Pond Scumcious
Note of thanks to Animator Nick Hilligoss of Australia for his example of creating animatablebodies of water by sandwiching dyed hair gel between two layers of clear vinyl.
I'm trying to improve the pond water as it wasn't convincing enough for me in earlier tests. Nick's idea meant more work, but I feel it was definitely worth the effort. We had to install the new gel-filled topper on top of the existing pond water layer for best effect, reworking the water's edge with screws and hot glue, then re-finessing.
The new layer photographs much better and animates more realistically. The added murkiness looks more interesting yet still transparent enough to see the koi (top right) under the surface and the sunken old watch parts that collect at the edges (bottom left).
Great to see you trying the gel layer in the water surface! Not my idea, it was what Tony Lawrence used, and it surprised me how well he pulled it off.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I turn my back for a moment and a whole bunch of new posts burst forth. Even better to see some more progress on puppet making!
Hi Nick! Kudos to Tony Lawrence and those who thought of this but I'm most grateful to you because you are the one who took the trouble to tell me about it!
ReplyDeleteYes, more puppets coming and more pond tests as well.
It's tempting to play at animating the pond water with ripples and bubbles and other effects but I think I'll pretty much just be happy with surface glints of light as a blurry background. So much to shoot!
Very clever!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Limner. Welcome to Halfland!
ReplyDelete