Anders Ramsell, a creative Swedish artist with an admiration for cinema, created 12,597 watercolour paintings in order to craft a 35-minute “paraphrasing” of Ridley Scott’s iconic 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner.

Ramsell’s take on the classic film has been named Blade Runner – The Aquarelle Edition and took the artist a better part of a year to finally complete. While The Aquarelle Edition is designed to pay tribute to Scott’s original film, the artist never intended to create a direct remake and has altered sections throughout his short film.

“Blade Runner – The Aquarelle Edition follows the original movies storyline but I have taken the liberty to change a lot of things,” Ramsell explained. “It was never my intent to make an exact version of the movie, that would fill no purpose. Instead, I wanted to create something different and never before seen.”

The completed animated film is made up of exactly 12,597 handmade aquarelle watercolour paintings, each specific painting made to a specification that measures around 1.5-x-3 cm in size. “I saw an opportunity to dive deeper; enhance its colours and feelings from a new angle,” Ramsell said in an interview with Yahoo. “And also to combine the old technic that is water and pigment with the future that is Blade Runner.” 

Taking on Scott’s dystopian landscape, Ramsell was able to add his own flair which has resulted in a Monet-like short film as colours flow effortlessly into each frame. “This is as analogue as it gets — water, pigment, paper and brush. That’s it!” Ramsell explained.

Finally, Ramsell added: “This one is dedicated to everybody with any kind of heart. Enjoy!”

See a small section of Ramsell’s project, below.

Related Topics