Lighting... *sigh*

So I think I'm starting to get the hang of doing the vectors for drawing fluids. Now it's time to start getting details in, which is basically the bulk of the actual drawing.

Curiously enough, just getting the vectors of motion right for the fluid actually helps with lighting affects. :)

And I thought refractive liquids were hard... reflective is like 11/10 in difficulty.

Anyway, here is drop of a reflective liquid on contact before dispersion and reaction of the body source. I didn't want to use any lines here and leave the colors with reflections to give the detail due to dense liquids showing similar properties. The phase change is again the difficult part. It's too rapid in the edges. You can see this in the first wave. It's as if I ended up doing the repelling force of impact rather than the residual change for the body source.

So I wanted to start with something really simple. Hence some form of liquid with a single vector and momentum; a two dimensional cyclone! I know with the increase torque towards the center, the fluid should be lighter of color as it reaches the inertial point. Likewise, the darker colors would be calmer with a weaker tidal force.

As for actually drawing this motion... I may need to focus on the transitional phases of the fluid. I think I have the dissipation of the motion in the outside of the cyclone, but the transition to higher inertia is still weird...

How do I know fluid dynamics intimately, but can't actually draw simple liquids... Looks like I have a goal to study for this coming week. :)