Friday, August 12, 2016

The Trouble with Cels




...is that the paint won't stick forever to the celluloid sheet. It's heartbreaking to see these Disney cels in a less than perfect condition. If you are a collector and have experienced deterioration on your treasured animation cels, you know how stressful it can be to see these hand made masterpieces go down hill. Tom Sito once said that if you own a cel you own a heartbeat of the movie.
Of course there are folks who restore the paint loss. I like it when the loose paint chips are pulverized, and with special added liquid, then re-applied to the cel. This kind of restoration process is an art in itself.











Nothing wrong with these two cels from Robin Hood. I am just adding them because they show how Disney tries out various color models before deciding on the final color combination. The last image represents the way Friar Tuck and King Richard appear in the film.






Some images Heritage Auctions

16 comments:

  1. Mir gefällt das Nilpferd! Aus welchem Film ist das?

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  2. Hi, Andreas. The artwork dosent erase after years, and how do thay restored the Cels arts and the paint background.

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  3. Your blog Andreas i loved it this post you send it to the fans of Disney there is a lot of thresher of artworks its like a book.

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  4. Andreas,
    Thank you for sharing these cels and for all of the information on your blog.
    I have something I would like to share with you concerning cels from a scene from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
    If you are interested in viewing it, feel free to email me at: Brandon.Kouri@comcast.net

    Thanks again!

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  5. Thank you for sharing these cels art i like that and i hope someone will fix that?.

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  6. if they were always kept tightly in the same frame, would they be ok? Maybe flopping the cels around would wear off the paint

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  7. They must take into account the background too because stand alone I actually like the violet and grey but in that scene it would have melted with the background.

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  8. I prefer the second "Richard"cell.Golden cross suggest royalty.Colors are less dark and saturated ,less "heavy".
    Is it expensive to restore a cell ?

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    Replies
    1. It depends on how damaged the cel is. It can be costly, but often worth it.

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    2. Do you think the Cels get damage after 73 years beacuse the artwork has to be protect, remember from Bambi in 2005 all the design was protect in the Library.

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    3. once had an O'Malley with chipped colour...200¢ at a galerie in Washington animationsensation.com ...fine again and i am so happy (inkl. Deutsche Zollbegleitpapiere, jawoll) haha

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  9. Rather fortunate that the hand-drawn animated features from RESCUERS DOWN UNDER forward don't have this kind of problem, eh?

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  10. I know Stephen Worth is an expert in restoration.

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  11. Stephen Worth is the best he did a wonderful job to restore evry Disney classic film to Snow White at Aladdin for the dvd and bluray will I think so.

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  12. Is there any difference in the fragile nature of cels from the 80s vs. cels from the 40s and 50s? Any difference in chemicals that makes the later cels more or less durable?

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