Creating backgrounds for cels

[sugarcels]

I have to admit that there are a few cels in my collection that I would really like to have backgrounds for. I think they give cels a "kick," a new life. This was on my mind today, and I thought I would ask:

How do you go about creating a background for a cel, especially if it is oversize or otherwise oddly sized?

Do you use scrapbook (ie acid free) paper? Do you laser print a copy of the original background? If so how did you come about it, and how did you do it? Do you avoid placing backgrounds on your cels because you don't think it would be authentic?

Most important, I'm wondering how people go about getting/making backgrounds for oversized cels.

[sensei]

I'm sure other people will have more elaborate suggestions, so I'll just say that I get 25 x 19 sheets of Canson Mi-Teintes art paper at my local Michael's. These currently run about $2.50 a sheet, but you'll get enough to back a couple oversized cels or four regular ones. Then I cut them to the size I need with a craft knife. (I keep a huge slab of thick cardboard from Anime Museum for this purpose.)

It's arguably not "authentic," but I don't think the black sheet in the Itoya Profolio is either, and if you pick the right color, you'll see the cel seem to change subtly. It's an optical illusion, but it suggests that the cel "likes" some colors or textures better than others. Anyhow, it's fun to do and underlines the fact that a cel is painted to have a colored background behind it, and not just the scanner lid.

[graymouser]

I have never tried to paint my own background because I have no skill in that department. On the other hand, I have blown up photographs to use as backgrounds for the cels that do not have a background. I keep them in my cel books, but don't put them up on my webpage that way. I am kind of old school in that I feel there is less potential confusion if I minimize the amount of mismatched backgrounds and laser copies displayed in my public gallery. I realize that the trend has moved away from this philosophy, but old habits die hard. In my mind at least, there is no way I am going to forget and mistake a photograph for a matching background.

I bag the cel separately from the photograph (just like a regular background). I do not pay a lot of attention to making the paper acid-free since it is not touching. I figure that production backgrounds are usually not painted on acid-free paper so it can't be that much worse.

I try to make a bit of a game out of trying to find a photograph of someplace local that will work. I made a couple of scans a while back when a similar topic came up. I still have them. Admittedly it looks very different than a watercolor background, but once I got used to it, I enjoyed the look and the challenge of finding just the right match.

Both cels are from the Heroic Legend of Arslan.

Pharangese at the Mormon temple



Gieve at Sunset Cliffs beach




grrr edited for grammar/spelling

[sugarcels]

Wow, thank you both for sharing! @graymouser, I like your method! @sensei, I'll definitely look into it!

[pixie_princess]

I recreate backgrounds in photoshop if I can figure out which scene a cel is from.

[ceogbdd]

I actually dislike displaying cels sans backgrounds - however, I hate paying for production backgrounds. So, I've put a fair amount of work into reconciling the conflict.

I'll often go through and take a bunch of screenshots from a show/film, ultimately combining them in Photoshop to give me the bg for the scene I'm looking for...here's a good example, from Kiki:



As you can see by close examination, only Kiki and the top of the vehicle are on the cel itself; they're moving from left to right simultaneously in the scene. Without the bg, the cel was admittedly fairly so-so. I went through and took screenshots as the car and Kik moved across the screen, and edited the empty space together to give me a scene completely devoid of anything but the wall and sky. Then, viola! Kiki wall-walkin'. And IMO, a significantly better piece to display, as I think it more accurately captures the sweet loneliness of the moment.

I did a similar thing w/ a piece from Sword in the Stone, which I think has a pretty stylistic painting style to its backgrounds that I wanted to reproduce in the cel display:



I do think that backgrounds - either mathing or closely-so - add much to any piece...depth, character, etc. But of course, this comes from a guy who likes to display his collection rather than simply store...perhaps that makes a difference overall.

[sensei]

I do think that backgrounds - either matching or closely-so - add much to any piece...depth, character, etc. But of course, this comes from a guy who likes to display his collection rather than simply store...perhaps that makes a difference overall.

Well put IMHO.

[hgeek23]

I do think that backgrounds - either mathing or closely-so - add much to any piece...depth, character, etc. But of course, this comes from a guy who likes to display his collection rather than simply store...perhaps that makes a difference overall.

So I assume that when you print the backgrounds they contain acid in the paper or something else that might deteriorate over time and hurt the cel?
How do you reconcile/deal with this?