'De Flierende Fluiter'.
Walter Van Gasse is a Belgian artist, who has worked mainly in the animation industry. Between 2002 and 2006, he was an assistant artist on the 'Suske en Wiske' comic at Studio Vandersteen.
Career in animation
Born in 1960, Walter Van Gasse studied Interior Design at the Sint-Lukas School of Art in Brussels (1980-1985). Between 1985 and 2011, he worked in the animation industry, both in Belgium and abroad. During this period, he participated in the production of 16 animated feature films and 13 television series. One of his earliest jobs was as assistant animator on the 2D sci-fi TV-show 'Les Mondes Engloutis' (1985-1986) through Pen Film in Ghent. During the 1990s and 2000s, he worked extensively for German studios. At Hahn Film in Berlin, he participated in the 2D feature 'Asterix in America'. For Trickompany in Hamburg, Van Gasse did layouts and animation posing for animated feature films based on Brösel's 'Werner' comics - 'Werner: Das muss kesseln' in 1995 and 'Werner: Eiskalt!' in 2009 - as well as the 1996 feature 'Kleines Arschloch', based on the comic strip by Walter Moers. Further German work included the 2008 'Dodo' feature film for Rothkirch/Cartoon-film and the feature 'The Little Raven' (2011) for Studio 88 Werbe- und Trickfilm GmbH in Baden-Baden.
In Belgium, Van Gasse has worked as storyboard artist, layout supervisor and both traditional and digital 2D animator for the feature films 'The Little Polar Bear' (through Graphics & Animation in Antwerp, 1999), 'Jester Till' (De Familie Jansen in Antwerp, 2002) and 'Zarafa' (La Parti Productions in Brussels, 2010-2011), the 3D TV-series 'The Mooh Brothers' (Niolan Productions in Ghent, 2007) and the short film 'Yunkyard' (Schopman Supplies Europe in Antwerp, 2011). Among his other credits are work on the feature 'Help, I'm A Fish!' (1997-1998) for A-film in Copenhagen, Denmark and the TV show 'Rocket Power' for Klasky Csupo in Los Angeles, California (1998).
Studio Vandersteen
Between 2002 and early 2006, Walter Van Gasse was an assistant artist at Studio Vandersteen, best-known for producing the classic 'Suske en Wiske' comic. Working subsequently with lead artists Marc Verhaegen and Luc Morjaeu, he did clean-up pencil art on at least ten episodes of the regular 'Suske en Wiske' series, from 'De Kus van Odfella' (2002) through 'De Kaduke Klonen' (2005). After a while, Peter Quirijnen took over the background art. For the 2004 episode 'De Flierende Fluiter', Van Gasse and Quirijnen did most of the artwork on their own. With scriptwriters Peter van Gucht and Marc Verhaegen and fellow artist Bruno De Roover, Van Gasse additionally made several 24-page 'Suske en Wiske' stories for commercial clients, including 'De Koppige Kluizenaar' for Dash washing powder (2004), 'De Guitige Gast' for Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (2004) and 'De Razende Rentmeester' for the city of Zoetermeer (2004).
Later life
In 2011, health reasons forced Walter Van Gasse to drop most of his animation work. Based in Mechelen, he has since then focused on drawing and painting illustrations and portraits in figurative and classical styles. Eventually, he also turned to making wildlife art.
'De Guitige Gast'.