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. Pro ...

. In

traditional 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. Proce ...

, 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 form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

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

photocopy A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers u ...

ing machines, and can be filtered out by

scanners ''Scanners'' is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with unusual telepathic ...

. The finished animation will be copied on

cel A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, bu ...

s 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 {{animation-stub