Clean-up is a part of the workflow in the production of
hand-drawn animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation.
Proc ...
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In
traditional animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawing, drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. ...
, the first drawings are called "roughs" or "rough animation" because they are often done in a very loose fashion. If the animation is successfully
pencil tested and approved by the director, clean versions of the
drawing
Drawing is a visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface. The instruments used to make a drawing are pencils, crayons, pens with inks, brushes with paints, or combinations of these, and in more mod ...
s have to be done. In larger
studio
A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...
s, this task is given to the animator's assistant, or, in a more specialised setting, to a clean-up-artist. The artist doing the clean-ups is responsible for the final line and finished look of the drawn character or object.
Clean-up animation is the process of creating the final drawings you see in the finished film. It does not necessarily mean a "clean" fine line. The artist, usually a team of artists, uses key drawings and animation charts from the animator, making it appear as though one artist has created the whole film. The clean-up artists will follow the intentions of the animators and stay true to performance and movement.
Clean-up is generally done on a new sheet of paper. They can be done on the same sheet as the rough animation if this was done with a "non-copy blue" pencil. This certain tone of blue will be invisible to
photocopying machines, and can be filtered out by
scanners. The finished animation will be copied on
cels or transferred into a computer for further processing.
On average, clean-up usually takes twice as long as the rough animation because of the precision and extra drawings that are required to complete a shot.
Nowadays, clean-up animation can be done digitally via graphics tablet and software.
External links
Helpful Hints For CleanUp notes at AnimationMeat.com
Animation techniques
Animation people
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