A great free tool (it's open source I think) to aid in the creation of motion gifs is called Gimp.wELCOME cONSUMER wrote: I like the suggestion about an animated sequence, but I fear exactly how complex incorporating such a category might be. Things like load time, bandwidth and file size are all things that would have to be considered. And if only one or two people were going to submit entries to such a category, I don't see it as a worthwhile pursuit. However, if someone can detail the process here (perhaps throw together a simple tutorial) for people interested in submitting entries to this category, then we could figure out a way to incorporate this new idea. If enough people are eager to submit entries, then we can try to make it work.
Personally, what I do first, is get the cel/sketch onto the computer in a digital file format.
Then I clean it up in Adobe Photoshop (currently running Elements). I do each sketch in the setup in its own layer. I line up the registration holes at the top. I make them slightly transparent to do this.
Part of the clean up process involves blanking out the while background (usually marked by X's when its in doubt between characters).
Another part is making sure the lines are darkened.
I keep a majority of the notes the animator made on the sketches.
When all this is complete, I make sure that instances where I am supposed to merge layers (hand/eye/mouth) are done on the appropriate layers.
I resize the image to a smaller size, to shorten the download time.
After all this, I save this file under a new name, and keep it as a psd file with all the layers intact/still seperate -this means there are no "partial" layers. Mouth layers are merged with Faces that are supposed to have that mouth layer.
I open this file in Gimp. Double check to make sure that they are in the correct order.
Go to filters --> Animation --> choose "Optimize for Gif"
I save it as a Gif file.
I chose the animation setting.
There is a step I may have missed in Gimp. But I think that is pretty much all there is to it. Hope it helps.
edit: needed to add the forgotten step in gimp.
As soon as you throw the word "cute" in there, you limit a category significantly. 
