How to Ink and Paint Cels

After graduating college, my first job in animation was as a cel painter. I got to paint colors onto cels for Cap'n Crunch animated commercials in Chicago. Cartoon Colour sadly no longer produces their brand of Cel Vinyl paints, however another company now sells paints for animation cels called Toon Tones.

Cel painting is a lost art and so I have bought some ink and paint and put together this episode about it. The process of inking and painting animation cels!

 

The first place I began to learn this craft was at a commercial studio in Chicago  called Sinnott and Associates, who at the time, produced all the Cap'n Crunch commercials. Here's one I worked on, adding the shading on the Soggy characters.

The animation drawings were created in the studio on the first floor and the ink and paint department was in an office space a few floors above. There were several drafting tables and other tables pushed together with small light boxes on top. Each painters worked at a light box which illuminated the clear cels from below as the paint was applied on the reversed cel drawing. Using the light table helped make sure your painting wasn't too thin.

I use the word "applied" because you had to push the paint around on the cel and avoid stroking it on. You also had to make sure the paint was not too thick and not too watery. All the cel vinyl paint came from Cartoon Colour in Culver City, CA were it was made at the time. The paint could be mixed to create other colors, shades and tints. 

Painters wore thin white cotton gloves to keep their finger prints off of the cels that they painted. Wooden toothpicks or chop sticks were used the push or remove an excess of paint over the inked lines or other areas of color. 

We worked as a team where several people were painting one color like Capn' Crunch's coat color and hat, other artists painted the shaded coat color to give a little 3D effect. Another would be adding the face flesh color and when those were dry, another person could do the eye whites and the pupils.

You needed a team of painters which had to several weeks to a month to complete the painting before the final animation was shot. I remember there were a few other background artists who would stop by and the head of the painters would make sure that all the cels being painted with the correct colors and even worked well with the finished background art.

A lot of student animated films could not afford the ink and paint process, so many films had cleaned up versions as pencil test with no color. Other animation studios choose a different look to add color to their animation. Some would animate everything on paper, then do an inked drawing and either add color marker or color pencil to it. Some would use color paper and carefully cut out all the color parts of the drawing, glue down all the color parts, draw over the clean black outline and then each colored paper drawing would be glued to a clear animation cel.

All these processes looked great, but took a lot of time and people to produce them to meet a deadline. And other factors popped up, that cel paint needs time to dry, can help it a little bit with a hand held hair drier, but not too much or the paint will begin to crack and you need more time to correct it.

So when digital ink and paint came along, the animators were so happy since you could click to add a color and you can change it throughout without much trouble at all. No more paint brushes, or paint to slowly push around and wait for it to dry until you could add more color to it. 

I will say working with everyone in one room was the best thing of the job, We all would talk a group as we worked and often listened to music, radio or homemade cassette music we had put together. Then it would be 12 or 1pm and everyone would break for lunch, either with food they had brought or would run off to get something. Then it was back to the inking and painting.

There also were several artists with steady hands who were inking the cels that we painters would be painting once they were done with the scene. That was a whole other set of skills where you had to ink a solid and strong line to the cel, most used a rapidograph pen with ink for acetate. Other studios had artists who could ink lines on a cel with a brush, sometime with different colored lines.

And while I was writing this post, I saw this job listing popped up...

I applied for this job, however my history of applying for Disney jobs in the past has never been very successful. But after all, Cel Ink and Painting is a lost art. I let you know if I hear anything.

And then I got this...

Jim,

Thank you for your interest in The Walt Disney Company and for taking the time to apply to the position of Inker and Painter (826568BR).

Based on the information you provided, we are considering other candidates whose background and experience more closely align with the qualifications and requirements of this position.

Please note, this message only applies to the position of Inker and Painter (826568BR). If you have submitted applications for other postings, you may still be in consideration. You can confirm the current status of those applications on your candidate dashboard.

We encourage you to continue your search on disneycareers.com and to apply to any and all jobs that match your background and experience as new positions are frequently posted.

Thank you again for your interest in working with us.

Regards,
The Recruitment Team