Squash and stretch can be very broad, or it may be very subtle. In the Disney features, subtlety has been developed to a high degree. The type of story, the liberal use of dialog, and the close-up has made this imperative. We capitalize on the use of squash and stretch in the face. For instance, the eyes, opening wide for surprise or fear (stretch), partly closed from the cheek action during a smile (slight squash), or squeezed into slits from anger or suspicion, or strain (squash).
Nothing moves independently. If the mouth is active as in dialog, everything on the face is going to react and move accordingly. Smile broadly in a mirror and observe. The upper lip area squashes up toward the nose, while at the same time stretches out into the cheek area. Notice how it changes shape yet still retains its volume. The upper lip action causes the nostrils to spread. The cheeks spread outward and upward. This causes the bottom lids of the eyes to raise up over the bottom part of the eyeball, causing the eye to appear to squash.
All this cheek flesh raising up clashes with the temple flesh which doesn’t want to go anywhere because it is less fleshy and is attached to something more solid. The result is a set of tiny wrinkles next to the eyes on the temple.
Even the ears and sideburns react, even the neck and collar, and to an infinitesimal degree, the cloth on the upper chest. To carry the point this far in animation may prove to be impractical, but it was mentioned for observation’s sake and to emphasize the fact that nothing moves independently in full animation. All the parts of a drawing are related, just as all drawing in a scene is related to all other drawing.
The cleanup person must be aware of how much squash and stretch the animator has used and where he has used it. While going through the scene to acquaint himself with it, it might be good to make notes on the drawings such as “squash here” etc., lest in perfunctorily cleaning up the scene he over look it.
