WHY did you buy your first cel/sketch?

[sensei]

It's been a common topic in the past to ask forum members to share their very first piece of animation art. A collection, after all, usually begins with a single purchase. It's not been as common to try to remember that moment of decision and think about what was in your mind when you made that plunge. Was it a seemingly random choice? Or an act of homage to a favorite series? What were the factors influencing you?

I'll start and try to be brief. In summer 2000, I'd recently become interested in Cardcaptor Sakura, or "Cardcaptors" as it was being aired on WB Kids on Saturday morning. Something made me aware that there was original animation art from this series coming up for sale on eBay. (I was, by then, a pretty seasoned hand at eBaying, having already collected a life-sized cardboard cutout of Jar Jar Binks and a gen-u-wine brick from the Blair Witch House.) I remembered years ago, shortly after seeing the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, being in NYC and seeing some cels from that film for sale in a dealer's window. The price was substantial ($50 apiece IIRC in 1969 bucks) but I had that sum in my pocket, and I was tempted. But I passed them by and went to Sam Goody's and blew the change on LP records. Ever after that, I kicked myself: the records, worn and obsolete, went to a Goodwill outlet, while the cels, being originals, would have appreciated in value. I promised myself that I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

So when I saw a cel of Sakura in one of her battle costumes, looking over her shoulder, with a mini-Kero-chan on her back, I plopped down a pretty substantial bid, which held up. It was disappointing later, to find that the cel was missing its top layer with Syaoran likewise looking over his shoulder. Happily, that layer turned up on YHJ 13 years later ... so overall ... no regrets.

[JWR]

In my case it was an unplanned event.

I had been collecting Comic Book Art for many years and had been attending Comic-con in San Diego for many years. I hurt my knee and ended up having to have surgery a couple of weeks before the 2002 Comic-con. I used the Con as part of my rehab walking around and when things started to hurt we would find someplace to sit and rest.
One of the breaks we took found us in one of the anime rooms which just happened to be showing Oh My Goddess OVA episodes # 4 & 5.

Needless to say we really liked the story and artwork.

We went down to the dealer room and found a seller who had the OVA dvd discs. After buying that we noticed that there was a seller of Cels right next door. I turned out the dealer actually had cels from the OVA we just watched.

We were surprised that the cost of the cels was "reasonable" compaired to the $600 plus for artwork from the comic artists I collect. So we bought a few.

Later I did research into anime, found new shows that caught our interest such as Ranma 1/2 and off we went till we have our current collection.

[Punkxprince]

My first cel purchase was unplanned as well. I have collected manga and anime since high school and I was always on the lookout for those hard to find/rare/expensive volumes at local used book/movie stores. I finally found the the last missing volume of a manga series (Mushishi) for a decent price on eBay and I was looking through the sellers other items and they had some anime cels for sale. Nothing I was really interested in but it piqued my interest. A couple weeks later I was on eBay and I decided to look and see if anyone had any Trigun cels for sale. That's how I ended up buying my first two Trigun cels:
http://punkxprince.rubberslug.com/galle ... mID=366807
http://punkxprince.rubberslug.com/galle ... mID=366808
Anyways, at the time I had only planned on buying Trigun cels exclusively, but as you can see from my collection that didn't last long haha.

[Keropi]

I got it because I wanted to have a connection to the anime that I enjoyed so much.

Since around 1993, I had been collecting things that overlapped my other interests. I collected autographed items and a couple of history related things because of my interest in history and pre-1980 movies. I had a desire to collect comic art and movie promo paper items, but never ended up buying anything. It wasn't easy buying collectibles through the mail. You had to call by phone and someone usually bought them before you got your mail and called. You couldn't see how the items looked like without having a fax machine.

I was also collecting older comic books and in one of the comic book price guide magazines that came out around ?1994-1995 there was an ad for "Anime Wink". The Anime Wink (that's pre-Anime Link) ad mentioned that they sold anime cels, but it was too far away for me to consider driving there. (Where was it? Corona? I can't remember) It was by appointment too I think. The Warner Brothers stores were in the mall two blocks from where I live and I would visit there often looking at their cels. Their cels were nice, but I had a much greater interest in anime than in Warner Brothers shows.

I started watching anime regularly around July 1996 after a science fiction/gaming bookstore opened up a block from my house. They had commercial anime tapes for rent. I had stopped my autograph collecting in earl 1996. In early 1997, I was browsing online anime stores and several stores were selling anime cels. I became interested in acquiring one. I could finally get one easily! After several failed attempts to buy cels that were already sold, I settled on buying the cel I liked the most from what was still available. I bought my first cel - the Tenchi/Ryoko cel from Nichbei.

