How to Make Digital Animation Look Like Traditional Cels

How to Make Digital Animation Look Like Traditional Cels

Getting Started with DIY Cel Animation

As I've finally settled on a workflow I like, I thought it'd exist a skillful time to share some  tools and processes for making animation on cels. This post owes a heavy debt to Ingo Raschka's instant classic zine offering, Making Cel Cartoons (get it!), and helpful communication from animators Josh Cloud, Georgia Reid, and Anna Firth, forth with some of my own acquire-by-doing experiments over the final yr. Permit'southward begin.

Source Some "Cels"
Cels fabricated specifically for traditional blitheness are thick, durable, and lay flat. They are as well deficient and expensive, and the current pricepoint puts them out of accomplish for near animators (including myself). Later on some experiments, I've settled on using laser transparencies instead of cels. Laser transparencies are very thin and floppy, but you lot can print linework onto them directly in any laser printer. I purchase them in generic packs of 100 off of ebay (never purchase them from an office supply store — those prices are wild!).

Put On A Pair Of Cotton wool Gloves
Like any thin plastic film, laser transparencies will attract dust and animal hair. (Later on, during shooting, a can of compressed air volition be your friend). That said, the dustiness, the grittiness, the visual anomalies and microfilth fluctuating from frame to frame is actually function of what I love about the DIY approach to cel. If yous're looking to brand a cel-based gif, post, or short, you lot must accept its presence to a certain extent (hell, I embrace information technology!).

In addition to airborne particulate, laser transparencies also seem to slurp upwardly the trace amounts of oil present on man fingertips and/or canine footpads (depending on who y'all live with). Yous're probably not going to be inking and painting in a NASA cleanroom, but oil causes way more than bug than dust, and I would strongly propose y'all to invest in a pair of $2 cotton gloves, especially if you lot're inking past hand. Oil on the surface of your cel volition prevent Republic of india ink from adhering exactly where you intend it to; ink practical on top of oil will pool into microbeads and dry with lil' bald spots amongst your lines. Maybe this is my comic book inking bias coming into play, but I prefer my ink linework to be clean af, or at least for the ink to dry exactly as I laid it downwardly, sans interference from oily fingerprints or palm grease smudges (this probably makes it audio like I accept exceptionally dirty hands. On a microscopic level, we all do! I never paid attention to how much oil is on the surface of human skin until trying to ink and paint cels).

Punch Those Cels
Now that we're wearing our gloves, our showtime step is to punch our cels with a standard three hole punch (afterwards on during shooting nosotros'll apply a peg bar with circular pegs to go along our cels aligned). If you take access to an ACME punch and corresponding peg bar, of form that works besides. Whichever you use, you lot must brand a newspaper guide (east.g. with a small piece of record that marks where the edge of each cel should sit down during punching) to ensure that all of your punch holes align with each other. My dial tin handle about 3 cels at once without jamming. This is a time-consuming step but of import to get right if you want your frames to align.

"Sandwich Theory"

I similar to think of a single finished cel equally a tasty media sandwich! Two slices of bread (the ink on top, the paint on the lesser) property onto a thin slice of savory tofurky (the cel). Now, y'all wouldn't put two slices of bread on the same side of a sandwich, would you? Maybe you run with an experimental crowd, but to me that wouldn't even exist a sandwich, it'd be a cold cut relaxing on a stack of staff of life. I'm a few sentences in and you await really skeptical of this metaphor. The big takeaway is: the ink and the pigment go on OPPOSITE sides of the cel. We ink the fronts, then paint the backs. As a result of working this way, the camera (or scanner) sees the flat side of the paint, which is smooth-jazz smoothen when viewed through the cel (unlike the bumpy side of the paint, which is bumpy and casts shadows all over the place). Also, we can exist a bit more carefree with our painting; since the ink lines volition finer be overlaid when viewed from the other side, we don't accept to worry most accidently painting over them.

Inking The Fronts

Recommended Inks

Blackness Ink for Manual Application (cel forepart)

For inking with a castor or dip pen, I use Black Star India ink, which was recommended to me by animator/managing director/generous DIY info sharer Anna Firth. It's very opaque, and sticks to plastic surfaces beautifully. For inking with a technical pen, I use Rapidograph Universal for Paper and Motion picture. Try to get it in every bit large a bottle as you lot can afford. The 8oz version is an investment just ends upwardly existence light years cheaper than the standard 3/4oz bottles.

Blackness Ink for Printed Application (cel front)

Typically I draw in black ink on paper, then scan my drawings, align the scans (stay tuned for a whole mail about this), then print image sequences straight onto laser transparencies. I've got an entry level blackness and white Blood brother laser printer (cost = ~$100), and employ the toner cartridges made for it. I only have to supplant the cartridge virtually one time every 12 to 18 months. Y'all could likewise animate linework in Photoshop, TVPaint, AE, Flash/Breathing or your software of choice, and then export and impress a png image sequence. Merely make sure you're only exporting the linework – no colour! Nosotros'll be painting that on in the side by side pace.

