Documentary Animation: Week 10 - Painting Animated Water

Before starting, I had a discussion with my applied animation group about the background. We have come into an agreement that the water is the only thing that will be animated from the background because the scenes will be too busy if the whole background moves in a randomly manner. So, that saves a lot of work. I started off with the water puddle because it is small and therefore less intimidating. I also hoped that the result of the painted water will suit the aesthetic of the animation.

Initially, I was quite bothered by the random movements of the watercolour painted puddle animation. However, after I gave a thought about it, the randomness of the water flow makes up the aesthetic of the watercolour style animation. The style is quite different than digital animations coloured using the colour blocking technique in which animators can have more control of the medium. It is also evident in the scenes that Rosie has coloured digitally as the textures are never the same on different painted layers.

I did several tests of the hand-painted watercolour animation to decide the right timing, in which I have decided that doing it in threes are the best way to portray the continuous movement of the water.

Puddles in twos: too fast!!!

Puddles in fours: too slow ...

Puddles in threes: Just right :)

Doing the flood water on threes also works the best because the movement still looks frantic at the right speed. Therefore, the audience can internalise what is going on with the moving animation. The flood in twos is too fast and the stream of water going from left to right is not as clear as the flood animation done in threes.

Flood in twos: too fast!!!

Flood in fours: too slow...

Flood in threes: Just right :)

So, I have decided to do all the waters in threes. Also, I just realised by doing it in threes, it can be distinguished from the character animation happening in the foreground which is done in twos.

shore water

All the water animations above were done using the same process as the still backgrounds. The blue water is done in a more abstract way because it is not part of what Noelline experienced in the context of this story. It is just a visual representation when she explains her fondness of the river and the sea, and so I want to make a different impression to the viewers from the background.

blue water

The wet-on-wet techniques steps I used for the blue water:

• brush water onto the paper
• paint with blue watercolour and lift the paper vertically to let the paint seeps 
• wait until it is half-dried
• drip more water from the top