Sea Animation Experiments

Some examples of rough experimentations for the group animation based around rescue stories of the sea. 

Our group had decided upon using 2D media & a slightly abstract appearance which led us to decide to  experiment with paints, in particularly water colours. These are some examples of ideas I've played with, simply playing with creating shapes & patterns with different shades of colours I'd consider to be related to the sea. 

I think the first set of experiments is more effective using watercolour as the textures are more visible & I think they work in illustrating the movement that would be in relation to the ocean. 

The second experiment was considered less effective mainly as the images were taken less consistently causing what appears as camera shake & less consistent.

Sea Animation - Group Project

The first group project is based on stories of the ocean recorded by a local journalist. The story we've been assigned is about a gentleman who saves a young man who is being dragged out to sea. The narrative is relatively simple which were able to break down into five main points.

The image on the left shows the first brainstorm after listening to the narrative. As a group we decided that we would prefer to explore the 2D side of animation in creating this animation. In addition the idea of using a slightly more abstract styles incorporating the idea of morphing & metaphorical idea of waves, for example the white horses which I previously used in my sea test. The use of a more abstract style would also give us scope to incorporate more characters in necessary & use a less realistic nature. Prior to do making any decisions set in stone as to the media we'll use it will be necessary to do further sea tests, but the idea of using watercolours & ink is the first thing that has come to mind.

These are some examples of references & ideas I've discovered using watercolour as the main medium. I particularly like the use of bleeding the paints to imply a use of light & change in the water. I also like the use of white specks in the shades of blue to imply sea spray. 

I chose the image below entitled 'Kissing the Wave' as it uses the idea of morphing & combining the use of the wave to create other images, which is an effect we'd like to create our animation. The waves in this design are in a more Japanese style.

Sea Animation

The brief for this animation was simply to animate the sea, in any way & in any media I liked. At first I had no clue as to what to do or how to start, so began looking at iconic images of waves. The Great Wave was the basis of my inspiration & then I proceeded to look at Japanese style animations such as Ponyo.

With the simplistic style of line drawing of these examples in mind I then connected the idea of white horses in the waves. The image to the left shows simplistic line drawings I experimented with in my sketchbook before trying to combine the idea of the horses & the waves, as seen in the image below. The line drawings show my first experimentation of the the frame by frame 

progression & how it may work. The sea animation shows how this developed further, the horse appearing to morph into the waves.