Wanted!: CCS Yukito and Yue cels :)

MDKiller1 · Post by **MDKiller1** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:58 pm

lol i also agree...get both of them

Nintenpelican · Post by **Nintenpelican** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:05 pm

sensei wrote:
I don't know, but I can make an educated guess. There were 70 episodes, and each episode had around 300 cuts. That's 21,000 cuts total. Some are short, just one A1 end cel. Others very long, as many as 90. Let's say 20 as an average. That would make for 420,000 cels. Plus the two movies, which would (guestimate) amount to six more TV shows, so add 36000 cels there.

So possibly 450,000-500,000 cels, the great majority of which are not worth collecting and so probably have been destroyed or recycled already. Keep in mind, if it moves on the screen, it had to be painted on a cel.

One needs to recognize the work done by the jobbers who purchased the cels in bulk lots and patiently sorted through them to find and stabilize the minority of viewable cels that show up on sale. Not to mention the literally thousands of anonymous and low-paid artists who actually painted the cels in sweatshop conditions, often in Third World countries where the work was outsourced by Japanese studios. One set, according to Jan Scott Frazier, who worked for an animation company in Japan, actually went to a political prisoner's camp in China, where painting cels was the equivalent of making licence plates in the US.

How'd I know despite that fact that I joked that you would come up with an answer

Gee that's is a lot cels!

What?! Sweatshops? So much for painting them with love and care

People were made to do them like crims!

NO. I refuse to have both! I've been a dedicated nintendo loyalist all my life and that's what I'll continue to be!

MDKiller1 · Post by **MDKiller1** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:10 pm

LOL!!

You sound like me. My fav was nintendo. But when I got married my husbands Fav was PS...so now we have both..I do like the PS3 because of Rock Band..but you can also get that on the wii as well

Nintenpelican · Post by **Nintenpelican** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:35 pm

Hehe yeah I love all them marios and zeldas

Rock band? Gah! Guitar hero is better!

lol, id rather buy a cel for the price of a PS3 xD

Nintenpelican · Post by **Nintenpelican** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:54 am

Yo, I've got a new item in my gallery.... a layout of Toya and Yuki outside Eriol's house from ep65.
http://yuekito.rubberslug.com/gallery/i ... mID=267497

Now can anyone give a noob detailed info about layouts? I'm guessing sensei will not doubt appear..

Also, I can't decide what bit from the ep it's from. One thing I do know is that layouts can differ from the final product. I have 3 suspects:

This is from the bit were they are watching Sakura and the gang and Yuki says Sakura is cute..

This is a longshot but could be very feasable.. the layout could be what would of been the close up shot of Yuki saying "Hai!" to the girl in the same style as the other caps... if you look you can see his expression is very similar to the sketch.

or this when he says lets go

I'll see what you people think... I'm thinking number 2???

Thanks!

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:23 am

According to the top of the layout, it was used in cut 111 and 117.

Sensei and I made these a few years ago. They might help, a little. The powerpoint presentations were created to show at anime conventions, to educate the general public a little bit.

Variations of these powerpoints have been shown at Otakon, Katsucon, Youmacon, and maybe some more that I can't remember, since we first started this project a number of years ago. I should probably go through and update them...

Cel_Presentation_2007.ppt
Animation_Sketch_Art_2007.ppt

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:09 pm

The background was used in the first and third screenshots that you posted. Same background as that which appears in those scenes.

Post by **sensei** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 2:09 pm

Sensei tries hard to look owlish as he says Rei and cutiebunny are right.

Thank you for sharing your new art. Your background is almost certainly the matching production art that went under the camera. The pushpin holes are one sign, the presence of the autograph layout is another. Copy backgrounds tend to be on thin paper and are shiny, no holes, no layout.

They smell like lots of things: cigarettes, mildew, bubble wrap, etc. You can't tell much from that. If you take a deep breath beside a busy photocopy machine, you'll get a good sense of what copy ink smells like. (Since trace lines are printed onto acetate layers with a variation of a photocopy machine, sometimes you'll get the same whiff when you open an old cel bag that hasn't been opened since it left the studio -- heavenly!)

It looks like someone reframed the composition to move it up and to the left a little. See how here's one lighter frame, and then a much darker one. That meant that the images on the cel had to be dropped down, and so the extra strip was taped on the top.

The change in expressions doesn't mean much. The layout is just the first stage past the storyboard, and so the artist is just working out the general size and location of the characters. The episode animation director would have taken this sketch and drawn a "rough" that shows what the characters really would look like. Then this and a copy layout would go downstairs to the gengaman or key animator. Your copy, the autograph layout, went off to the art department and came back taped to the watercolor background.

Sensei finds looking owlish for so long makes him sleepy and goes off to take a nap.

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 2:50 pm

Maybe this will help too.

http://www.anime-beta.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=25179

It can still be original artwork to a series even if what you have wasn't used or wasn't exactly used. There are plenty of deleted scenes in series. Also, maybe they decided they wanted a closer image or different angle or whatever.

It makes IDing rough sometimes. But layouts are great in that they tell you the episode number on the top of the page. Yours is from episode 65.

Congrats!

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:04 pm

Nintenpelican wrote:Yo, I've got a new item in my gallery.... a layout of Toya and Yuki outside Eriol's house from ep65.
http://yuekito.rubberslug.com/gallery/i ... mID=267497

Now can anyone give a noob detailed info about layouts? I'm guessing sensei will not doubt appear..

