Anime-Beta TNG

* WARNING! This is a long post that starts with a story and ends with my questions that have to do with the title. *

Not too long ago I bid (on impulse) on a sketch set from Vampire Knight (a show I've never watched) on Mandarake when I saw it had 0 bids, and I won. Up to that point, I had never bought any sketch sets/full cuts before, so I didn't really know what to expect. After it came in, I found I had 50+ pages of a very short cut of a guy (now I know it's Kaname) brushing a girl's (now I know it's Yuki) face. I was disappointed at 1st. I liked the artwork of Yuki, and that's what prompted me to bid in the 1st place, but it was pretty much just a still with slight variations of her face and many sketches of a hand coming in to brush her hair. And there were so many partial images of hands, hair, and face, and varying degrees of detail within the genga, a couple of hand-drawn original layouts and 1 layout copy. It also came with a timing sheet but no folder. And everything was out of order. I felt like I had wasted my money, even though it wasn't really very expensive.

I didn't really look very long at all of the stuff, because it didn't seem all that interesting. Instead I was trying to decide if I would scan everything into Rubberslug, how I would order it in my Itoyas and online, etc. Then, I made a decision (and felt sorta guilty about it but not entirely) that I would just pick a few sketches that I liked to keep, then sell the rest on Ebay. I would grab maybe 1 douga, 1 layout, and another sketch. So I picked my 3 and put the rest away to prepare to sell later.

A few days later, and by pure coincidence as I was browsing cel sites, I found my cut [formerly] for sale here: http://sakurasaku.onmitsu.jp/VK/VK201105.html
It's VK01-011, and it had (and still has) flashing underneath SOLD OUT. This reinforced my plan to break and sell, because I thought, "someone bought it from this place, then sold it to Mandarake, who then sold it to me. It's probably broken up already anyhow." Fast forward to tonight, when I updated my gallery and posted my 3 keepers from the set: http://buraddorun.rubberslug.com/galler ... mID=361400

After I made my gallery update, I decided to take another look at the others that I had set aside to sell. I discovered quite a few things while looking through them this time. Both the timing sheet and copy-layout confirmed what the pic I found on that other site implied, which is that this scene is from Ep. 10, Cut 187. The sequences of the hand outnumber the sequences of the face. The various genga of weird things like hair pieces and blank faces are there to show the changing parts of what will be the screen caps. That key genga like A2 don't necessarily match A2 in the completed sequence, but do seem to match the next key cel/douga in the sequence; in A2s case (genga) it's A5 (douga). That there really IS a difference in quality that I can see when looking at a key genga compared to a in-betweener's douga. That the timing sheet isn't a bunch of gibberish, but actually shows me at what time each B layer (hand) matches up with my A layers (face). That it even shows me which key genga (and layouts) match to which douga, as some of them have both the hand and face on them.

In other words, I learned that this whole mess of hands and hair that I bought is actually a very interesting and educational look into an animated sequence! So now, I've decided to not break my set (though I'm still not 100% convinced that it's not already broken), but I want to try to put the entire thing in order, genga and all, before I post the rest in my gallery and archive them in my collection. So on to my questions:

1. What methods do you know of, or things do you know to look for, when trying to order your sketches? I found my scene in an online stream, but it goes very fast, and of course the hand covers up the face for a good portion of it, so it's hard for me to make out certain parts that might be fully or partially covered. I'm mostly good with the douga, though there's some parts I can't figure. First, I don't seem to have A4 (frustrating!). But I have 3 A douga with characters behind them: A(looks like katakana for "i" maybe), A (no clue), A(definitely looks like katakana for "shi"). But then I have 2 douga for A6 that seem to have the same characters on them to the left of the right-side peg-holes. I'm finding it very hard to explain. LOL! But that's how I've been matching: sequences + timing sheet + artwork comparison (genga to douga) + watching the episode clip.

2. When you buy complete cuts (in the folder), do they ever come incomplete? I'm missing A4, and it looks like I'm probably missing some other partial douga if my A(symbol) comparison theory is correct. There are a couple of douga that have those characters that I don't have matching other partial douga for. Maybe these are faces, mouths, hair? Do you ever find that pieces are missing, maybe damaged by the studio or something? My earlier theory that my set was purposely may not be true, because I have most of the douga and all of the key scenes, except for some layout that brings me to..

3. Why the copy layout? Why don't I have the original? Do you sometimes get copies in your sketch sets? Literally every piece of artwork I got in this set was hand-drawn except for that 1 layout. You guys might virtually smack my head, but when I got my Virtua Fighter Harmony cel, it came with a copy layout that I threw away. I mean, I got the douga with it, so I just thought, "this is dumb; the layout is different but it's just a copy; I don't want this," and I chunked it. I kind of want to do the same with this copy layout. Yes, it's different than the other artwork, because it has background details, but...it's a copy! I don't want copies! I want original artwork! Am I the only dummy here that's thrown a copy away? Does it actually make me a dummy to want to do that here? Surely someone out there has the original artwork, so it's not like I'd be destroying the only existing...um...copy of it...right?

