Draw a circle for the crystal ball shape on a sketch pad in pencil. Draw the crystal ball stand by sketching two short lines at a slight diagonal pointing outward below the circle then draw a curved line echoing the curve of the ball between the two end-of-line points. Color in the crystal ball with art marker pens or colored pencils. Remember that one side of the ball will be darker than the other side so use a darker tone to color the shaded area of your crystal ball or around its circumference.
Take a photograph with your digital camera fixed on a tripod. Position your camera in the same place to take each photograph.
Trace over your crystal ball with another sheet of sketch paper. Apply color but this time change something about the color of the crystal ball. For instance, make the center of the crystal ball brighter or lighter in color. Take another photograph. Gradually, introduce more color changes within each frame and take a photograph each time. Don't forget to make the outside of the crystal ball glow too so that it has a light halo around it.
Create mist, if desired, by introducing more white into the ball, working from the bottom center and making the area around the mist darker in color. Another idea is to create a cloud effect by using light blue and drawing white fluffy clouds. Start by sketching a couple of clouds, color them in then take a photograph. Next introduce another cloud from the side and move one of your existing clouds down and slightly to the side in the same direction as the cloud moving in from the side. Do several drawings to capture the movement of the clouds.
Reveal an image of something seen in the crystal ball slowly through your misty or cloudy effect. Gradually do this by drawing in a little detail at first and make it faint. Draw the next frame with more of the image seen and slightly darken the color. Keep repeating this process until the image appears clearly in the crystal ball.
Connect your digital camera to your computer via a FireWire or a USB cable. Upload and save your photographs to your pictures folder.
Open Movie Maker or another film editing program and upload your still photo frames.
Click on your first animated frame and drag it to the editing bar on the bottom of the screen. Drop it into the first empty frame box. Repeat this until all of your frames are on the editing bar.
Go to your time line and reduce the time duration of each frame by sliding each frame closer to the previous frame.
Play your animation on the film screen and watch your animated crystal ball reveal its mystery vision. If you're satisfied with your animation, save it.