Watercolor effect?

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jhbmw007
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Watercolor effect?

Post by jhbmw007 »

Anyone know how to achieve a good looking watercolor effect in AS ( on animation)? Mainly, I want to try to make a style similar to this but turn it into animation:
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/01 ... -part.html

So far I'm thinking I can do all the background work in digital watercolor in a paint program, but I'm stumped for the characters. If I go the "cut-out" route, and create the characters in watercolor and import pngs- it will still end up looking like cut-out. If I create the characters in AS, they'll look too "vectory". Any thoughts?
Last edited by jhbmw007 on Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rylleman
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Post by rylleman »

I think your best bet would be having hand-painted solid fields of colour and then scan those and use as fill. You won't get the subtle details of pen and brush-work but it would not look as flat as pure vector-art made in Moho either. I think you'll have to find an workable compromise between how it looks and a usable workflow.
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BunyanFilms
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Post by BunyanFilms »

you could try an animated texture. maybe the colour of the character is painted on a larger piece of water colour paper which could be moved around to create an animated texture. The character's face shape for example could then be created in AS and used as a mask. This at least would give you an undulating texture.
Here's an example of a character with an animated texture on the outfit. In your case you could make the animated texture much more subtle.
http://www.bunyanfilms.com.au/hightower/belly_babes.mp4
AlanPS
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try using styles

Post by AlanPS »

I haven't actually tried this yet but here's some thoughts- Create a style for each color you want to use.

1. For your fills use a little transparency and use soft edge as the fill effect.
2. Make your outlines black and select sketchy as the outline effect.

3. On your layer properties go to the last tab and select noisy fills and/or noisy outlines.

This will possibly create a watercolor and ink effect. To get that water blended look however would mean having to create a whole lot of shapes (like paint by numbers almost) and overlap them.
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

I did something... er... slightly similar using brushes and a "splotchy" fill effect...

Something like this:

(no images except for the brushes)
Image

If you have the Pro version you could use brushes to create a textured type fill with in AS without using texture fills.

My idea is that you could put overlapping "random" strokes that would "fill" the shape area. Then use masking to confine it to the shape. You would "layer" multiple brush stroke shapes at very large size and large spacing and slightly transparent to create a "watercolor" effect.

The cool part would be the masking. If you use a "brushy" stroke or noisy strokes on the mask it could create the hand drawn look without having a "solid" stroke.

If you can wait for it I will do a quick sample later this evening.

-vern
AlanPS
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awesome

Post by AlanPS »

heyvern,

that is just too cool. I would love to have a look at the file to see how you did all that. I've been thinking about it but have not quite put it into practice like you. I had even thought about using the masking like you said, to get that Hanna Barbara look of background objects.

I love the splotchy darker areas like more paint soaked into the paper. Great job!
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Patrick McClintock
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Watercolor ASP

Post by Patrick McClintock »

Hey!
Heyvern has talent!
P.
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heyvern
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Re: awesome

Post by heyvern »

AlanPS wrote:I would love to have a look at the file to see how you did all that.
I think this is the file:

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/cart ... ground.zip

It's been awhile... but they had the same creation date on the web server. ;)

I actually posted this in another thread for someone else interested in a more "free" sort of "hand drawn" Hanna Barbara look.

-vern
AlanPS
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thanks

Post by AlanPS »

Heyvern,

'ppreciate the file. It's been so long, it might have been me that asked how to achieve that look a while back.
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heyvern
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Re: thanks

Post by heyvern »

AlanPS wrote:Heyvern,

'ppreciate the file. It's been so long, it might have been me that asked how to achieve that look a while back.
I love some of these questions because a lot of time I think it can be done... I am pretty sure it can be done... but I haven't quite... actually done it before so I end up learning something myself in the process. :oops:

-vern
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