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This type of art is created and used during the pre-production phase of a project; often when the production committee is deciding whether to give it the green light.  This may include: proposals, cels, sketches, and painted art.  Disney has been known to use ...

Settei/Models (設定) are drawn by a character designer and define what a character should look like. Everyone involved in production (primary animators, "in-betweeners", directors, etc.) will reference settei/models to ensure that the characters look uniform. Wh...

Like settei/character models, model cels are references that help a film/series remain consistent. While character models define how a character should look, model cels define what color(s) they should be. These cels are often simple and may feature one or sev...

Like live action TV, animation production involves storyboards. In both cases, storyboards are used to show the flow of a scene, character positions, movement, camera angles, tone, etc. A storyboard may include notes about or lines from a scene. Additionally, ...

Layout  drawings (レイアウト) are sketches of a scene. They will be more detailed than a storyboard, but still rougher than the final animation. Where a final animation drawing will be dedicated to a particular cel layer, a layout drawings will generally contain el...

Backgrounds are usually drawn and painted with watercolor or gouache paint. Acrylic is not normally used for backgrounds because it has a nasty habit of sticking to itself and thus might stick to and damage the paint on cels. Backgrounds are a specialized fiel...

Rough gengas are usually a precursor to the next step they can be detailed bet generally they are VERY rough and in some cases almost stick figures to help plan out the movement of the character (s)  in the sequence.  Most times these sketches are not numbered...

The genga (原画) step takes the rough movements and polishes them into more detailed sketches these are drawn and redrawn again and again as needed, at this step the Key animator will work closely with the animation director to get the exact key points in the mo...

A Shuusei is another word for a correction, a shuusei is drawn by the Animation Director of the episode and sometimes if you are lucky you will find one done by the Chief Animation Director...  It depends on how hands on both directors are and how important th...

Douga (動画) roughly translates to moving image and is sometimes translated into "video". Douga are the cleaned up/polished versions of genga sketches.  During the animation process genga ( key frame drawings) are made and then in the next step are sent to the d...

The cleaned dougas are then sent to the in-betweeners to animate the weird in between pieces that are between key cels/sketches.  Some are great looking others can just be awkward because they were never meant to be seen!  The way to identify an in-between is ...

Cels (celga/セル画) are the finished product of the animation process.  A cel is made from transferring dougas (finished pencil drawings) onto a clear sheet of acetate by various methods such as xerox or more rarely they may be hand painted. They are then painted...

[This page is a work in progress] To help demonstrate how to check if a cel or sketch is fake we will examine a few examples of fake animation artwork in detail below. Exhibit 1: A fake Nausicaä sketch Here is douga which claims to be from Nausicaä of the V...

  Before and after images of a cel affected by Vinegar syndrome. This cel is from She-Ra: Princess of Power (1980s). Vinegar Syndrome is something every animation art collector should be aware of. It is a condition where the cellulose nitrate/aceta...

[This resource is in progress . Consider visiting this link for general guidance: https://www.framersworkshop.com/Animationcels/index.html] General tips: DO NOT use tape directly on your animation art pieces. This will cause damage such as "burns" to your ar...

These are the cels that make up the opening of the show. Most shows have 1 opening that is animated per season and then the sequence is reused for every episode. The same applies to End credits. Only one set of cels is made for each opening or ending.  These c...

In many anime series', there is a commercial break about halfway through the episode (depending on its length).  To demarcate these breaks, sometimes a quick animation will play. These are often repeated throughout a season.  In some cases—Sailor Moon is an ex...

An END cel (marked with either END/ E/ or the kanji 止) is the last cel in an animation sequence. A1END cel setups are sometimes referred to as Tome/止 cels. When a cel is marked with a letter A/B/C/E..+ 1 + END/E/止 then that means it is the only cel for that pa...

Harmonies are traditionally highly sought after cels, as they area made differently from the traditional cel.  In the case of a harmony there is little to no paint on the cel and only lines on the acetate, and the colors are traditionally only painted on the b...

Hanken cels are super rare one of kind cels made for use in for in promotional items like magazines, cards, merchandise, posters, calendars, etc. They are usually made by an animation director, character designer, or senior animator. Hanken cels are usually ha...