Original cartoon art has become a collectors item and some of the really old pieces are really very expensive. a quick search on the internet will give you an idea of prices but well into hundreds of dollars for some pieces.
Many of the really memorable cartoon characters came from the 1930’s to the 1960’s and include felix the cat, mickey mouse, goofy, bugs bunny to name just a few.
The really expensive original cartoon art comes from the famous movies such as Snow White and Fantasia and they are getting harder and harder to find now as the original cells are being bought by avid collectors.
There are however different types of original cartoon art ranging from the original art production cells to the original storyboards and backgrounds and all of them have their own avid collectors and prices.Some are harder to get than others.
Let us take a quick look at the different types of original cartoon art:
The most poular collectable art is the production cells. These are one of a kind and hand painted and each one was painstakingly made with hours of love and then individually photographed. The cels can actually consist of more than one layer as backgrounds and characters were added to change the final outcome. The cels were rear painted on celluloid hence the name animation “cells.”
To make the production process faster, only the parts of the animation that change were painted on a cell. So talthough there are thousands of cells, traditionally only a couple of hundred are complete scenes and worth collecting.
These really are one of a kind and are by far the most popular pieces but be prepared to empty your wallet as some of these cells run into thousands of dollars.
Prior to painting the original cartoon art cells pencil drawings were normally made of each cell. Often these drawings also include notes to the artists about layout, action sequences and other important tips and reminders. These tend to add to the value. These drawings are very raw basic drawings and give a real behind the movie look.
Another essential part of any cartoon movie is the background and also the storyboard. The storyboard is normally the 1st part to be produced and tend to be damaged or lost so it is really hard to find these making them expensive. The storyboards include all the tips about the camera angles and notes to the animators. The storyboards tend to be a number of smaller pencil drawn pictures on one sheet.
Backgrounds are really rare to find but serious collectors want them once they have all of the above. It sort of becomes an life search to have every part of the production process.
Original cartoon art has become a very popular commodety recently and to keep up with demand hand painted limited edition sets were created especially for collectors. These were not the original cells from the production run but more like collectors limited editions. These hand drawn pieces tend to have lots of characters in them which a collector of originals knows is not the normal in cell production. Normally there are only a couple of hundred of these produced at a time.
Then there are what is called serigraph cells. these are normally mass produced to a limit of about 2-3,000 pieces and are less expensive but still produced one at a time. They are normally silk screen printed but still of very high quality. This is often a starting point for collectors.
Lastly in this run down of original cartoon art is what is known as Giclles. these are high quality prints normally printed on canvas. They are reasonble priced yet high quality.
When choosing original cartoon art there is no right or wrong but rather what moves you. They may make you laugh or cry, but if you love them then you have got to have them.
If you are a collector, then cherish your art as they are running out and what we have now might be the last of the original cartoon art. Get more information about original cartoon art.