How was it done in the past ?

Inking and painting of animation is a Production process where the frames are painted. In the past when the animators complete the final drawings they ink and color it with black ink. But with the changing technology animators introduced a big range of color palette rather than using monochromatic scheme of black ink.

In this segment we will experience how does the old masters color 2d animation drawings. This process is special because color is not directly applied on paper. So lets see the process, where we have a character sketch and a background with a rough animation, now will start from clean up of rough drawings.

Ohp sheet kept over a paper drawing

This is the process of drawing on paper, animating and colouring on celluloid sheets by hand, which are then photographed under rostrum camera and that to layer by layer. The ohp sheets are painted and then should be dried up in a clean and spacious environment. The production pipeline of the whole work-flow required to be designed in a way that it is able to supply and support the work from one to another level irrespective of the flaws. The Traditional ink and paint is a process used in making animation films. A lot of animators used this process to make animation until Walt Disney came up with his team and animated a full 2 hours feature length film.

Snow white and the seven dwarfs is the first classical example of Animation film by hand drawn process. This film had motivated and still inspires people throughout the world of the sheer hard work and art involved in it. But unfortunately what was already achievable in the older times is not being considered nowadays. Due to the requirement of manpower and big budget needed in hand drawn animations it is less chosen method by the animators these days. Little Mermaid was the last movie done by Disney studios, to use hand-painted cels and analog camera.

Some of the best examples of traditional process of inking and painting:
a) Snow white and seven dwarfs
b) Gulliver’s travel
c) Princess Mononoke
d) Graveyard of the fireflies

Links:
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEFkxRExzHc
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6eyrmYRk1w