>>6539041>>6539760Practical effects are cool as shit and I love everyone that attempts them, but at some point you need to face the fact that you may get subpar results unless you really know what you're doing/spend the money to set up your effect properly. Using Photoshop isn't cheating, man. The goal is to get a specific look, right? Not to brag about the fact that you didn't use Photoshop. So if you can't get that look, just shop it.
Also, I do have an idea or two if you insist--you'll need very bright lighting and a garden hose one of those multi-setting sprayer heads. Find a setting that will get a constant stream of water over Snake, then set your shutter speed very high (you'll need to compensate with the aforementioned bright lights and raising your ISO/f-stop). This should capture mid-air water. I know you wanted your scene dark, but in order to have your shutter speed high enough, you're really gonna need that light, so...I don't know what to tell you. You could try down-lighting your scene from the back, so the light hits and highlights the falling water (and Snake). I think that would be pretty striking. Snake himself might come out too dark to make out though, and you'll need to shoot this in a very large space to get a dark background (if the bg is too close it'll reflect light from your lighting setup).
Alternately, you could try a much lower shutter speed, which might capture blurring water...this miiiight simulate a rain effect, but I'm not too sure. It might just be a blurry mess. This strawberry photo was shot at a slow shutter speed, so the water has this sort of soft flowy look to it. If you shoot water at high speed, it'll be the kind of shot where you can sharply see the edges of each droplet, which might be kind of a weird look for what you're trying. Anyway, keep playing around with it, post your results, and good luck.
