'Beit Zabbai' is my most recent film about Queen Zenobia of Roman Palmyra, Syria - whos native Aramaic name, 𐡡𐡶 𐡦the project takes its title from. My interest in her character stemmed from her symbolism in Syrian culture as the notorious Empress whos might crushed Western oppression from the Romans and established an era of Syrian domination from Anatolia to Egypt.
Beit Zabbai's animatic - February 2026
This animatic was made using charcoal and biro on tracing paper and depicts Zenobia attempting to escape the Roman legion at the Euphrates River in Eastern Syria - minutes before her capture and days after losing practically everything,
I've been working on this project since September 2025, and have started animating in March 2026 in top-down stop motion, mostly using oil and wax on glass. I A major inspiration for my process and art direction has been Simon Pummel's 'Secret Joy of Fallen Angels', the final cut will include snipets of Zenobia's emotional world - but not aim to tell her full story.
The Animatic above was the product of the first few months of research, showing Zenobia in the final days of her Empire, with her home city under seige, as she attempts to cross the river Euphrates on camelback to ask the Persian King for help against the Romans., signifying the collapse of her dignity and Zenobia's desperation as she attempts to ally with a former enemy.
This shows my initial one-sheet and some character designs in attempt to build a narrative centred on Zenobia. I really struggled to put the many perspectives on her character into storyboards, each one feeling too black-and-white, and not giving the real historical figure justice. My lack of an artistic direction massively hindered my progress, I wasn't sure what medium I wanted, since the CG I had been doing before felt innapropriate for this film. The final product was the first stop-motion i''d done.
Medium Experiments
These experiments begin with a 2-minuite head-turn made from wax and oil paint on glass, sand on glass, and charcoal on tracing paper. All taken top-down using a lightbox. I love, love, LOVE the wax on glass and have decided to focus on this medium in my animation because of the gorgeous colours and ease of control it gives - allowing me to create detail in my images.
Flash Warning
This experiment includes layered charcoal and ink on tracing paper below oil on glass and sound experiments using the Armenian Duduk (played by me) and violin (played by Lucy). I think this experiment came out more dramatic and 'scary' than I wanted, but it was a start.
Shot breakdowns
The opening shot was composed fro two layers, with grey wax on the bottom for the buildings of Palmyra and the leaves of the flower, and then pink wax ontop for the Jasmine flowers (flower of Syria's capital, Damascus). I only animated the flowers until the buildings are destroyed in an airstrike at the end of the sequence.
For this shot, I began with drawing in pencil and pen the baby Vallabthus in 6 frames on tracing paper, creating a flickering image. I then layered this with olive oil and red oil paint ontop (also with the pomegranate seeds), and then the wax hands ontop of that, to create the image of Zenobia caressing her son with her husband and his army standing in the backround.
The litter scene was composed of two shots and 4 layers in total: the Gizan background on one shot, and then the Aramaic words, Litter drawing (both pencil, pen and guache on tracing paper), and wax people on the other shot. I composed these 3 together on Adobe After Effects. Each of the 4 layers was animated seperately from one another.
Zenobia was animated by roterscoping my gorgeous actor Amira through dragonframe, importing the reference and using the computer to sculpt the details on glass.