Art College Crash Course, Lesson 19: Smear Frames

Or: how to break the rules of animation and get away with it.

Pause a fast-moving cartoon at just the right moment, and you might see something strange: a character with six arms, a face stretched like taffy or a blur shaped like a noodle.

That's a smear frame. And it's one of the coolest tricks in animation.

What a smear frame is

A smear is a single drawing, stretched, distorted or duplicated, that shows fast motion. At full speed, your eye doesn't notice it. It just sees smooth, snappy movement.

Why smears work

• Without them, fast motion can look choppy, like the character teleported.

• One good smear can replace several in-between drawings.

• They add style and personality.

No smears: stiff. Bad smears: glitchy. Good smears: smooth.

Five kinds of smears

1. Stretch smears. A body part stretches along the direction it's moving. Classic in Looney Tunes and SpongeBob. Tip: stretch along the arc of motion. Mistake: stretching in the wrong direction.

2. Multiple limbs. Draw several copies of an arm or leg to show speed. Great for fast punches, spins and running feet. Mistake: too many copies looks like a glitch.

3. Face smears. Just the face stretches during a fast head turn or big reaction. Mistake: holding it too long looks weird instead of funny.

4. Prop smears. A sword, bat or broom stretches mid-swing. Keep it to one frame.

5. Abstract smears. A totally different shape stands in for one frame. REAL: the game Cuphead and The Amazing World of Gumball both use wild, inventive smears. Mistake: too abstract, and viewers don't read it as speed.

Common questions

• "Why doesn't my smear work?" Smears are for fast motion only. On slow motion, they just look strange.

• "Mine is too obvious." Keep it to one frame, two at most.

• "My character looks melted." Keep the smear on the motion arc.

• "Can I overuse them?" Yes. Too many in one shot gets messy.

The big idea

REAL: Chuck Jones's 1942 cartoon The Dover Boys is famous for its "smears," where characters zip from pose to pose with just a streak between them. Animators have been bending the rules for more than 80 years. Learn the rules first, then bend them on purpose.

Try this

Animate a character's arm waving very fast. Draw the start pose, the end pose and one smear in the middle. Play it at full speed. Then pause your favorite cartoon and hunt for smears.

Up next

Lesson 20: Holds. Why not moving can be more powerful than moving.

What's the wildest smear frame you've ever found? Tell us in the comments.

The revolution will not be graded.

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