4. When you guys get full cuts, how do you post them on your gallery? I want to keep digital copies of all of my cels, so I plan to scan them all, but surely it'll be boring for others to open my gallery and see things like pieces of hair. I finally cleaned up the rest of my gallery by utilizing sub-images, but you can only have 3 images for every entry. I guess I could go the animated gif route, which brings me to...

5. Is there a good free program out there that can help me make an animated gif of my sequence? Boy it'll be a pain to try and match up all of my scans, too.

OK, I think that's it. I'm sorry I don't have any real examples of anything yet. I haven't scanned but 3 images so far.

*EDIT* OK, so after this post I just took another look at that original website that was selling this, and on the very small scan of the set, I think I can see my copy layout in the upper right corner. BUT, it has real peg holes (you can see the black table/floor underneath it), whereas mine has copied peg holes on uncut paper (and they are white with gray/black hole outlines). I think I'm gonna chunk this thing! Somebody stop me (or tell me it's OK)!

This could be a long response, but I'll try to keep it short.

1. I do hang onto runs of partial dougas, just out of the typical scholar's feeling that this is historically significant, even in a small way. So even if I don't make use of it, when anime gains the academic respect that it will in time gain, such sets will be seen as all the more important because they are rare, and (nearly) complete. I have a bunch of archival boxes in my closet, where I bag up these dougas (with a couple sheets of MicroChamber paper to keep them fresh) and pack them away.

The simplest thing is to just put them in order, layer by layer, in chronological order. The partials with katakana numbers (which are digitally combined with moving layers before being colorized) can go at the start or the end of the layer with that letter. I do tend to store the dougas in one bag, and the layouts, roughs, gengas, shuusei gengas, etc. in another. As I've read (but can't personally confirm) that the ones on colored paper are higher in acid content than the white sheets, I put an acid-free piece of cardstock in the genga etc. bag, and put the white sheets on one side and the colored ones on the other, with a few more sheets of MC paper on the colored side. And I label each bag with the series title, episode, and cut numbers. (I know what it is, but this info makes it easier to organize.)

2. With CGI series for which rilezu cels have been created, it's common to have a douga missing. That's the one that was retained by the rilezu company, and sold with the repro cel.

3. The original layout normally goes to the division that paints or digitally creates the background, and a copy goes to the genga/douga team. Just the way it's usually done. So the layout that's up for sale probably is the original. In a couple of cases I've started with just the copy layout, then obtained the original when the bg came up on the market. The copy is still valuable, since the studio didn't make zillions of copies, and many times it's got original annotations by the animation director or other artists.

4. I'm pretty conservative about posting dougas on my website, even when I have the whole run. It depends on how much time I have to play with the scanner and digitally cut and paste. For some cuts I did combine layers, but lately I'm content with just reanimating complete dougas and letting the partials go. Some curators put up scans of every doggone sketch in a set, but I think that's excessive. In my opinion, the gengas and (especially) the roughs and shuusei gengas are the most interesting items.

5. I use Jasc Animation Shop 3. It's an inexpensive download (some folks have found it for free, but I got it from Jasc for $19.95) and very simple to use. I like that it allows you to change the speed of individual frames, so you can mimic the directions on the timing sheet very closely.

Good luck! These sketch sets are an education in themselves, and I'm certain that future scholars of the industry will appreciate having as much of this material available as possible. It is a pretty set, and while I haven't seen the series yet, I know that the scripts and series composition were done by Mari Okada, who started out with Sasami: Magical Girls Club (a surprisingly clever series for pre-teens) and then did a whole series of hits, including this series plus Black Butler, Toradora, Hanasaku Iroha - Blossoms for Tomorrow, and lately AKB0048 First and Second Stage . (She also did several scripts for Rozen Maiden.) So I'd guess it's somewhat better than the Twilight franchise.

Mostly... what sensei said. I'll add a few little things, though:

1) I don't break up sets voluntarily. If I do, I only separate genga from douga, but I don't take individual frames, as a rule. I've had some sets that were so big I've been tempted many times over to break this rule in the interest of space, though. I keep them layered in order, as sensei suggests. If they arrive out of order, I usually spend the time to put them in order.

2) Yes. I've bought some near-complete cuts in the past that were missing key frames. In one case, I actually bought the rest of a cut that went with a single sketch that I already bought from the same seller literally YEARS earlier. This is the set: http://www.zero-space.net/gallery2/disp ... ?itemid=23

3) You make me want to cry here. The studios copy the layouts for a purpose, as sensei pointed out, and so for that reason, I feel it is worth keeping. Many (if not all) of my douga & genga cuts contain a copy of the layout. Sometimes both the original AND the copy are in there, too -- though this seems to happen rarely for me.

4) I scan most everything with few exceptions. If a cut is really really large, I might not scan every single sheet, but I will scan the greater part of them, partials and all. I didn't always do this, and so there are some sets in my gallery without every sheet scanned.

5) I can't recommend a free program, because I use Adobe Photoshop for importing my scans from my scanner and then Adobe ImageReady (no longer exists in old form, but same functionality exists in Photoshop and/or Fireworks in Adobe CS4) to animate them.