[cutiebunny]

Good topic

At the time, it was because I already had every Sailor Moon card made. I had finished collecting all the standard issue and promotional cards made in Japan. I originally wanted to buy cels of artwork and characters that were not featured in any other Sailor Moon set. Card production stopped early in the Sailorstars season, so the final two card sets that were released did not feature anything except colored settei artwork from the final arc. The first few cel purchases I made were mostly from Sailor Moon, with the exception of a couple Pretty Sammy cels that I wanted for nostalgic reasons. Cel-wise, I largely stayed with Sailor Moon, although I did branch off and buy some Inuyasha and quite a bit of CCS artwork.

Sketches, in the form of original artwork, is what I currently collect. I started collecting these at the tail end of 2008 and received my first sketch at AX in 2008. I wasn't super impressed with the sketch even though I acknowledged that it was drawn in about 2 minutes, but I liked that it was one of a kind and was drawn for me. I then began to see all the nice artwork that was out there, not just those that were owned by others on RS, but on Mandarake, YJ, etc. One thing that really impressed me was that this was finally a chance to own artwork of characters who, for whatever reason, none was out there. I admit that while the appeal of owning artwork from anime, like Psycho Pass where nothing but copy settei exists, still appeals to me, I like sitting down with the people that create it more. Some creators really love what they do and want to share that passion with those that appreciate what they've worked on. I've met some really nice people, dined with them and even receive Christmas cards. And then there are others, like Haruhiko Mikimoto, who deeply look down upon people who collect artwork and are only capable on focusing on the negativity of it. It provides you with a much better understanding of the person than any artbook will ever give you, and in turn gives you some understanding of their style and why they focus on certain aspects more than others.

[sensei]

Cutiebunny makes a good point: we start a collection one way, but then some chance addition can lead you in a whole new direction.

I was a pure cel collector for the first three years of my interest, then I became aware that there was sketch art available too. More out of curiosity than anything, I bid on a set of Syaoran at a dramatic moment in Cardcaptor Sakura's Episode 69 (the critical next-to-last adventure). When I got them, I was intrigued to get the keyframes (gengas) and also a set of much more dramatic and intense drawings on thin green paper. Those, I could see, were the basis of the final state of the images that became the cels that were photographed to make the anime I had seen. But why? Who? What was the process that brought these sketches into being?

That led me onto a new way of looking at animation, in terms of process rather than in terms of discrete, static images that become the frames in animation. Eventually I learned that these were post-genga revisions (shuusei) done by the episode's animation director, in this case CCS's chief animation director and character designer, Kumiko Takahashi. Later, getting some other sketchwork from Ep. 1 and from the first movie, I learned that she had a penchant for doing complete shuusei gengas, where most animation directors were content with partials, and that these were invariably interesting and intense. It showed me how some of the most telling visual moments in anime could be largely the expression of a single artist's vision.

So I think it's interesting to think about how involvement in this hobby began, but also what happened along the way that made one's interests morph in ways that weren't obvious from the start.

[kathpatty]

I fell in love with Tamahome and Miaka

[KinoLRB]

Good question!

I didn't actually buy my first cel. I got it for Christmas when I was 16 or 17. I was over-the-moon delighted, but I didn't start seriously collecting until about 5 years later. Like so many others, I intended the collection to remain small. I planned to have maybe 10 cels altogether. I also planned to have all of them framed and hanging in my home office. Didn't turn out that way. I had gotten a few cels as gifts already, but my first serious purchase was my Unit-01 profile cel. I bought it because I love Evangelion and Unit-01.

So, why did I buy my first cel?

Short answer: Evangelion.

[cscratch]

Very interesting topic! It's really lovely to read others' stories about how they ended up getting into cel collecting and what keeps them coming back.

Like JWR, my journey into the cel foray started at ComicCon 2002 - I'd just gotten my first non service industry job and saved to attend ComicCon, my first convention. While there, I saw this beautiful piece of artwork from Utena in the vendor area and had to ask the dealer about what it was. They explained it was an original animation cel from the series which fascinated me. The idea of actually owning the original piece of art that went under the camera to create one of my favorite series hadn't really occurred to me before, and I remember standing there staring at it with a friend of mine tugging at my sleeve to move onto another booth.

At the time, it had taken all my resources to get there and attend, so the $600 price tag was far beyond what I could have afforded. However, something stuck in my mind and I found myself searching out cel sites. I discovered Animanga, Nichibei anime, rubberslug, and several other private collections online that I liked, leading to starting to track auctions for the series, which gave me a better idea of what the market looked like for Utena. Once I started getting a feel for the market for the series, I quickly realized it wasn't something I could realistically jump into and still afford rent.

