Vanessa Nilsson 3D Generalist · Designer · Artist
I’m a multidisciplinary artist working across 3D animation, graphic design, and traditional fine art. From animated films and visual design to paintings and pyrography, I bring ideas to life through creativity, craftsmanship, and storytelling.
A Polar Bear Story
Featured film · 3D animated short
A Polar Bear Story
A curious polar bear cub wanders away from his family and ends up adrift on cracking sea ice, a short story about what a warming Arctic means for polar bears.
- Winner Best Home Grown AnimationGarden State Film Festival, New Jersey 2023
- Winner Best AnimationEnvironmental Film & Screenplay Festival 2022
- Winner Award of MeritBest Shorts Competition
- Award WinnerMiami Indie Film Awards 2022
- Honorable MentionOne-Reeler Short Film Competition 2022
Official selection: Toronto Indie Shorts · New Jersey Film Festival · Florida Environmental Film Festival · Inheritance Festival · Scarab Short Film Festival
Now in production · 3D animated short
Department of Missing Socks
MFA thesis film · 3D animated short
In the Laboratory
My 3D animation In the Laboratory was part of my MFA thesis show. In the film, a scientist sits before a table of flasks and distillers linked by glass tubes, each holding a miniature world of its own. The camera follows a chain reaction from one to the next, from factory smoke to melting glaciers, a twister tearing apart a farmhouse, and finally an Earth overheating under a Bunsen burner, showing the domino effect of global warming.
- Project
- MFA thesis film
- Thesis
- The Anthropocene Syndrome
- School
- William Paterson University
- Format
- 3D animated short
- Software
- Maya · Arnold · After Effects
Films & animation
More films & motion
Design · In-house creative · 2018–present
Equipment Zone
I lead the creative department at Equipment Zone, an authorized Epson dealer, growing from graphic designer to Creative Manager since 2018. From the newly redesigned website to email campaigns, social media, video, brochures and trade show booths.
- Role
- Creative Manager
- Started as
- Graphic Designer
- Time
- 2018–present
Fine art
Original oil & acrylic paintings
About
Hi, I’m Vanessa.
I’m an animator, designer and painter based in New Jersey. I love the whole journey of creating a piece, from the first sketch and storyboard to modeling, lighting and the final composite. Painting has been a lifelong passion, and it shapes how I think about color, composition and design.
I hold an MFA in Animation and Painting. I teach animation and storytelling as an adjunct professor at Montclair State University and William Paterson University, and I lead visual design at Equipment Zone.
View my resume