Documentary Animation - Week 13: Complex Water Animation

Back to work!

This week I focused on finishing up the rest of the water. I am left with the more complicated water animation to animate. I was reluctant to start immediately on the watercolour paper so I invest more time on planning out using line test for each types of waves that I will be animating in order to not waste more paper than I intend to.

Rough Water Fail Keys

This rough water line test is the first one that I did. I have lost the successful line test because I did not save it after I used it for reference, so what I have left is this ugly keys for the blog. When I was doing the key, I have not fully grasp how the wave moves, and hence the mess. Also the red bit was meant to be a second layer of the water because I intended to make it look 3D instead of flat 2D. However, I decided to ditch the plan because the outcome is already crowded by texture. So, making it a 3D solid will ruin the aesthetic from the texture.

Rising Water

I used a reference video to look at the movement of whirlpool. It was actually not as complicated because it is just water spiralling downwards into a hole. The whirlpool also seems to move in a constant speed as well, so there is not much consideration when it comes to the animation timing.

I did not do a line test for this one, and drew arrows, the axis at which the water spirals downwards and where the water folds. 

I effortlessly made the whirlpool by painting on different frames with watercolour paper makes the effect of swirling water. Despite looking complex, the randomness of the brush strokes on each frames does the magic. Also, having it swirling in a constant speed also makes it easy to animate.

Whirlpool

A line test for the beach wave. I planned to paint it this week, but the library shop was not open, and I can't buy more papers. So before painting, I studied the movements of waves from a reference video, and made a sketchy line test. The idea is to get the feeling of how I should paint it through the line test.

Beach Wave Line Test