| This page last visited Steve Bennett's cel painting workshop at Anime
Weekend Atlanta III. Invited back by the Studio Ironcat artist, we headed
down the hall to the room where Bennett held court, meeting old friends... |
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| ...and we found that the room was packed with people who were learning
about the least glamorous job in anime; hand-painting the cels which make
up each show. Before the cels are photographed, one after another in sequence,
they must be colored. In Japan, it takes hours of intense work to get the
colors right. Get it wrong and even at film's 24 frames per second, an
error stands out and could mean an anime sequence needs to be reshot. |
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| We couldn't help but peek over the shoulders of a few of the participants.
This effort looks as if it's off to a good start. The artist seems to have
a good idea of shading and highlights, having colored those areas before
applying the overall skin tone. |
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| This one doesn't look as good, showing how hard it can be to get those
skin tones just right. While cel painters have some colors pre-mixed for
them, they often must create tones by mixing primary colors. It's something
that anime fans don't appreciate until they take Bennett's workshop. His
classes at anime conventions give fans a better understanding of the work
and skill that go into the films they enjoy. It's also fun to play a grown-up
version of coloring with Bennett's nicely drawn cels of fan-favorite characters. |
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