Research: Paint On Glass Animation

A direct-under-the-camera method of animating such that the animator draw on top on a glass or a perspex sheet, usually in A4 size, with backlighting. There are lots of method out there to setup the back lighting which gives different effects. The simplest set up is to paint on top of a light box, and this is the most feasible technique for my Character and Narrative project because it eliminates shadows, which makes it less time consuming to set the setup.

Simple Paint on Glass Animation Setup with Light Box

The more complex, industry-standard the Multiplane Downshooter technique is good for a single-medium paint on glass animation because it would cast shadows of the top plane to the planes below. However, when 3D and 2D animation are combined together the shadows from the lighting could be problematic as it will not be consistent with the lighting on the 3D animation. A hypothetical solution will be placing a point light source on the fireplace, so that there will be glow and shadow cast on the scene.

The Multiplane Downshooter technique

The paint on glass technique is suitable for straight ahead animation, and good for animating continuously shape-transforming objects. Although time crunch does not allow to make the animation  comparable to the quality of oil paintings, the mark makings produced while manipulating the mis-en-scene high contrast characters and objects is one of the happy accidents that contributes to the unique aesthetic of the technique. In addition, having an image that lingers for a few frames give rise to the peculiar features of rhythm in animations done in this technique allows the audience to study the feature of each images. Tones of the paintings could be varied by spreading the paint thickly and thinly by using brushes or sticks. The challege of this medium is to plan everything out and do all the necessary experimentation before doing the real thing because there is no artwork to go back to if something does not work. Nevertheless, this challenge makes paint on glass a versatile medium that allows tactile manipulation and happy accidents which introduce new possibilities to the outcome. It is a process heavily weighted on creative thinking, problem solving and exploration of new possibilities using technical knowledge.


The video below is an example of paint on glass animations done by Em Cooper:

Sources:

• http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.2/3.2pages/3.2student.html
• http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_paint.html
• http://what-when-how.com/non-traditional-animation-techniques/the-multiplane-downshooter-non-traditional-animation-techniques-part-1/