BuraddoRun wrote:1. What methods do you know of, or things do you know to look for, when trying to order your sketches? I found my scene in an online stream, but it goes very fast, and of course the hand covers up the face for a good portion of it, so it's hard for me to make out certain parts that might be fully or partially covered.

that's what I would like to know as well. I hate when the auction saids your bidding on 50+sketches, but ending up only get about 1 good genga and a bunch of partial genga, douga and roughs. of course this happens more often on Yahoo Japan since sellers sometimes just post one/two photos because theres nothing else good to show.

If I have the animation files on my computer, I'd just play that sequence on slow motion if I know where its from to make sure the sequence does not just involve a A1end and B1-20 and C1-50. another thing I sometimes fine myself doing for better sequence, is that I would look for a source for those artbooks from the title thats titled genga collection/原画集, and sometimes they'll have previews on those more meaningful/complete sequences.

I was wondering, do you have a site address of the main page of the first link you've posted? I've never seen that site before and really carious.

3. Yeah I've never thrown out a copy layout but I've certainly thought about it. They're interesting in their own way but mostly just a sad reminder that I (probably) am not in possession of the original layout.

Thanks for the information, everyone. I didn't realize that the layout were sent to the background artists, and didn't think about douga being used with Rilezu. OK, I guess I'll keep my copy layout. Maybe one day I'll find the BG for sale and can get the original if it comes with it. It's gonna take me awhile to get the others scanned and organized. Since I've never owned any big sketch sets before, up to now I've been bagging and booking all of my sketches just like I do my cels. I will have to buy 2 books just to hold this set, though, and order another 100-pack of Heiko bags for it if I continue my trend here. If I buy more sets in the future, my book count is gonna go way up if I do this.

theultimatebrucelee wrote:I was wondering, do you have a site address of the main page of the first link you've posted? I've never seen that site before and really carious.

Sure, it is http://sakurasaku.onmitsu.jp/anime-top.html
I've never ordered from them personally, but they did do an update this month.

Thanks a bunch for the link, really appreciated! this sites got some seriously awesome titles as well so it should be worth some consistent check back.

1. I first sort them by the different production steps, for example: storyboard copies - roughs - layouts - genga - douga. I'm not at home right now, but I think I put each shuusei before the genga it belongs to. That may not be the best idea as Sensei pointed out, so I might put them together like the other production steps.
I don't sort by layers, but chronologically. So if on the timesheet at a certain time there would be A4, B2, C6 then I put those three genga in that order.
If there are multiple sets of douga (which I have several times), I first take all douga from the first drawing and then take all "corrected" douga, maybe with an extra shuusei phase in between.

2. The ones I bought at Mandarake were all complete I think. At least I have all genga and douga, though there might be a few roughs or shuusei missing.

3. Yes, layouts go to the key animator and the art director, so one of them receives a copy. Apparently generally the key animators receive the copy, however that is not always the case. I received copy layouts with my Mawaru Penguindrum backgrounds (Brain's Base, 2011). The copies are almost as valuable as original drawings to me, because I'm interested in the drawing itself. If I look at my Mawaru Penguindrum gallery I think those copy layouts really add something to it.
The lack of original material is also the reason I recently started collecting key animation artbooks (often called 原画集 as theultimatebrucelee pointed out), which got me a hundreds if not thousands of copy genga from recent shows like Fate/Zero, FMA:B, Evangelion 1.0, Gurren Lagann and GitS: SAC. Of course I would not display those in my gallery.

4. I'm very interested in the production process, so I tried so show as much as possible in my gallery without getting boring (it may still be boring to others however). I give each layout and genga their own page unless it's something like a hair layer. With each genga I add roughs and shuusei as thumbnails. If there are too many I choose the best three. Douga get only one animated page, because they look too much the same (which is intended of course). I do add a link to my Photobucket folder where all individual douga are uploaded, but I don't think anyone would be interested in that. I even give timesheets their own page, because you never know who might be interested in them.

5. Just like Sensei I use Jasc Animation Shop 3 for the same reasons. However, first I add all layers together, frame by frame, with Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3. That is very time intensive work, but I really like the result of having the full cut animated.

Good advice, all! Thank you very much. I, too, enjoy learning about the animation process, so it actually is pretty cool getting a full cut like this, even if I was initially upset over the amount of "repeated" material. I've found a few Freeware animated GIF programs that I plan to try out, but if they don't end up working well I may just plop down the $20 for that one program a couple of you have recommended.

sensei wrote:Good luck! These sketch sets are an education in themselves, and I'm certain that future scholars of the industry will appreciate having as much of this material available as possible. It is a pretty set, and while I haven't seen the series yet, I know that the scripts and series composition were done by Mari Okada, who started out with Sasami: Magical Girls Club (a surprisingly clever series for pre-teens) and then did a whole series of hits, including this series plus Black Butler, Toradora, Hanasaku Iroha - Blossoms for Tomorrow, and lately AKB0048 First and Second Stage . (She also did several scripts for Rozen Maiden.) So I'd guess it's somewhat better than the Twilight franchise.

I forgot to thank you earlier, Sensei, for this background info on Vampire Knight. Maybe I'll give it a shot, but no promises.