Painting cels, the clear sheets of plastic that are photographed and turned into anime, is not a lesiurely artists' endeavor in Japan; it's a high-pressure, low-paid assembly line. Steve Bennett of Studio Ironcat, in the confederate hat on the right, survived a decade of animation work in Japan and tried to bring a bit of that life to AWA members. First, he ordered everyone to wash their hands so they wouldn't get the cels greasy, then he marched them to the front of the room to pick up their cels.

"Cel" is the correct spelling with one "L" for the drawings on clear plastic. Before they're ready for photographing on the animation stand, they must be colored - and that is where the cel painter comes into play. Bennett circled the room and instructed the workshop students on the patient care they needed to use to properly complete their task.

This workshop produced one of this author's favorite images of AWA: a young woman in a carefully-prepared Pretty Sammy costume, sitting down to color a cel of Lum from Urusei Yatsura, one of the author's favorite characters.

While the author is a Lum fan, he is no artist; selecting a Lum cel from those provided by Bennett (who spent years drawing and coloring Lum for Studio Pierrot), the author tried to recall the color combinations he had seen and made a valiant effort to recreate the character's distinctive look.

This is as far as the author got; an amateurish attempt to recreate the coloring that a professional would generate. After his tentative paint-mixing experiment produced a ruddishly-pink face for the Oni princess, the author gave up while he had caused minimal damage to the cell - uh, cel.

This is the way Lum should look, as portrayed on the cover of the audio CD purchased by the author at the AWA dealer room.