Turning Paintings into Animations

Lately I’ve been experimenting with the idea of motion — what happens when a painting is allowed to breathe.

For years, I’ve built worlds in stillness: landscapes, characters, and scenes that live in a single frame. But as the tools evolve, I’ve found myself wondering what these images might reveal if they could move — if the light could shift, the air could flow, and the emotion could unfold over time.

This week I’ve been taking a range of my existing paintings — from personal works to Utherworlds pieces — and testing how they respond to animation. I’m working with Runway Gen-4, Seedance, and Veo 3, trying to find the balance between painterly integrity and cinematic energy. Each tool has its own voice: Runway offers control and polish, Seedance lends dreamlike rhythm, and Veo surprises me with moments of realism that feel almost alive.

There’s something deeply strange and beautiful about seeing a static image take its first breath. Some results feel surreal, others intimate, but all remind me that even a single painting holds infinite potential movement inside it — you just need to invite it to emerge.

This feels like the start of something. Not a finished idea yet, just a question in motion: what happens when the worlds I’ve painted begin to move on their own?

Below are a few examples of my paintings coming to life. The tools seem to struggle more with painted imagery than realistic imagery as a base when using image to video. I think this is likely due to the models being primarily trained with live action footage rather than painterly content. Additionally, I typically have to run several generations until I find something I like. I also hate to admit it but, prompt engineering is a real thing! The better the prompt, obviously, the better the output. It’s basically natural language programming versus code.