I created this in 2020 as a practice piece. I took the reference photo over the summer and I thought it would be a fun photo to recreate as a vector illustration.
I took the image into Adobe Illustrator and using the reference photo, I recreated it. Once I was done, I thought I would take it one step further and create an animated gif from it. I wanted to use Adobe After Effects more and this was a perfect side project for me to do that.
I formatted the Illustrator file so the layers would appear properly in After Effects to make it easier to animate. I was able to add the movement of the water in the lake and sway the Canadian flag like it was picked up by the breeze.
When I was happy with it, I exported the file to Adobe Photoshop where I was able to create and export the files as a gif.
If I am to ever create something like this again or go back and make changes I would: