During our previous weekly production feedback session with Derek and Nick, I also tried combining the wave test shot onto the stop motion background and this was what we ended up with:

We gathered that stop-motion sets were probably not the wise way to go as the sets didn't look like they were uniform in a sense that when looking at real life sandcastles, the castle and the sand from the beach would be joined together rather than be two separate things. So, us as a team had to choose whether to stick with whatever we had at the moment or to go completely 2D.

After some discussions, weighing the pros and cons of both sides, and also adding in the factor that we only had about 3-4 weeks to complete the entire film, we decided to do it all in 2D after Ting (Director) did some tests of 2D backgrounds to see if it worked.

We did some tests to see if the backgrounds and characters would blend well together and this was what we ended up with:

Character line-up.
We also changed the style of colouring for the wave to make it into blocks of colours rather than colouring it by brush which made it very odd with all the very different styles of brush. This style also made sure that we opted out the blurriness that can clearly be seen in the previous test shots. This is one of the shots we have completed, and it also shows the style that we aim to go for, for the entire film.




A few other test shots of our water animations:










So far, the entire production seems to be going in a perfectly good direction that all team members are happy with. I think when it came to deciding to do it in a hybrid animation style, everyone had their doubts, but thankfully we tried it. Although it didn't pan out like we hoped it would have, at least now we're on the right track. Like people always say: no harm giving it a go!