Watercolor Newtons Cradle
Animating digitally is a great time-saver, but traditional animation has organic qualities that have always mesmerized me. I spent a few evenings over the holidays drawing and hand-painting this animation with pencil, watercolor, and a branch.
Frames: 28, looping
Framerate: 12fps
It was a nice change of pace working with my hands, and even though I am no watercolor artist, I’m happy with the result. The texture of the watercolor paper came through exactly as I hoped. I even worked in a ‘found object,’ using a branch above the Newton’s-Cradle-inspired spheres.
One detail I didn’t anticipate with hand-painted animation: you must let the paint dry periodically. Since there were 28 frames to create, I did a pass with one color at a time.
To get the timing, easing, and “stretch” dialed in, I prepped the rough animation first in After Effects, and used Dragonframe to overlay that animation with my camera’s live view of the paper. So effectively, I could ’trace’ the animation with my hands while watching the screen. This wasn’t ideal, but it worked. A projector would be a better tool for tracing.
Here’s the first test frame, showing some eraser marks, stray scribbles, and no color on the center spheres yet.
And here’s a frame from the finished animation. The slight sepia tint and vignette are from post-processing.
Further Reading
Next:
Did you Forget About the AP Stylebook?
Previously:
Repairing an XLR Cable