Animation Principles - Follow Through

Follow-through refers to a short moment after the main action. It is the idea that body parts of characters or elements of animated objects might continue to move even after a motion is completed.

The Follow-Through principle is very important for increasing the quality of your animation. Adding drag and overlapping action to your animations will go far in making them look less mechanical .

The Follow-Through principle is very important for increasing the quality of your animation. Adding drag and overlapping action to your animations will go far in making them look less mechanical . Notice the red path of the ball and blue path they represent main action and follow through action respectively.
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Follow-through is the principle that a parts of the body follows the movement of another part (the leading one), with a bit of delay. From the comparison example we can understand how follow through can add to the believability of the animation.
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Follow through is principle just like other which follows the laws of physics and in this case inertia. 
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We can divide the above flag flowing in the wind in three visually different parts through which it will be easier to breakdown how follow through works.
The first part ( blue color) would lead the movement, moving first, the second ( green color) one would follow this movement, the third one ( yellow color) would follow the second one.
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This also applies when the character is acting our head moves first and others body parts follows it Head turn and talks and hairs follows.
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Notice how the person sitting inside the car reacts to the car suddenly stopping. The action of the body follows the action the of car and because of inertia the body moves but with a delay. This is how follow through action can be seen in real life.
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Overlapping action is the principle that some parts have different timing or speed compared to other parts, so they overlap the main action. The above example shows how character jumping up and down with the other parts like tail and ears has a  delay in timing which also called as offset or drag. 
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It is also called the overlapping action because it gives the feeling of overlapping or settling. Notice how the cloth marked in blue and hair marked in red follows the body but doesn't instantly stop as the body does. The cloth and hair overlaps and settles down slower than the body .
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Like the others principals add the believability in action same way follow through also enhance and adds believability to your animation.
Since mermaid don't exists but if they existed they would certainly swim like this and to make us believe, follow through plays an important role. 
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Pick and attach the feather positions on the guided marker to make proper sequence of feather movement