What's a cel ? Cels (or celluloid) are painting on transparant plastic sheet used to create an animation. Each cel is one "frame". They are filmed and then put behind one another to give the illusion of a continous motion. How cels are created ? There is many steps involved in the creation of an anime but I will just explain how cels themsleves are created. First, a pencile drawing of the picture is made and "xeroxed" on a plastic sheet. I say "xeroxed" because it's the company Xerox that invented that method. In reality, it's a kind of photocopier or laser printer using photoconduction to deposite a powdered ink over the plastic sheet. [Image BGC sample] Finaly the cels are painted. It's done from the back of the plastic sheet, like those stickers you put inside of your windows to be looked at from the outside. [Image back cel] [Image front cel] Usualy, when painting cels, the person first do one color on all the cels from a sequence. Then, when he is finished, the paint on the first cel had the time to dry and is ready for the next color. What's a key cel ? Each parts of an animation is broken down in many sequences, each representing a single action. In a sequences, some cels drawing are made by "key animatores" while the rest is filled in by "normal" animators. Cels made by "key animators" are called "key cels". How to recognize a key cel ? "Key animators" draw the important "frames" of a sequence : The first frame, the last one and usualy one or several middle frames. Each cel has a code writen on it, composed from one letter followed by a number. The letter represent the layer of the cel. The number is the position of the cel in the sequence. The first cel has the number "1". The last cel can have any number (sometime even "1" for a sequence composed of a single cel) but is writen "end" next to it. Those are "key cels". There isn't any obvious way to find other key cels that are in the middle of a sequence. Example : A cel writen "A1" is the first one of the sequence. A cel writen "B34 end" is the 34th cel of the sequence and the last one. The "B" usualy mean that it's the second layer of a multi-layer cel. [ Picture BGC OP] Why key cels are generaly more valuable ? Because "key animators" are more renoved than normal animator. Also, as they have more experience, the drawing are often of better quality. It is said, that one animators with 10 years of experience are allowed to draw "key cel". But I personaly don't agree with that : Often, because of the position of the characters, the first and last cels of a sequence won't be the nicest one, even if they may be technicaly better... What's a multi-layers cel ? Some cels are composed of several plastic sheet (layers), each painted with one part of the whole picture. This is often used for group shot where each character is painted on a differant layer. The reason is that you can animate one character be painting a new layer without having to re-paint all the group. Often, especialy for close-up, the mouth, eyes and hairs of a character are also painted on a separate layer than the rest of the face. You can then "make the character talk" by painting just his mouth without re-painting the whole picture. [Pictures BGC eyes....] What about background/forground ? Background and forground are usualy water-color on cardboard. Often, they are done by separate companies than the cels. [Picture background] Why don't we see many cels with background ? A whole scene may have the same background. That's mean that there is much more cels than background. What's a genga ? Genga are drawing of important scenes made by senior animators. They are then used as model by other animators to draw douga. A genga is never used directly to make a cel and is usualy not available for sale. It's also possible to find draft of genga (rough sketch) but usualy they are not available on the market. Genga and their drafts are much more valuable than douga. [Picture BGC scene ?] What's a douga ? Douga are the "usual" drawing that comes with many cels when you buy them. They are used to make the cels. Are cels always sold with their matching drawing (douga) ? No, not always. It all depends of the studio that produced the anime. For example, AIC decided, a few years ago, to never sold their cels with the matching drawing. What's a timechart ? A timechart contains information about the position of a cel in the sequence and in the anime. They may also include information about who painted the cel. [Picture of timechart] Why is a cel more expensive than another ? That's a difficult question : There is both technical and subjective criteria that define the value of a cel. Also some anime are more popular or rarer than others and so more expensive. Technicaly, a cel is more expensive if it's a close-up, if the character has both eyes open and if he/she is from the front. Subjectivly, a cel will be more expensive if the character has a nice expression, if it looks good... What's a seri-cel (promotional cel) ? A seri-cel is like a normal cel (hand-painted over a plastic sheet) but was created for promotional purpose or to be sold. They are limited edition and are not used in the production of the anime. [Eva seri-cel] What's a machine made cel (laser copy) ? Machine made cel (or laser copy) are more similar to laminated cards than to real cel. They are not hand-painted but printed with a machine over a transparent plastic sheet. [Eva repro] What's a chroma-cel ? Chroma-cel is a trademark. They are similar to laser copies but use other technics. They may be limited editions (I am not interested enough to check :) but in anyway, that would be artificial : Contrary to promotional cels, they aren't hand-painted and as many copies of them can be printed. How to store cels ? The black lines of a cel are very sensitive to bright light and especialy to UV. For that reason, it's very important to keep them out of sun light. When storing them, you can use office binders. Also, you shouldn't stack too many cels or put something heavy over them : that's bad for the paint. Never put a cel directly over another one without puting at least a piece of paper between : the paint was designed to stick to the plastic sheet so both cels will get stuck and usualy they can't be separated again without damaging the top one. For that reason, you should never try to separate the various layers of a cel. How to frame cels ? Once again, the important thing is to avoid UV. For that reason, you should get anti-UV glass. They are not all as good and don't filter the same "%" of UV. Also, many anti-UV glass are not fully transparent and will give a sligh green or yellow hue to the cel. So check before if that's disturbing or if it's ok. There is also some spray that can be used to give an anti-UV coating to a normal glass. It's cheaper but less effective than buying special glass. Even if you got anti-UV glass, never ever put the cel under direct sunlight ! What if the pencil drawing is stuck to the cel ? If it isn't stuck too much, you can try to remove it very carefuly. But if it's too hard, just let it as it is or cut the paper : better damage the drawing than the cel !