One last note on printing: This probably depends on the printer model, but I've had better results running the cels through the manual feed tray one at a time, rather than using the regular paper tray. With my printer, dropping a stack of transparencies into the regular paper tray leads to jams and misfeeds every time.

If you printed, you're set to flip and paint the backs of your cels.

Drying The Inked Cels

If you inked manually, I would wait anywhere from six to 18 hours for your ink to dry completely. Drying time depends on the ink used, how liberally information technology was applied, and the temperature, humidity, and ventilation in the room where yous've fix your cels to dry.

I've used a blowdryer to dry some cels in a hurry, but I don't really recommend this! If yous insist on trying information technology, use the cool/no estrus setting as hot air from a blowdryer tin can warp light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation transparencies pretty easily. Hold the dryer at least 12″ from the cel surface to preclude the air pressure from moving the ink. Too! If you use a blowdryer, cull a relatively clean room, and dust/swiff/sweep that room first, before bringing your cels into information technology. You don't desire to be blowing a agglomeration of dust directly onto your wet ink, inviting it to be broiled in and stuck to your cels permanently.

In the past I've laid my cels out to air dry on every surface available, including the dinner table, my desk, kitchen counter, and floor. My housemates did not love this. I got a great tip from Maija Burnett recently that yous can stack a bunch of thin mailing boxes and put one cel into each — a cheap solution with a much smaller footprint! If there'south a printmaker in your life (or you lot are 1 yourself) yous could apply a screenprinting-blazon drying rack. Luxurious!

Painting The Backs

In undergrad I would buy cel paint in little 2oz clasp bottles at Cartoon Colour — they sold a nifty range of colors and information technology stale fast. Simply at this betoken cel paint is most impossible to find. I've tried several potential alternatives in the past twelvemonth, including watercolor gouache (love the opacity and broad range of off-the-shelf color options, but for me it stale a scrap stiff and flaked off eventually), tempera (beaded and flaked fifty-fifty worse), oils (never dried!), and acrylic (tedious to dry but worked pret-ty well), and screenprinting ink (my favorite — never would've though to try it and was very grateful for this tip from Ingo). Here are some recommendations:

White Paint for Manual Awarding (cel back)

I dear this screenprinting ink. It'southward gloopy and opaque and affordable:

Color Paint for Transmission Application (cel back)

I expect for screenprinting inks in any colors I need. Unfortunately virtually art stores simply stock basic colors (some only stock black and white). So I supplement with cheap acrylics! Generic art store brands work fine for this. Some people swear by gouache but in my experience, at least when paired with laser transparencies, inexpensive gouache will beginning to flake in a few months. Not sure about expensive gouache, because I was scared off past the price. I will say that one friend who really knows pigment, and who I asked for advice afterwards the fact, told me to avert the specific make of generic art store gouache I used, so my bad results are likely specific to that make, and non gouache more by and large. Also wow, I'm halfway through the article and I still can't spell gouache from memory!

Painting: First Pass

Ok so your cels are dry and now it'due south time to paint. I must admit, every bit careful I am about inking, I'm much messier when I flip my stale inked cels for painting! Peradventure this is because I have no formal preparation in painting (outside of elementary school fingerpainting, which technically does count equally "formal training"), and take no inkling how to "properly" apply paint. But that'southward skillful! Because cel painting technique has little to do with painting on newspaper or sheet (or so I am told).

When painting cels, yous're going to want to apply in "globs" or "blobs", as well known as "dabs" or "smooshes" depending on the region of the world in which you live. Never apply with "strokes". As in the potentially futurity classic DIY cel mnemonic I merely fabricated up, "strokes lead to streaks". And we don't want streaks; when applying paint to a transparent medium, streaks = seethrough areas where the background shows through. Maybe you're going for that. You do you. Actually. But I do call up that at that place's something very lovely to the eyeballs about cel paint that is thick enough to be opaque, and for that level of opaqueness to be vaguely consistent from frame to frame.

Painting: 2nd Laissez passer (or "Spot Laissez passer")

Let your kickoff pass dry out partially (never reapply over areas that are still wet! you may pick up more pigment then yous put down). Then go back and do a spot pass — just a little touch up on the blank spots or thinner areas, using smaller "splorches" (aka "dots" or "stipples"). I go through all of my cels sequentially doing the first pass, and by the fourth dimension I get to the terminate, my get-go cel is usually dry out enough to take a second awarding. In my feel 45 mins to an hr is usually plenty dry fourth dimension between coats. Yous needn't expect for a complete dry before starting your second laissez passer — the appearance of a robust puddin' skin on your first glaze of paint should be enough!

Merely Wait! An Alternate Approach: One-Coat "Ketchup" Method

I've always practical pigment in two passes, with one exception. In this one test, I applied paint in ketchup-mode stacked squiggles with a tiny squeeze bottle (squeeze canteen came from the dollar section of an fine art store). The painting process was fun and like shooting fish in a barrel, particularly for someone like me who is a bit clumsy with a brush. At first chroma this approach may sound faster and more than efficient. It does shorten the "agile time", but overall it'southward much slower; clasp bottle application increased the boilerplate paint thickness, which atomic number 82 to a drying time of over 3 days in mild Autumn atmospheric condition! That said, if you've got a drying rack and time to wait, the ketchup method TM may exist right for you.

