Watch Blade Runner Rendered Entirely In Watercolors
It’s good to live in a world where people have a lot of time on their hands. Why? Because that means that artists like Sweden’s Anders Ramsell have time to do things like animate the opening sequence of Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic Blade Runner entirely in watercolors.
The average person would never have the patience or devotion to tackle a project like this. Ramsell employs 3285 individual watercolor paintings to craft a shot for shot recreation of Blade Runner. At times the end result can be a bit disorienting, but there is a simple, hypnotic beauty to it that can’t be denied.
This twelve-minute video is labeled a “teaser,” but it is really the entire first chunk of the film in watercolor. Ramsell intends to render the whole movie in this style. Depending on which cut of Blade Runner he follows, we’re talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 paintings.
Some people might call that crazy, some my say obsessive. I say, god speed, Anders Ramsell. You can tell that this is intensely personal and important, even if it’s just one artist interpreting another artist’s work. Lots of great art throughout history has been inspired by what came before it, or come in reaction to another work.
Maybe I’m making too much out of this. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything more than what it is. No matter how you interpret it, watercolor Blade Runner is worth sharing.
