I was particularly struck by the notion of 'good bacterial raincoats'...
The image below, that resembles a leaf/doily/jellyfish is, in fact, a microscopic protective film (good bacterial raincoat) caused by bacteria. The film is so waterproof, that water (as shown here by way of microscopic beads of water, dyed with food colouring) cannot be absorbed at all; hence the reason the droplets stay completely spherical.
It reminded me of the instinctual process I went through when creating the water droplet for Thaw...
and knowing 'for some reason' that a water droplet, on a leaf, is deformed....I didn't realise that this was because some of the water is absorbed by the leaf....
Initial water droplet that I created in Maya - simply using a polygon sphere with a mia_material_x water shader
Sphere deformed by a lattice; to show water blobs influenced by water
