Anime-Beta TNG

I'm trying to remove a stuck sketch from a cel by leaving it out in the living room, leaving the windows open, and letting some moisture get back into the sketch paper (I've read that this can help remove the stuck sketch.)

The question I have is, am I alright to leave the cel (face down) on a cel bag? I don't want to leave it on the bare table, and I don't know what else I can put it on.

Thre's a lot of moisture in the air becuase it has been raining all week - the cel lines won't stick to the bag or anything will they?

Just make sure not to leave the cel like that for to long

but thats a good idea I have never heard of that before let us know if it works???

Good Luck

The cel is probably OK like that for a little while. The method you are using is a lot like the water method that I have tried before.

I turn the cel over and moisten the sketch and then gently remove it. How well it works depends on how badly they are stuck together. Most of the time, there will be some wrinkling of the sketch after it has dried. If they are really stuck together, I can pretty much guarantee that the sketch will tear. On the other hand, I have not had any trouble with the cel becoming damaged from this technique.

Here are some links that deal with this problem that Roy (Backlotanimation) gave a lot of great info on.

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=1142

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=1030

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=1092

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=919

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=545

Thanks for the links JWR!

I tried my first attempt at removing the sketch this morning. I could feel the moisture in the paper, and the edges of the sketch came off really easy, and with minimal to no damage. I tried working it a bit more, but it is still very stuck in the centre of the cel (I think I might have been a bit hasty in trying to remove too much at once - the sketch is coming off, although with a bit of damage.)

I've decided to leave it again tonight and see what it is like tomorrow. i'm a bit hesitant to leave it out any longer becuase when I woke up this morning there were some weird splotches in parst of the sketch. They kind of look like greasey marks (which they are not, I haven't had food anywhere near the cel, and I have only worked on it for a couple of minutes at a time before washing my heands with soap.) And they have gotten a little bigger through the day.

I was wondering if someone might be able to identify the cause of this? My guess is that the sketch is sucking up too much mositure maybe?

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b251/ ... sketch.jpg

On a more positive note, I received a new cel today, which had a stuck sketch (not sure how stuck, but there was resistance when I tried to remove it) I left it on the table for about 2 hours, and the sketch peeled right off, no worries and no damage! So this method does indeed work!

I really hope that I don't damage this sketch too much - it looks so nice

Hiya Blaster,

The main idea to the moist air removal is to take your time,It can take up to a week or more to remove the drawing without damage if you take your time.

Use a towel or clean white T-shirt under the cel to protect the cel from scratches.

I only place the cel/drawing next to the open window at nighttime do to the heat from the sun during the daytime.

each morning very easy go all the way around the drawing and lift the edge a little bit at a time,if you have to pull hard it's not ready to come off yet.
What I do is after each mornings pull, I place 3 or 4 pencils under the edge of the drawing to hold open the gap so the moist air gets to the area needed,this helps alot.
Go slowly there is no hurry to remove the drawing,if you hurry you WILL damage the drawing so bad it can not be repaired,remember the drawing is the real artwork not the cel and should be saved at all costs because it is done by hand and can not be replaced as easy as having a new cel made from the drawing.NOTE* some studios will remake a cel for you if you have the real drawing the cel was made from in the first place,But at a cost!
To me the drawing is worth more than the cel because it was done by the animator by hand,the cel is a copy of the drawing,only older cels were inked by hand and most anime was not hand inked, But there are a few done by hand but these tend to be super high end cels made before the 70s,some hankens are hand inked to this day but they are far and few inbetween as CG has taken over most animation these days.

I was told how to do this by a Disney archiver about 20 years ago and it works so well it is the only way I will remove a stuck drawing, there is no hightech way to remove them that works as well as this does.

I would try this on a cheap cel the first time you do it to learn how it works so you have a better time with the nice cels and cause no damage to them.

NOTE* make sure you dry the drawing for a day or two before you put it back in your cel book or in a bag,if you store it before it is dry you will get mold on the drawing. I place mine on top of the fridge were low heat rises and pulls the moist air out of the drawing,Don't put the cel up there it's to hot for the cel and will cause damage to it,pat it dry with a clean white cotton T-shirt turned inside out(inside is softer) and let the cel sit for about a day is all it needs and then store it the way you do the rest of your cels.

The spots you see on the back of the drawing can be from a few things,I have found that some cels have a black paint over the back of the cel and sometimes this paint is a oil paint used on backgrounds and it can show up as a oily spot on the drawing.
This can also be from the cel being wet by tap water in the past and dryed,Tap water has all kinds of stuff in it and will show up as the drawing gets a little bit moist.NEVER use tap water to clean cels only use distilled water or this can happen to your cels.
This can also be from someone in the past sitting the cel/drawing down on a unclean surface and only shows once the moist air hits it.
I would have to look at the cel inperson to tell you what it is but these three ideas are what happens most of the time.

