Shop Spotlight: Animation Cels and Sketches

Animation cels  are single frames of movement hand painted on acetate. Animation sketches are drawn before the cel can be made. Before everything was done by computers every single movement of an animated series had to be hand drawn and then hand painted by an animator. So in most cases while there are similar cels in a given sequence of animation each cel is one of a kind. Production cels are the animation equivalent of Movie props. We might be a little biased because of our large collection but we really think that due to their one of a kind nature cels are probably one of the best collectibles from any fandom. Here's a small smattering of what we currently have in stock:

This is an awesome cel from the Hentai Sailor Moon parody, Venus 5. This is an action shot of the Usagi/Sailor Moon equivilent, Venus Pink. This cel is an A2 end which means it's the last cel of only 2 in the entire sequence. It also comes with the matching animator's sketch. Venus 5 art is surprisingly hard to find (lots of eechi Sailor Moon fans in the world maybe?)  For just $30 this fantastic action shot can grace your collection.

Sometimes when buying cels it's more about appreciation for the artwork or character designer thanomes with  the show itself. The New version of the Classic Hurricane Polymar (Holy Blood) was only 2 episodes and didn't quite capture the magic of the original as far as most viewers were concerned. However it did boast character designs by Yasoumi Umetsu (best known for his work on Kite and Mezzo Forte) So the series has great art. This is a real cool looking shot of an enemy in the Polymar suit visor. It comes with a bonus cel and is on sale for $5

Angelique is super popular Japanese dating sim game that is a spin on the classic harem meme but making the main character a young girl and harem a bevy of bishounen protectors. In addition to the original games there were a few OVA animations made which is where this sketch is from. We've only seen sketches from angelique twice including the pieces we currently have available so they're quite rare. This is an especially attractive sketch of guardian Oscar and is $10.

This is an animator's sketch from a Donkey Kong Cereal Commercial from 1983. It's a great image of DK and Pauline on top of the cereal box.  To watch the original commercial go here. This piece of Video game (and breakfast time) history can be the newest addition to your collection for $20.

If you were a child in the 80's you or a friend or a sister probably had a charmkins toy. They were cute little character charms made by Hasbro. This is from cel is from a TV commercial that was done by the
 same studio that did Hasbro's My Little Pony Commercials (and it shows). The characters are: Twinkle, Hyacinthia,  Brown-eyed Susan, and Bouncing Bet. Charmkins got one short movie and a handful of commercials so animation art is very rare. This set-up is several cels on a laser-copy background, yours for $30.




As we mentioned earlier we're animation cel collector ourselves and have built up a sizeable gallery (please note that cels in our personal collection are NOT for sale) over the years, so when we decide to sell something from our collection it goes in the shop meaning we've have a decent selection of cels available for sale most of the time. It's also worth noting that while we mostly sell original production pieces made in the process of making an animation, but we do occasionally have reproduction cels, collector's cels and fan cels. Non production cels are just made as collectible items and were not pieces used in the production of a given film or series, they're pretty but usally a lot less valuable (and often can be one of 100's made). When buying cels you should always double check the item you're getting.

~Stephanie

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