Had a little extra downtime between work and other projects and have been very inspired by the recent resurgence of Avatar: The Last Airbender after it was put up on Netflix. A friend showed me this free rig from Agora Studio (https://agora.studio/animchallenge.html) and I've just been dying to play with it and stretch my animation legs after a bit of a hiatus. Character animation, lighting, and rendering done using Maya and Arnold and water FX were hand animated in 2D with Photoshop.
Waterbend!
B roll- bts front and perspective view. I animated the lighting for this clip to follow the character and give him and "on stage" appearance
Front view of rig with nurb curves