little)
One late night, a bouncing ball taught me more about animation and myself, then any tutorial ever could...
I still remember the moment I wanted to throw my laptop across the room. It was around 12:30 a.m. My room lit only the faint bluish glow of After Effects, and I’d been animating a simple bouncing ball for five—no, seven—hours straight.
You know that feeling when something looks simple, and then it sucker-punches you in the face the moment you try it? That was me, hunched over my desk, replaying the timeline loop, whispering to no one,
“Why does this feel… dead?”
I Knew the Theory. So What?
I had just started learning the 12 Principles of Animation. I watched all the YouTube breakdowns. Read the classic illusion of life. Took notes. Highlighted stuff. Felt like I got it.
But when it came time to do it?
Total mess.
The bounce was technically there, but it didn’t feel alive. No energy. No personality. Just a lifeless ping-pong movement pretending to be animation. I tried adding Squash and Stretch, but it looked like the ball was made of jelly once frame and a rock the next. The spacing? Off. The timing? Weird. The satisfaction? Nonexistent.
I remember sitting back and thinking, “Is this just for me?”
A Weird Realisation at 2 a.m.
At some point, probably around when my eyes started crossing, I opened an old Pixar behind-the-scenes video, just to distract myself. And one of the animators said like:
“The principles are like emotions. If you fake them, the audience knows.”
That hit me harder than expected.
I realised I wasn’t feeling the animation. I was checking boxes. “Add squash here. Stretch here. Done. “But animation isn’t checklist. It’s acting. It’s rhythm. It’s intuition.
And I was trying to animate like a robot learning to dance.
The Day I Started Listening
So I stopped for a bit. Took a walk the next day. Watched a rubber ball actually bounce. Noticed how it lingers before falling, how it flattens on impact just enough to look expressive, not ridiculous.
I started sketching it out frame by frame, like an idiot who thought he could draw. But it helped.
When I came back to After Effects, I stopped overthinking. I watched the motion. Played with curves in the graph editor like I was shaping emotion, not math. It wasn’t perfect, but suddenly... the ball felt better.
Not just in motion. In my chest too.
What I Learned Without Meaning To
I used to think mastering the 12 Principles was about memorising them and using them “correctly.” But they’re not commandments. They’re more like... instincts you slowly absorb. They only come alive when you do.
And yeah, sometimes you’ll be up at 2 a.m. animating a damn circle, thinking why your soul hurts. But that’s part of it.
Because animation, like life, gets better when you stop faking it.
And when you let yourself be a little wonky, a little off-timing, a little you—
that’s when the magic sneaks in.
Thanks for reading.
Scroll down and click that heart, okay? It’s the only cardio I get these days.♥
Bharat.
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