Drying The Painted Cels

As with drying later on inking, you're going to have to be patient. Waiting for the paint to dry takes much longer than the ink. Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. Later 24 hours, you can start pressing on the bumpiest, virtually raised parts of the paint to test for dryness. If pressing on the bumps smushes them, they're non fix to shoot! If the bumps have dried hard, you're good to go.

The video at the top of the commodity uses this four-cel cycle, slid across the scene.

Shooting Your Cels

I'thousand going to rush through this stride — there are a lot of ideas out there for DIY downshooter setups, merely that's kind of beyond the scope of this article. The gist of it is: light downshooter-style with two lights shining down from reverse 45-ish degree angles. Tape your peg bar to your work surface (downshooter base / desk / table). Tape or blueish-tak down your background, then lay down your cels on top of that, and shoot them i at a time using a smartphone, or digital photographic camera + Dragonframe. Hit each cel front and back with compressed air before shooting a frame. If you're actually worried almost flickery reflections due to the floppiness of these transparencies and uneven pigment thickness, you could put a pocket-sized sheet of tempered drinking glass (or regular glass borrowed from any picture frame) on tiptop of your cel and bg, to hold them apartment. This would reach something similar to the swing-away force per unit area plate found on an Oxberry blitheness photographic camera stand. To exist honest I don't bother with this. Since my cels are in an IKEA hacked multiplane, in that location are some minor reflections already so I'chiliad embracing it as a office of the visual style. (UPDATE: alternately, you could scan your cels. I've never tried this, but run across Anna Firth's recent tutorial on how she approaches animating on cels for the full details.)

Storing Your Cels

Yous don't want to store your cels and then the paint from one comes into direct contact with the ink of another. Instead, I'd recommend putting one sheet of tracing paper betwixt each cel, then temperature fluctuations don't liquify your paint and cause adjacent cels to stick together. If yous can, identify cels into manila folders and shop them on edge. The pressure from stacking them tin can lead to additional sticking. I've also tried putting a canvas of regular copy paper between each cel. Information technology worked pretty well, merely information technology lead to more sticking than tracing paper. I'm curious about parchment paper, which is used for nonstick blistering. I'll update the commodity one time I've tried that.

Closing Thoughts

Ultimately, going through this very hard process myself left me in awe of the incredible skill, draftsmanship, and technical expertise present in ink and paint departments in the studio organization as information technology existed in the mid 20th century Us. Ink and Paint was staffed largely past highly skilled women artists, who were given very few opportunities in an industry which absolutely could not function without them (until layoffs driven past the evolution of xerography and digital paint tools, in that order, rendered them "obsolete"). The loss of institutional knowledge driven past these layoffs is staggering. Yes, very few people working today take any interest in the traditional cel process, only for anyone who is excited at its possibilities, its a chilling thing to think near. For an in-depth, center-opening look at this story, bank check out Mindy Johnson'southward amazing book, Ink & Paint, The Women of Walt Disney's Animation.

What does it mean to reclaim ink and pigment as an animation filmmaker? When traditionally directors couldn't have been further from the procedure, whether that exist due to overseas outsourcing or the unfair labeling of ink and paint as a "pink neckband" task. (I guess the peachy exception here is the underground animation of the ~'60s-`80s). There's something deliciously punk rock about working on cels and doing ink and paint yourself! And non caring about cleanliness in the process. Leaving in the mess-ups, the paint splatters, the accidents, the lightening wink of a blonde dog pilus — of owning and uplifting analog ink and paint as something personal and of import — an essential and wrongfully maligned part of the animation process.

Maybe at some signal I'll update this article with some explanatory pics. In the hateful fourth dimension, have fun with process and experience free to achieve out with any questions or findings!

New Information!

1. Anna Firth has written up her cel animation process, using real-bargain blitheness cels (non laser transparencies), for the tutorials department of her website!
2. Phoebe Parsons has written up her cel animation process (using overhead transparency picture show), and shared a studio tour, right here on DIY Animation Guild.
3. I recently purchased a very big lot of scene folders containing cels from a few different 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoons. These came from a generous Ebay seller who gave me a deal based on information technology being for educational purposes. In examining them carefully, I noticed that a lot of these cels had the ink on the *backs* of the cels (on same side as the pigment). This was very surprising to me. Could this be due to a quirk of the detail studio? Could it accept been an accident? Or did things change with the switch to photostat/photocopy (ie. copy linework onto cel back, and so paint on pinnacle of that)? If yous have any within info, I'd dear to hear it…

Recommended Viewing

A handful of favorites, all of which either were made on, or incorporate sequences that use, animation cels.

How to Make Digital Animation Look Like Traditional Cels

Source: https://diyanimation.club/cel-animation-for-the-digital-era/