This project by Paulo Wang was a learning project. It wasn’t about the colors really. It just looked good we thought. Hearing his story was good though. Splash is the result of Paulo’s practice with fluid motion design, a specific part of 3D design Paulo specialises in. Fluids aren’t easy. We can all remember how well the creators of Finding Nemo had done the water, how real it looked. And there’s been a hype almost going on lately with painters creating very realistic portraits, often with water trickling down or flowing over the face and body of the model. Getting this right is difficult and people are amazed when it’s done well. Paulo Wang needed to learn, and learns by doing, and did it. The idea of dropping a paint can on the floor just came to him, and months of practicing the technique, besides his normal job, we’re needed to get a proper end result. One of the good things about experimenting and playing on your own time is that there’s no deadline, and no adjustment to others. Paulo doesn’t like personal deadlines in a situation like this, as some others do. He’s learning, and wants the freedom to investigate different angles, let the idea process flow, you could say. It’s not done until Paulo is satisfied with the end result. You can see the final video below the article.
And the colors? Well, besides them not being the focus of the project, Paulo never felt comfortable with colors. It’s something he struggles with himself. There’s so much that can go wrong with them. When he sees the work of other designers, who have been trained for it, it seems so simple for them. And sure Paulo can see when colors have been used well, he can judge others colors well. But that’s a different story to creating them yourself. So for the Splash project, he kept it simple and used red, green, blue and yellow. Like in the rubics cube project as well. You can’t really go wrong there.
