Effects: Vortex

This effect was one of the hardest for me to grasp – we studied vortexes, including water vortexes, tornados, fire whirls, etc.

I do like the way this turned out, although my instructor pointed out that it has a sort of “spinning plates” feel to it.  Here’s a page of exploratory sketches:

I almost chickened out in favor of a jellyfish animation, with little vortex eddies coming out (instead of tackling the tornado effect):