Graymouser - I have tryed almost all ways of removing stuck drawings and the wet rag or sprits bottles will destroy your drawings and if it has colored pencil notes they will run and get all over the drawings and can not be removed by any means, and some times the colored pencil will bleed into the cel paint and come out on the frontside of the paint on the cel and this also can not be removed once there.
Never let the drawing get to a point of being wet just the moist air will work better than anything else.
I've tryed all the old wise tails like freezers, wet rags, blow dryers,hot clothes dryers,heavy weights on them ect,ect, ect,
all of these will destroy your drawings and some will kill your cel as well to the point of being worthless.
I have found that anything that says it will remove them fast will damage the set both drawing and cel,So NEVER use them EVER.

I hope this helps you out some.
Feell free to PM me if you need to know anything else,I'll help if I can.

Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation

P.S. WOW Joe you had to go through alot of forum pages to get all those old posts,GOOD JOB!

Wow, thanks for the great post - very informative!

I have decided to take it a bit slower now

Also, the cel does have the thick black paint on the back, so maybe that is what is causing the splotchy parts. They seem to have died down a bit now

[EDIT] How does this method work on very stuck cels? [/EDIT]

Blaster wrote:Wow, thanks for the great post - very informative!

I have decided to take it a bit slower now

Also, the cel does have the thick black paint on the back, so maybe that is what is causing the splotchy parts. They seem to have died down a bit now

[EDIT] How does this method work on very stuck cels? [/EDIT]

Your very welcome, now pass the info along to others so the info never gets lost with time. Knowledge should always be shared!

slow is always better doing most things. >_O

Your lucky about the black paint if it's clearing up, The paint is not oil based,what is happening is that the latex black paint is shiny and smooth and the moist paper is kind of see thru so it looks like a spot on the paper were it is still stuck to the paint.

This method works on all stuck drawings,Some just take longer to remove than others,so take your time with real bad stuck drawings,The extra time is worth the wait and using pencils is a must on these bad stuck drawings.

NOTE* I forgot to add that when you dry your drawing place the pencils on the drawing to hold it down as it drys so it does not curl,it curls because the top part open to the air is drying faster than the face down side,I even flip the drawings from time to time until they are dry.
If you use the moist air method most of the time you will not get wrinkles,but if this ever happens just place the dryed drawing under a few heavy books for a week or so and this should remove say 98% of the wrinkles,make sure there is no folds or creases before you put the drawing under the books, or you will set them and then they can not be removed fully.


By the way if you have a stuck cel on a background be real careful the water based paints will run and bleed thru the cel paint, I would not try this if you have not seen it done before it takes a soft touch and a eye for detail,you have to use less moist air to not hurt the background or mess up the cel.

Remember slow is better.

Take care and be good!

Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation

My sketch is starting to curl a little at the moment - I think most of it is from where I am 'pulling' the edges away from the cel.

Can a iron be used to get rid of curls and wrinkles from a sketch? Like place a t-shirt over the sketch and use a low setting, and not using the steam setting? Would this affect the pencil lines at all?

The curling is most likely from the pulling and if you give the moist air more time it will come off easyer, This type of curl is easy to fix with the weight of the books to flatten out the drawing.
Use a charge card between the paper and your fingers on the under side of the paper when you pull to spread the pull over a larger area this will help some,But be easyer so you don't rip the paper as you will not be able to feel the pull as easy as without the card.
After a few of these you will get the hang of doing it without curling the drawing and you wont need the card after awhile.

*NEVER*!!!! use a iron the heat will start the paper to deteriorate and turn brown 50 years before it would without the heat from the iron,this can not be seen most of the time but once done the damage is there and will start to show in a few years and if the iron is hot enough you will see the color change right away,you can lay the drawing next to a unheated drawing and see the difference in color,it's kind of like a sunburn on the paper.
Also the heat will make the colored notes on the drawing run and or bleed on the paper,some of these colored notes are made with colored pencils and you may have seen some of these melt on your dashboard of your car or on a sidewalk almost like crayon,Some of the colored pencils have some wax in them and it melts real easy.

Slow and easy,have fun and always ask questions or how else will you learn what you need to know. and pass it on when you learn it for the future collectors.

Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation

backlotanimation wrote:Use a charge card between the paper and your fingers on the under side of the paper when you pull to spread the pull over a larger area this will help some,

I've found that an old photograph (the kind that is plasticized on both sides, not the old old ones with emulsion on one side) is the best thing to use in this case. It's thin and won't scratch the underside of the cel. In cases where the cel isn't badly stuck, the photo will peel it off relatively quickly. If you lift up the sketch, sometimes that lateral pressure will encourage pieces of paint to pull away from the back of the cel and stick to the sketch. The old photo is thin enough so that neither the cel nor the sketch will need to be bent in the part that you're working loose.

Roy is absolutely right, though. Whatever method you use, take it easy and think days rather than minutes or hours. It only takes one hasty probe or peel to damage the cel irreparably. It's a good idea to buy a "grab bag" of inexpensive cels for a buck apiece (most of these will be stuck) before working on something you spent good money on or care deeply about.

Hello Sensei,

Sorry, I was not very clear about the use of the card,I don't use it for scraping I use it to spread the pull force out across the drawings edge to help lift it off,I have tryed all kinds of scrapers and some work well if the paint is not to thick but like you said it tends to remove part of the paint edges like hair tips and small lines ect.
using the moist air removal method you do not need to scrap the drawing off it will come off by itself if given time to release from the paint and it does not remove any tips or lines.

What happens is the weave of the paper gets paint stuck in it and the moist air releases the bond the paint has on the paper weave so scraping is not needed, It's almost like soaking dishes before you wash them it just makes it easyer to remove the drawing from the cel, But if you use the moist air way you don't need to soak it to the point of being wet so the drawing does not get damaged this way.
Alot of the cels with black paint on them had the black paint put on them just before shooting on camera and they use a blow dryer to dry the paint fast so they can shoot them,The only thing is the paint under the surface is not fully dry and after shooting the drawings and cels are slapped together and put in a folder and stored in a box with lots of other cel folders on top of them and the undry paint makes the surface paint soft, so the drawings paper weave sticks together with the cel.
99% of cels that are fully dry will not stick or will stick very lightly.

I wish I had a way to show you how I do it,But it's not that hard once you do it a few times, I don't use the card any more myself I like using my fingers I get a better feel for the pressure needed to remove the drawing from the cel, But I have big fingers and I was of the mind if Blaster has small fingers like most girls do she may need to spead her pull force out a little bit more so that not so much pressure is put on one spot so the drawing does not curl on her from the pulling.
If it does not come off easy it's not ready to come off.


Sensei, Give it a try I think you will like the results,it's almost foolproof and very easy and super safe for the cels and drawings if you take your time, I have used this method on $20k Disney cels in the past with very good results.

Have fun!

Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation

backlotanimation wrote: But I have big fingers and I was of the mind if Blaster has small fingers like most girls do she may need to spead her pull force out a little bit more so that not so much pressure is put on one spot so the drawing does not curl on her from the pulling.

Not to be rude, but I am a guy

I did not know about the paper discolouring from heat though - thanks for the info on that! You seem very knowledgable on cels and related topics!

Damn, My bad! SORRY heehee
I know what it was, It was the avitar yea thats it yea thats the ticket.
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. <_< >_> haahahahaha!

Yea, heat and rough handling are to two highest reasons for cel/drawing damage.

I have been buying,selling and trading animation artwork for most of my life and I'm not one to wonder about something, I have read most of the books on animation that are out there and I have been lucky enough to meet alot of old school animators and I asked alot of questions.
But what realy helps most is trial and error over the years,when you mess up a killer cel you learn real fast not to do that any more.
Years ago I did alot of restoring and cleaning of cels because there was only one or two places that did it and the cost at them was super high so I did some research and started doing it for myself and in time for others.
I don't want what I have learned to be lost so I like to share the wealth of my knowledge to anyone who needs it,I'm of the mind that knowledge should be free to all so make sure you help the newbees with what you learn so they don't damage the cels that are out there because as you know they don't make them any more.

Krafty has been after me to write a E-book about the care of cels and drawings. One of these days I will put pen to paper and make it happen and when I do it will be free to all.
Don't get me wrong I don't know it all and I know this for a fact.
I have not found one person that knows it all as every studio did things there way, and it would take a lifetime to pen all this info on all the things animation companies did. I hope to learn most of it before I leave this earth and pass it on down for the future collectors.

So if you have knowledge or a handy tip post it some where like this post so it is not lost,You would be surprised how much info is just floating around in someones head and is never told to anyone and gets lost when they pass on.

keep collecting and helping others.

Take care,
Roy (DBA)Backlotanimation

Roy, is there a substitute for the open window? I would like to try your method, but right now it's about 10 degrees at night where I live. On top of that, it's a very dry area.