Soggy Ninja Skills Nine Minute Ninja

BONG

Time to get my ninja on - and my clothes.

Yyyah!

HEAVY RAINFALL

Wow. It's persistently raining out there.

That kind of thing didn't put off famous artist JMW Turner, though.

In fact, I think I'll do some Turner-inspired art,

using wet paper.

Whoa, who are you?

I'm famous British painter, Turner.

JMW Turner, to be precise.

I was a landscape painter

who often captured the energy and power of the sea and the weather.

Here's one of my best-known paintings.

I once tied myself to the mast of a ship,

so that I could paint up a storm.

Dude, you don't need to tie yourself to a ship.

You just have to put your painting in the rain. I'll show you.

See you later.

I've got some dark paper here.

Some nice primary colours, a bit of black and white as well.

First thing I'm going to do

is give the paper a good spray with some water.

'Because that will give the painting a nice rainy effect.'

And I'm going to paint a picture of a busy road at night.

I'm going to start by painting some cars.

Maybe some blue, add a little bit of white to it,

to lighten it up.

Do the roof...

Now, the paint that I'm using is acrylic paint -

and that's because it sticks to wet paper better.

'But you can also use poster paint.'

Another car next to it.

Look how the paint runs into the water, like there.

Makes it feel like it's raining.

It's a road, so we've got to have

some cars coming from the other direction as well.

Going to add a little bit of black in,

just to put some detail back into the cars -

give it some windows and some tyres.

'You don't have to be a professional painter for this technique to work.'

If it starts to dry as you're painting it,

just add a little bit more water, just to keep it all nice and moist.

All adds to the effect.

'As the cars start to go off into the distance,

'you don't need to paint as much detail.'

The number plates, with a bit of yellow.

Yeah.

Now, I'm going to do the street lamps with a bit of yellow

and a bit of white around the edges, to give them that glow.

Some red for the back lights.

I'm just sort of dabbing it on,

to get a kind of nice blurred, watery effect.

Need a bit more water, actually.

And a bit of white,

for that car that's coming in the other direction.

And of course, we're going to need some reflections,

because there's water on the road. Look at that.

All flowing from the water.

Lovely.

Just picking it up in the lamps, just to give it a nice sort of glow.

And then, reflections of those back lights.

They could do with a little bit of black going back in,

to pull them out from the dark background.

Spray... All it needs now is a frame.

Look at that.

'A Turner-style water picture.

'Go on - now it's your turn to try it!'

DRUM ROLL

BISCUIT CRIES OUT

Oof!

-WAFERS:

-Ooh...

Oh, no! Should I call an ambulance?

No, it's just an animation - a CRUMBY one.

And you can make an awesome dunk stunt

with a pack of yellow biscuits, a cup of tea,

some bendy wire, some strong sticky tape

and a camera.

And you can put it together in just three ninja moves.

Ninja move number one. You need to set up your scene.

Now, I'm using this coffee table as my backdrop.

I've got myself a cold cup of tea here, ready to go -

and now, I can start doing my animation.

So I need to take a shot each time my biscuit climbs up to the top,

to jump off and do its death-defying stunt.

I need to make sure that these biscuits here

react when he's getting ready to jump,

because there's quite a lot of suspense in this.

WAFERS GASP

'So every time I move the pink biscuit a tiny amount,

'I take a photo - and then when I edit all the photos together,

'it'll make it seem like they've moved.

'Obviously, I have to eat a few wafers as I go. It's only fair.

'Ninja move number two.'

It's time for the death-defying stunt,

so I need to attach some wire to the back of my biscuit.

And I'm using some sticky tack, along with some strong black tape.

And then, I need to attach the other part of the wire

to this tin up here.

And I'm going to conceal where it's actually attaching to it.

Get him into position and then I'm going to move the camera,

so I can hide where it's attached to the back of the biscuit.

There we go. Sneaky-sneaky. Now I've hidden where it attaches to it,

it means it's easier to paint it out. So, take my shots...

CAMERA CLICKS

I'm going to take this out of the way

and I'm going to shoot a clean picture,

without the biscuit or the wire in it.

This is known as a plate.

It means that I can paint out the wire afterwards

and make it look like the biscuit's really doing a stunt.

'It's always good to get a mate to help out. This is my mate Rich.

'Ninja move number three.'

Compile your frames in an animation app.

'There's loads of free editing apps like I'm using

'available online for your PC or tablet.'

Now, I've painted out all the wire, I've added some sound effects

and I think it's time to take a look at the finished piece.

-Crumb roll, please!

-DRUM ROLL

WAFERS MUTTER

WAFERS GASP

DRUM ROLL

BISCUIT CRIES OUT

Oof!

WAFERS: Ooh...

WAFERS WAIL

CRUNCH CRUNCH

WAFERS SHRIEK

Oh, yeah! It looks well good,

looks just like he's doing a stunt dive.

I think it looks so good, I'm going to make another one.

Aw... They're all gone.

Here's a real quick art tip.

How to create the illusion of your favourite little character

being underwater. So, you need to start with the water line.

I'm going to draw that with a wavy line like this,

with all the peaks pointing upwards.

Now, draw a line for the seabed.

And I'm going to add a few weeds here.

And I'm going to do them with wavy lines,

to create the idea that there's an underwater current.

One that side...

Now I'm going to draw my character, and I'm going to make sure that

they're floating in the middle of the sea.

And I'm going to draw a mermaid. There's a tail...

And we'll have her hair nice and wavy,

to reinforce the idea of the underwater current.

There we go.

And now I'm going to add another little character here, just a fish.

And I'm going to put some bubbles above him,

just to show that he's breathing underwater.

Now finally, add a couple of action lines

so that she's floating.

There we go.

Another quick art tip.

FROG CROAKS

Wow. Do you hear that?

Silence. It's stopped raining.

I'm going to get out while the going's good.

WATER RUNS

Gavin, what are you doing?

Sorry, mate. I thought, as it's sunny outside,

I'd get out and water all the hanging baskets in the block.

Turns out there's quite a lot.

So you're telling me I've been stuck in all day

and it hasn't even been raining?

Um...yeah?

HE SCREAMS

Now go to the website and get YOUR ninja on!

Art Ninja!