Mainly wondering how they avoided discoloration or the presence of brushstrokes. Thanks!
Found in Technology.
Also the paint colors were available in slightly different variations to accommodate the layering of animation cels.
If a character had a blue jacket for instance the blue would be Blue 0. And if you were going to animate just the characters arm. You would separate and animate the arm movements on a cel above the previous cel but if you used Jacket Blue 0 the top layered cel would shift the color of the blue layer beneath it when photographed. So you would paint the arm with a slightly different blue, a specially formulated Jacket Blue 1 to accommodate the slight color shift and in the final result the two Jacket Blue pigments would appear identical.
RE the presence of brush strokes, they use a specific kind of acrylic paint that goes on very consistently. When I was really getting into sculpting I read about Cel-Vinyl paints that Kat Sapene (amazing sculpture painter) uses. Here’s what she has to say about it:
“KS: I like to use animation cel-vinyl to paint my projects. It’s very similar to acrylic paints. But because it was meant to be used to paint animation cels (the individual frames that make up cartoons), the paint is very opaque. This means fewer layers of paint that need to be applied and therefore I don’t have to worry about paint buildup distorting the original sculpt. Aside from being opaque, cel-vinyl dries quickly, keeps its color over time, and is slightly flexible. The flexibility allows for handling without much chipping. And the paint is very versatile. It can be used for a wash, a dry brush, or even through an airbrush. I love it!”
(https://www.darkhorse.com/Interviews/1629/Technically-Colored-Interview-with-Kat-Sapene-10-09-08)
So I went to the manufacturer and got those paints! Sure enough they are extremely even and bold, and because they supplied the painting professionals their colors were always consistent.
Edit: a words
Cel vinyl paint. It was all premixed and put into tubes, ready to be used by the colorists. so there was no need to mix colors when it was time to paint. that’s where you would run into inconsistencies with paint color.
There were no brush strokes in the color because for one, it was painted on the back of the cels so the camera, and you the viewer was really just seeing the underside of painting behind some thin plastic. Also cel vinyl had a thick, almost glue-like consistency so it flattened out quickly and evenly when painting. Artists didn’t need the built up layers that oils or even acrylic needs to get rich, even color.
I painted a lot of artwork with cel vinyl, just because of those qualities. It was the best! Sadly the only company that produced cel vinyl paint, Cartoon Colour Company just quietly went out of business a couple years ago.
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