Ghost effect

For my finished animated BA8 graphic novel, I would have a supporting character who has died before the narrative of my story begins. She would be introduced to the story as a helper to Finn in the Animorum. This character would be a young girl and a close friend of Finn when she was alive. Due to time constraints, I couldn't spend too much time focused on her physical characteristics such as features, hair, clothes etc but I did want to create her effect for BA7.

For the graphic novel I wanted to create an effect for her ghostly form that was different than had been shown before. I didn't want to simply use techniques that were almost now so common as to be industry standards such as setting an outer glow.

I experimented with several techniques for the effect before finding one that I was happy with...

Another feature of the ghost character I wanted to design was that I wanted the ghost to have a visual impact on their immediate environment. Such as glowing footprints or an energy trail that would exist momentarily and then dissipate...

As some of the effects would be animated in my final graphic novel I used After Effects to create them, such as the effect for Finn's transformation to his ethereal form as shown below...

I also created an animation to show the fading imprint of Lacey's ghost form on her environment, I wanted the effect to resemble a steamed handprint fading from glass...