stop-motion bouncing ball

As we were discussing this assignment in class, I knew that I couldn't just do a ball bouncing across the screen. I wanted to think of something more creative, entertaining, and maybe funny. I came up with this idea because I thought using water would be a good way to show how elements can affect, and be affected by the ball I was going to animate. The fish character was introduced as a way to lengthen the short so that the animation didn't just end with the ball falling into the water. In my mind the fish enables the audience to take in a whole scene, rather than just watching the ball. Additionally, there is now some humor. After I decided on the story, I knew that it needed to be slightly more immersive without distracting from the goal of the animation: to make the ball bounce. Therefore, I decided watercolor would be a simple and light way of adding the setting, and just used origami paper for the remainder. The fact that I just have origami paper laying around in my dorm, may have an explanation as to why I was comfortable enough with the medium to go slightly overboard. After just having the grass on the bottom and the small pond, I felt the scene was flat and in order to portray this little scene, there needed to be taller and more prominent, but cartoony, grass patches. I was intrigued by this idea because I realized how much I could use them to create depth. In the animation, the ball actually goes behind the foreground grass in order to bring depth to the scene. The water splash and movements took the longest time, but overall this project made me more excited to start the longer stop-motion sequence!