Organizing your cels/sketches

[Keropi]

For awhile I was scanning my cels/sketches in the order that I acquired them. That way worked best because I found that if I scanned my favorite items first, I didn't want to scan my "lesser" items. That worked fine for awhile, but unfortunately I'm buying items a lot faster than I can scan them. So things are piling up fast. It's getting harder and harder for me to locate the item I'm supposed to scan next. It could be in a bunch of locations now instead of just two or three.

I think I'm going to work my way through one stack at a time regardless of its age (for cels I mean, not sketches).

My questions:

1. How would you know where your cels/sketches are at if you tried to find one in particular?

2. How do you label your folder for its contents (or describe its contents)?

3. How do you make your sketch sets easier to find? Forty fat sketch sets are more difficult to store in the same location than forty flat cels.

[miz ducky]

1. I have my books separated by series. (my Saiyuki sketch book, my Fruits Basket sketch book, my second Fruits Basket sketch book...) I put my characters together, so if I want to find a Yuki sketch I look in the Yuki section!

2. I don't.

3. I separate my sets into separate bags. So I can see all the parts of it.
I like A5 douga with A5 genga facing backwards in one bag, and then they go in order in the book.

[Caroline]

well, this may be the most insane solution... but i dont have nearly half as many cels and sketches as you (awesome collection, btw!!). i have a folder for each series/film. and then i organize my cels and sketches by the order in which they appear on screen. if you know the series/film well enough, it shouldnt be a problem to find what youre looking for. that being said, you should id the cels first. but that's what i love to do most.

[kira]

what ever i get in i try and scan it then.

i dont keep the cels and sketches together. cels are in one book. the sketches in another book.

i just have to go hunt and look no big deal.

[RoboFlonne]

Maybe if you put your cels and sketches on a book shelf in alphabetical order?

Currently I'm like Miz ducky and have everything separated by shows.

I've also stopped scanning. I use a camera.

Really the quality isn't that bad and you can get pretty fast taking snapshots.

[Krafty]

Similarly I have an overwhelming mass of artwork which is out of hand. I have cels/drawings in 9 different locations spread over 2 rooms but finding stuff isn't a problem.

1. How would you know where your cels/sketches are if you tried to find one in particular?
It helps to separate the cels either by character or chronology. All the series I know well are arranged by Cut number/appearance in the finished anime. If I'm searching for a particular cel, instead of flicking through 100 cels to find what I want, I can skip through chunks depending on it's on-screen appearance to get the cel faster.

Up until a year ago I organised everything by series and put them into folders. Others were grouped and put into boxes/bags and left in 'strategic' places where I could find them.
Now I'm remembering where things are based on WHEN I bought the items. Generally, there are huge piles grouped from different sellers- an AWS pile, SMJ pile, one for Rinkya, Jon, Midori, Tomohiro, Yoshi and other sellers I usually deal with.
That will sound confusing but it makes sense to me and I can find everything OK.


2. How do you label/describe your folder for its contents?
None of my folders/items are labelled, I work by memory.


3. How do you make your sketch sets easier to find?
They're placed in a metal filing cabinet with all the other settei and copy genga [with some CGI anime genga/BGs too]. They're also arranged by Cut number to an extent. The draw holds around 50 Cuts/Settei sets and is now full. It's easy to find what I want.

When I get some more time off work and have a fresh supply of bags I'll do more organising to combine items into fewer locations.

[metheus]

Guess I can't add much to this topic. My cels & favorite sketches go in Itoya books. My oversized items that won't fit in the large book are stored in a large museum quality archival box. I have a growing pile of sketches, my current plan is to pick up some smaller archival boxes. Boxes are fairly cheap and easy to label.

[graymouser]

I have a closet dedicated to production art, so it's all in one place. The closet is basically all shelving. The cels are divided by show and put in cel books. The books are labelled on their spines for easy reference. I have no particular order within the book, but since I try to limit the number of cels per character, no show takes up more than one cel book.

The sketch sets are stored one set per cel bag. The bags are then stored in a plastic box (again labelled by show). Backgrounds are generally stored like/with the sketches.

Nothing gets put into the closet until it is scanned. Stuff that needs to be scanned sits on my scanner. Except for when I go to a con, I don't buy in large volume, so I rarely have more than a few (0-3) at a time. The biggest delay in getting stuff up in my gallery is not the scanning, but the time it takes to properly ID the episode/scene.

[HotIce]

I don't put cels into their Itoya books until I have them scanned in, until then they stay in their packaging... which ususally isn't very long, b/c i'm too anxious to scan things in, and i dont really mind doing the scanning.

my books are labeled and sorted by show... Outlaw Star, YYH & Bleach, VHDB, Mon Colle, and EDF... then a Misc catergory...

As for sketch sets, I currently don't own any sets....

[ReiTheJelly]

I usually scan items within a week of receiving them. The only ones that I procrastinate over are paper products (like my set of 68 Miyuki-chan storyboards)

I keep my cels by series in Itoya folders. The folders are numbered on the spine, so I just remember which folder each series is in. I also have my name, address and telephone number on the spine, just in case I happen to misplace a book at a convention (although I hope this never happens!)

I solve the problem of what to do with giant sketch sets...by not having any!

[majinuub]

I don't organize my cels by series. Only my dragonball cels have individual cel books. I organized my cels by what each cel has.
Cels with BG's and sketches in 2 seperate books
Cels with just sketches in 2 seperate books
Cels with just BG's
Cels without sketches
Sketch sets
Oversized/pan cels
I organized each book in a way that I can work on memory for what each one has so I don't need to label them. I do keep a notebook to write down each cel/sketch in each book such as the series, cel number etc... Saves me a lot of trouble when I need to find a certain one.
I don't have an answer to the 3rd question since I only have a few sketch sets.

[Krafty]

^ That's a novel way to do it, Majinuub. It's an interesting method and I'm sure it works for you, but thinking about it makes me very anxious. It's not ordered enough for my liking

[sugarcels]

My cels aren't organized. They're just randomly put in places. The closet, a folder, etc. No set "kind" of way they're seperated.

[birdie]

After reading this thread, I realize that my organizational skills need a lot of work.

Stuff gets put away eventually. And it'll get scanned.....eventually.

[duotrouble]

After reading this thread, I realize that my organizational skills need a lot of work.

Stuff gets put away eventually. And it'll get scanned.....eventually.

Glad I'm not the only one. I've been trying to organize lately. I've been putting all the same series together in my regular cel books. Repros of all series go in one box and rilezus of all series go in another box. Oversized cels are all grouped together in the same oversized cel book.