The Match

OK, so I was just trying to achieve a few different things in here:
1. Rigging a hand with all the fingers. In the end, the ring and pinky fingers are kinda useless so I just left them as one layer in the back.
2. Making a set of dynamic particle systems, based on hand-drawn sparks, if possible without plugin. I couldn't pull it off exactly how I thought so I ended up using Particular.
3. Achieving a grainy, noisy look, on the whole image but also with noisy lights and shadows.

The fire is animated by hand, drawn in Illustrator with a basic brush.
Rig is a basic IK system parented to the hand.

I’m happy about the end-result, but always curious to hear what others would have done differently.

Behance post with all the details: https://www.behance.net/gallery/71304283/The-Match