managed to find a cel and its matching sketch from my favorite scene in lupin iii: farewell to nostradamus (showing the tagalog dub with my translation because it's genuinely great, also "defective" is not a typo, it's lupin's nickname for detective zenigata in this dub lmao)
being able to obtain a cel that i instantly recognized from a movie/scene i love was one of the things on my bucket list, so im extremely happy to have found this!!
more photos and notes about the artwork under the cut:
the cel and sketch came in one packet, i was initially pretty worried because the package didn't have any sort of hard surface like cardboard to prevent it from bending a lot, but fortunately it's in great condition
whoever previously owned this stapled the cel to the sketch (😭), so i was bracing for the cel's paint to be stuck to the paper since it's 20+ years old, but i let out the biggest fucking sigh of relief when i saw that it was miraculously still separated, so i went ahead and carefully removed the staple
back of the cel
close ups of the cel (zenigata's legs are completely cropped out in the final film, a very strong clue that this is authentic)
the cel shows very early stages of vinegar syndrome (slight deterioration on the cel structure, though no wrinkling, and super faint vinegar smell) and has light fading in the lineart, but it's still pretty well preserved for its age (made around 1994 or 1995), this cel will have to be stored separately from the rest of my collection to prevent it from spreading to them
close up on the sketch
back of the sketch, you can see the tiny pieces of paint from the cel stuck on here
this is most likely a key drawing rather than a breakdown or inbetween drawing based on the circle around "13" in the top right corner of the sketch (breakdowns are usually marked by a line underneath the number, inbetweens are usually unmarked); im surprised this cel didn't cost more since it's a really nice key drawing from a feature film, but im guessing it was cheaper since it's zenigata and not the other main cast characters
there is a tiny timing chart near the bottom, i've reached out to my animation lead co-worker to ask if she knows what this indicates since im not very confident in reading timing charts yet haha, will update this note once she gets back to me
EDIT: my co-worker has responded, she said that the timing chart on the sketch is most likely a very simplified version of a quarter timing, here is her note:
some more tiny notes on the sketch, if anyone knows what the japanese notes say, let me know!
EDIT: my co-worker also said that the X's in the sketch most likely indicate that those are empty areas, telling whoever is doing the cleanup to not color in those spots (i had noticed afterwards that there are more X's in other spots that are meant to be empty, so she's definitely on the money)
EDIT: @cultistzenyatta has informed me that the japanese note should read "shirt" シャツ, as in to distinguish between zenigata's coat and shirt sleeve for cleanup to color in
and here's the artwork in their separate storage packets, gonna add them to the portfolio binder :D
(also, im currently creating my own site to showcase my cel and sketch collection all in one place, so i'll make a post about it once it's nearly done 🙂)
A coloured in cel set up before the cartoon went into production. I don’t know much else about this image except that the person who posted it had worked on the show (very most likely).
EXCLUSIVE high-quality photo of this other early-Balrog cel. (The guy that has it on his site only had it really low-res so I just e-mailed him and he was kind enough to supply his entire collection)
Among the archive was also this one, a cel of Frodo reading the ring inscription, which isn't in the movie.
One thing I’m really interested in is the history, techniques, materials, and preservation of animation cels (and more broadly old plastics and photographic material). The fact that eene is one of the last animated series to use cels is just one of the many reasons I admire the show.
Anyway I’m gonna reblog a whole bunch of Ed Edd n Eddy cels that I’ve stumbled upon so far 👍