Rocket trails animation ending like original image

[gabrielc85116858]

Hello! I have to make an animation for a childrens book. it has to end up looking liike the cover image (https://i.imgur.com/P3ev5xf.jpg)

It's pretty complex so im having trouble figuring out how to make the paint trails of the rocket, right now i'm just doing it with shapes and animating the stroke taper and trim paths. Is there an easier way to animate it and making it look exactly or really close to the original image? i have the layers of the planets and the details but the paint trails are just one layer.

I already made one animation using CC Mr. Mercury (https://i.imgur.com/P4bSOSg.mp4) where making it look like the image wasn't as important but this one has to look really close

Thanks for the help!

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

The long and short answer is probably a thundering "no". This would be difficult with any technique I can think of be that creating extruded paths with Trapcode TAO or 3DStroke, blobby particles in Particular or any of those techniques in a 3D program. You always end up tweaking spline paths, motion paths and parameters. This is unfortunately one of those cases where it would be a lot simpler had the graphic been developed in 3D first so the scene could be re-used. Now you have to do things the hard way. Since you already started with your method I'd stick with it and just see it through to the end. It's really more a matter of patience and some coffee to get you through those long hours.

Mylenium 

[gabrielc85116858]

Haha yeah i figured i would just have to do it the hard way, i have to finish in like 2 days so i was looking if there was a quicker way. I'll probably try to blend the image somehow when it ends. Thanks for the help anyway!