However, years passed and my career moved forward. I ended up with a bonus from work and the thought popped into my head seemingly out of nowhere that I could probably pick up a piece or two. Initially, I only planned to get a couple of nice, representative pieces of my two favorite characters to frame. I purchased two cels from a collector in 2005 and was again struck by the beauty of the art once I had them out of the packaging. Things just snowballed from there and it turned into a really satisfying hobby for me that I didn't expect. It still surprises me.

Strangely enough, I was able to acquire the initial piece I saw at ComicCon all those years ago from a private collector quite some years after the initial encounter: http://kittyfire.rubberslug.com/gallery ... mID=282020

[Jadeduo]

This is a great topic, and so interesting to hear how people's collections have evolved over time! I have actually always been interested in Animation art. I was a huge fan of Disney, ever since I was a very little kid. As I got older, I have a small talent for drawing that I inherited from my Dad. Whose only artistic outlet for him was he used to draw these really awesome fish, sharks, sea life for the fish price board at the supermarket he was a manager for; and of course drawing with me ^_^

So when we had a vacation at MGM Studios, I think I was like 12, and visited the Art of Animation, everyone was bored but me of course! It is a nice little accesible video about the animation process they also have a rotating "museum" exhibit, mostly of scans and reprints of original artwork. Of course I did not know that then, lol. That is when the love of animation art hit, of course I knew when it comes to Disney cels if I could get one that would be a huge accomplishment... But then 2 years later Sailor Moon hit american airwaves, and I fell in love! There was nothing else like it on the american airwaves at the time, and it became a lifetime love of finding everything I could about it!

So fast forward to 2003, I am finishing up my last year of college. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it, but all the old timers will recognize the name. I stumbled on Christy's Sailor Moon Collection, when she used to keep it separate from Rubberslug. I had no idea at the time that it was even possible to get a Sailor Moon cel over from Japan, so this was completely mind boggling to me. Christy was still pretty active then, so when I clicked on her for sale page there was a lovely Sailor Jupiter from her very first appearance on her for sale page for a very reasonable price, and the rest is basically history!

I started out at first only collecting Sailor Jupiter/Makoto, but since then I have branched out into, CCS (in a big way), DBZ, Gundam Wing, etc...

[ToriPagac]

my mom got me mine a devil hunter yohko cel i've always been a fan of animation so i was like I can BUY cels? like all my collections it's moms fault

[majinuub]

I remember the desire started with all those Disney specials on the animation studios and how the films/shows were animated. I was always captivated with the art of animation. Even tried to make a few animated sequences from shows when I was younger.

[GuyvarIII]

It was the mid 1990s, and cel related merchandise and advertising seemed to be everywhere. I had a subscription to Amazing Spiderman Comics through my school magazine drive. At that time, the Spiderman TV cartoon was heavily promoting itself in comic books with printed cels, and booklets describing the animation process. One of these faux cel and booklet sets came to me with one of my comics. When I went to my local comic shop, they were advertising the Warrior Nun Areala promo set for the non-existent OVA, which included a cel. I collected Robot Carnival trading cards, which featured images of layouts on the back of each card. At the Glendale Galleria, where I would check out the anime videos at Suncoast, you could go to the Disney Store and, if you asked a salesperson, you could see “Who Framed Rodger Rabbit” cels. Like Keropi, I’d also look at the Batman cels at the Warner Brothers’ store. I knew cels were available… but, the Batman cel I liked was a vertical pan of Killer Croc with an original background priced in the $900-$1000 range. As a Middle School kid, cels were something crazy expensive and unattainable that I could only gawk at.

I didn’t think of owning cels until about 1996-97. While I was looking for Guyver model kits, I found Lodoss War cels in the $100-$200 price range. But at 14 years old, it’s still hard to get that much money together. After thinking about it, I felt it was better to spend my money on videos, because I could then talk with my friends about more anime. Later in 1997, I read an article in the Los Angeles Times on buying anime cels which contained an interview with Anime Wink (now Anime Link). It mentioned that most anime cels sell for $85 to $150. I thought I’d pay the low end of that for a good Guyver cel, as it was my favorite anime. I had Anime Wink’s phone number from an advertisement on the back of a photocopied flier/catalog (possibly for the now defunct Banzai Anime) that I had picked up at the Monthly Comic Book and Sci-Fi Convention (still held) at the Shrine Auditorium in Downtown LA. At the time, Anime Wink had no Guyver cels. I was told he had only ever seen about 5 or 6 of them, and I should expect to pay $300+. In December of 1997, I found The Gremlin Gallery, after doing a Webcrawler search for “The Guyver”. And so, in January, 1998, I bought three Guyver cels from them -- the beginning of my cel collection.