Recently while taking a walk I discovered a stream in the local forest. It was covered with duckweed, flowing downstream and the stream bed looked bottomless. Naturally I dipped my hand in the cool water. The experience fueled the idea for this animation.

{{< gallery >}} {{< figure src="/img/anims/submerged_thumbnails_web.jpg" caption="Planning and thumbnails" >}} {{< figure src="/img/anims/submerged_layout_web.jpg" caption="Layout" >}} {{< /gallery >}}

All was animated traditionally on paper and composited in Opentoonz.

The hand is based on my own, but I tried to make it a bit more animal-like while underwater.

The duckweeds are painstakingly drawn in around 60 frames and animated on two's. I painted all the circles with pink watercolor. That took quite a while. Then I composited multiple instances of the same animation to suggest an unending flow.

Here is, again, the 'uninverted', original video:

The inversion technique still intrigues me, but I must confess it's not always the most logical or efficient. Especially since it's so confusing for the brain while working on it, and trying to imagine the inverted colours. But I think it definitely shines when applied on watercolor layers, which are hard to darken otherwise.