Also, I can't decide what bit from the ep it's from. One thing I do know is that layouts can differ from the final product. I have 3 suspects:

This is from the bit were they are watching Sakura and the gang and Yuki says Sakura is cute..

This is a longshot but could be very feasable.. the layout could be what would of been the close up shot of Yuki saying "Hai!" to the girl in the same style as the other caps... if you look you can see his expression is very similar to the sketch.

or this when he says lets go

I'll see what you people think... I'm thinking number 2???

Thanks!

I think that's the layout of both the top and the bottom. The Smile is really nice!

Nice Layout Background set!

Nintenpelican · Post by **Nintenpelican** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:09 pm

Thanks so much everyone for your replies

It a nice layout.. hehe yuki looks so happy and toya looks so grumpy I couln't resist plus I was facinated with layouts

Was 500 yen a good price? xD

So that first cap is cut 111 then there 5 cuts inbetween of Eriol, Sakura and Li and the the girl calling them. Then cap 3 is 117. I see...

Yup its def signs of pushpin holes on the corners of the BG and there's tracing of the registration holes plus the cut no.. So I have the orignal backing that went behind the camera? Nice

On the subject of registration holes, my cel of Yukito in the yellow sweater has the holes at the bottom any significance there?

Whats this about autograph? Is that whats on the top next to the ep number?

ReiThejelly and Sensei: Those presentations are very nice. I've got a better understanding now. Thanks! Also, that's so awesome those reanimated dougas

Post by **sensei** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:27 pm

Nintenpelican wrote: Was 500 yen a good price?

Seems right to me. These bgs are coming on the market at quite a clip, and so the quantity is keeping prices low.

Nintenpelican wrote: On the subject of registration holes, my cel of Yukito in the yellow sweater has the holes at the bottom any significance there?

A lot of oversized cels tend to have the holes at the bottom. I'm not sure why. You can also have some cels with holes on the top and others with holes on the bottom if they move in different directions during the cut.

You can find out quite a bit about the details of animation camerawork (and the meaning of the abbreviations on sketches) from this interesting article:

http://www.ex.org/3.1/10-bts1.html

It shows a typical camera/light table and explains that there are little cranks on the side that help the photographers move the different elements of the image. So if most layers move one way, but one slides in a different direction (as in a scene with two people walking at different rates), one cel will have registration holes in a different place. That way the camera people can turn one set of cranks for one person's pace and another to move another person's cel separately from the rest.

Nintenpelican wrote: Whats this about autograph? Is that whats on the top next to the ep number?

"Autograph" = "handwritten" = "original" as opposed to the "copy layout" that usually comes in sketch sets with the gengas. I probably use "autograph" since that's what the Japanese in the auction description comes out as when I use one of those online translation engines to make sure I'm not bidding on a "group" cel (i.e., a fancel, not production).

The word by the episode number just says "Sakura." You'll see this on most layouts, and it's usually just the name of the anime.

Nintenpelican · Post by **Nintenpelican** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:00 pm

Yeah I've been noticing quite a few sketches poping up on auction lately...
I don't care how much it's worth anyways I just think is lovely and facinating

Oh ok

If I remember correclty Yuki was walking in that scene...

Thanks for the link. Very facinating! I quickly went over it I'll give it a good read later.. its so hot right now. Argh summer!

lol ok that was pretty easy to work out xD Doh!
Ohhhhh I thought that said Sakura.. but then I thought it didn't

Once again Sensei you are choc full of anwsers. Arigatou!

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:47 pm

Nintenpelican wrote: Was 500 yen a good price?

CCS backgrounds on Yahoo Japan typically sell for 500-2500 yen each, with backgrounds from pinnacle scenes selling around the 2500 mark. I say scenes because end prices on layout/background CCS set-ups from popular episodes can and have ended at their starting prices, whereas scenes from other less popular episodes have ended much higher than this range.

However, as with all moon backgrounds, those from CCS will be more expensive, with some going well over 10,000 yen. If you enjoy collecting from a particular episode, this might be important to keep in mind.

Post by **sensei** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:22 am

Yeah, at this stage, "worth it" is a very personal thing. It's going to take a long time for Japanese animation art to settle down to an investment thing, where you know that CCS cels or backgrounds are worth x to y in cash.

Right now it's driven by a lot of factors: for instance, artificial scarcity caused by dealers carefully limiting the amount of art coming on the market. There's more Inuyasha art out there, because the series ran to nearly 170 episodes, more than half cel-based. But IY art right now is twice as expensive as CCS art, because there's never more than a couple dozen cels on the market and hardly any backgrounds or sketches, while the auction inventory of CCS--cels, sketches, and backgrounds--runs from 250-525.

In a generation, these numbers will even out, and probably the prices as well, assuming the items are curated well and remain in good condition. As CGI becomes the animating technology of choice, cels and hand-painted backgrounds will become things of the past, along with, eventually, hand-drawn sketch art as well.

For now, in any case, it's enjoyable to see a piece of the actual fabric of a show we love, and learn something about the process that made it possible. And when that can be done for a modest sum of money (plus you get an attractive original one-of-a-kind sketch by a professional animator), then it's usually well worth the cost.

Just my 500 yen.