Animation Test: Plant Glow

As she is a botanical witch, she is very skilled at looking after nature and making things grow. I knew from the beginning that I wanted a shot of her growing a plant in her hands so for my first test I decided to do that. I took one of the drawings from my sketchbook, digitised it, and added colour.

Plant glow 1

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, as it was one of those rare occasions where what I imagined in my head came out perfectly. I'm so happy with the colours I've used, I think it looks really striking, and I feel like I achieved good lighting, shadows, and glow.

Plant glow 2

I made a very minimal change to the shot by changing the range of glow around her hands. I feel like this one looks much more realistic and makes it look like the power is coming from her hands instead of from the plant itself. I think that this is my favourite variation of the shot - it definitely works the best.

Plant glow 3

I made another minimal change to the glow here, by changing the lighting on the fingers I made it look even more realistic, as though there is a shadow underneath it. However, I still prefer the second variation.

Plant glow 4

I wanted to experiment with different glow colours and the luminosity of layers, however, I don't think it works that well here. Instead of looking healthy and green she looks quite ghostly and the green glow around the plants isn't as striking.

Plant glow test 1:

I used a soft boil and key frame animation on the opacity levels to create this animation test which is a really simple method. I think it was a good first try, but the colours aren't right. I would also like to emulate light and shadows dancing on her face and arms in tune with the plant's glow.

Plant glow test 2:

I added a boil the the plant's glow here which I think is really effective and gives the scene a bit more movement and depth. However, the light and shadows on her face and arms don't move with the plant's glow so I would like to add this to my next animation test.

Plant glow test 3:

I added the boil effect to the lights and shadow on her arms and face this time which I think is really effective. It makes it look as though the light is dancing over her features and really livens up the shot, it also gives her a very magical and ethereal quality.

Plant glow test 4:

This animation test is the same as the last one, except I wanted to add some darkness to the shot in order to make it more magical and ethereal. I think that by adding darkness along with the green and yellow colouring also makes the audience think that she's practising dark magic which makes the ending of the film so much funnier - she's only making soup.

Plant glow 5:

This is the same as the test before, however, I wanted to make the timings smoother as the dancing light effect on her face starts after she's revealed from out of the darkness. I wanted to try and get rid of this lag and instead have the dancing effect happening before so that it's a smoother transition.

I want to try and create this shot again now that I have the symmetry tool, I think that it will be a great climax for the film and with the knowledge that I have now I think it will be even better.