How to use watercolor techniques in animation illustration design.

Illustration has been closely related to design art since its rise. Watercolor is widely used in animation illustrations now. So, what is the application of watercolor technique in animation illustration? I've arranged it for you below, hoping it will help you.

Illustration design is a hot industry in the field of design, involving a wide range and great social demand, which has great influence on the transmission of various information and the design field. The rapid, popular and frequent enrichment of illustrations has met the needs of the public in this picture-reading era, and the expression forms of illustration art design are becoming more and more abundant. With the expansion of the design field, illustration design combines the elements of design and painting art, becoming more and more social, fashionable and expressive, and becoming an indispensable art form in today's society. With the increasingly close relationship between science and technology, culture and art, the application fields and forms of illustration are becoming more and more abundant.

Illustration, like animation, needs to tell stories through pictures and has a certain narrative function. The illustrations themselves use various materials and techniques. In Japan, due to the early commercialization of animation, before the appearance of modern digital illustration, manual illustration has been very developed. Hand-painted illustrations are generally done with watercolor tools. Watercolor has a long history, profound connotation, many famous artists, various artistic schools and smooth and transparent pictures. In the art of painting, watercolor painting, as a popular painting, has a unique position. The expression of watercolor painting can combine the style and characteristics of illustration design. The unique artistic charm of watercolor illustration makes more and more animation artists choose this expression for artistic creation. Watercolor techniques are widely used in animation illustration design, and its advantages are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Watercolor tool material is the best choice for drawing animated illustrations.

The materials and tools used in watercolor painting are relatively simple, economical, convenient and easy to carry. There are many kinds of watercolor paper, including bagged watercolor paper and notebook-shaped watercolor paper, which are very convenient to use and carry. Other kinds of paper, such as sketch paper, cardboard and gouache paper, can be used as painting materials. There are two kinds of watercolor pigments: transparent pigments and opaque pigments. Usually when painting, transparent watercolor pigments are generally used. There are many forms of packaging, including liquid and solid, tin tubes and bottles. Liquid watercolor pigment is packed in transparent glass, which is transparent and bright, and has high chromaticity and transparency after superposition. Drawing illustrations is the best. Commonly used watercolor pens generally have round head and flat head, and round head watercolor pens are mainly suitable for sketching and details; Flat-headed watercolor pen is mainly used for plane painting, drawing square surfaces and lines, and can also be used for large-area plane painting. China watercolor painters often use brushes to paint watercolors, so there is no specific requirement for the choice of brushes, and they can choose and use them according to their own preferences. The sketchpad is made of wood or plexiglass, which can be easily carried when sketching or collecting wind. So watercolor painting tools are simpler and more convenient than oil painting or Chinese painting.

The rich techniques of watercolor painting are suitable for the expression of animation illustration design works.

Watercolor painting techniques are generally divided into dry painting, wet painting and combination of dry and wet painting according to material characteristics. You can also use special tools and means to create special effects, such as using a pen with clear water, absorbent paper or sponge to absorb before the color is dry; When the color is not dry, spray water with a watering can to produce white spots of different sizes; Scratch with branches, knives, etc. before the color is dry. And scrape out bright spots, branches and other shapes; There are also many methods, such as shadow, crayons, salt, oil stains and printing. At present, CG illustration is widely used, often used in the creation of comics, animations and games. Compared with pure art painting, CG illustration is more intuitive, simple to operate and easy to modify and store, but it is more commercialized and has a single expression language and technique. With the improvement of people's cultural and artistic quality, pure art hand-drawn illustrations are more popular with the public, especially watercolor illustrations. Watercolor illustration can not only show animated scenes, but also show animated characters. The animated scenes and characters represented by watercolor techniques have fresh and unique picture effects, which can attract the attention of the audience and improve the artistic value. In short, the rich expression techniques in watercolor painting can better reflect the characteristics of exaggeration, humor and imagination of animated illustrations.

The unique visual effect of watercolor painting can better reflect the artistry of animation illustration design works.

1 Pure and transparent, fresh and bright.

The beauty of water is mostly clear and clean, and watercolor pigments are mostly transparent. The most attractive feature of watercolor painting is its transparency, which helps to smudge layer by layer, better express light and create beautiful pictures, so as to achieve pure and transparent picture effect. Mainly oil painting and gouache, although there are transparent paintings, they can't be compared with watercolors, so the picture effect is characterized by dignified, vigorous and elegant. Chinese painting is also painted with water, but the pigment is not as transparent as watercolor, and the expression language is mainly lines and ink, so it is difficult to show the beauty of watercolor color. Cartoon illustrations drawn by watercolor technique are pure and transparent, relaxed and bright, free and freehand, fresh and natural in brushwork, more in line with the characteristics of animation, and suitable for expressing some characters and scenes in animation.

Lively and in one go.

Flow is a characteristic of water. Watercolor painters are good at making use of this characteristic of water, making the combination of water and color flow, permeate and actively connect on special hard paper, achieving vivid visual effects and showing unique artistic beauty. Oil paintings and gouache rely on stacking and covering, and cannot flow; Although the "splash ink" and "splash color" of Chinese painting have certain fluidity, the fluidity of watercolor painting is difficult to compare with watercolor painting because it is painted on soft and fast-absorbing raw rice paper. Using watercolor techniques to express the characters and scenes in animation can make the gestures in the works flexible, make the characters more distinctive, and perfectly show the China aesthetic charm of animation illustration design.

3. Refine, summarize and have distinct levels.

Watercolor painting is not necessary to pursue rich, realistic and delicate effects like oil painting because of the limitation of its tool materials. In order to give full play to its advantages, the shape and color of objective objects should be summarized and refined before they are displayed. Wet painting in watercolor technique is a method of coloring paper after it is soaked or dyed wet. It is suitable for expressing hazy, illusory and soft animation scenes, such as distant view, fog scene, rain scene and dark parts of objects, summarizing the light and dark levels of the picture and strengthening the aesthetic feeling of color composition. The application of a variety of watercolor techniques can enable artists to grasp the picture, so that what is finally presented on the picture is pure and rich sublimation beauty.

4 Water and color blend, and the artistic conception is hazy

Many stories in cartoons are represented by animation scenes, so scenes are essential for animation creation. In order to highlight the theme and background of the story and pay attention to creating environmental atmosphere in the process of painting, watercolor has unique requirements for creating, rendering and unifying the atmosphere. Take fantasy and romantic animation works as an example, its watercolor effect and exquisite pictures complement each other, which is perfect. This type of expression makes the creative theme rich in connotation and hazy in artistic conception. Watercolor pigments are relatively thin and easy to create aesthetic effects. The water in wet painting can vividly show beautiful pictures and make the works present a hazy artistic conception. It can be seen that artistic conception is undoubtedly a bridge between artists and audiences. Illustration art can easily achieve this effect when it is expressed in watercolor.