Magazine

BUYING ORIGINAL ANIMATION ART (PART TWO)

By Peter Adamakos

Two issues ago my article touched on how original animation art was sold to the public starting in the 1930s and how the market has evolved. The usual rules for buying any kind of art apply to animation art as well: Buy what you like and buy the best quality you can afford. Seri-cels, limited edition “artwork” whether hand inked or painted or both, are secondary markets and not worth buying. Just because a moment of animation is reproduced on a cel, it is not intrinsically worth any more than reproducing it on a mug or a T-shirt. A reproduction is a reproduction, and a fake is a fake. Buy original production only, and make your own cel of Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti if you can’t afford one. Yours may be as good as the one painted by some $9.63 per hour artisan at Walt Disney World and won’t cost you over two thousand dollars.

So how should you go about choosing which artwork to buy?  You can buy whatever you enjoy and have an accumulation of favorites, which is fine. You may want a collection, which means specializing somehow. You can specialize in a specific film, or TV series, a studio, have an all-villains collection, or even collect the work of a specific animator. One of the joys of animation art collecting is that however you specialize, within that parameter you will have a great diversity as a rule, of subject and style. Study and learn all you can about your choice by reading as much as possible. What obscure films did a studio of your choice do? If you want a drawing of every character from a certain film, make a list and know what the secondary and rarer characters look like so you will know them when they appear for sale. I have bought fine old artwork which was misidentified to my benefit because I knew more about the characters than the seller. A crocodile from PETER PAN was really Ben Ali Gator from FANTASIA in one case for about a tenth of its value.

Your artistic sense and observant eye will also help you when choosing artwork. A key drawing is more interesting than an inbetween drawing. The poses are stronger and were done by the main animator of the scene almost all the time. Looking at my drawings of the devil Chernabog from FANTASIA, for example, you can see that those done by the main animator, Bill Tytla, are indeed stronger than the rest, powerful and impressive as they also are. He initialed his drawings with a “T”, others by their initials quite often.

If there are no initials, or you do not know who the main animator was for a scene or major character, your own knowledge of animation may help. There may be an animation “ladder” on the page, another major clue. The animator may have made drawings 34 and 38 let’s say, and left drawings 35, 36, and 37 for an inbetweener to do. The keys, 34 and 38 require his skills and define the moment and the timing, the others, while required to be done well, merely carry the action forward between those two strong poses. On one of the keys will be a small grid, looking something like a ladder with steps. The top step will be numbered 34, the bottom one 38 and those inbetween w5, 36 and 37. The “steps” will be spaced equally apart for general timing, or some of the steps may be closer to others. The spacing indicates timing, so drawing 34 and 35 may be close together, 35 and 36 have more space between them, drawings 36 and 37 even more space between them and so on, indicating that the action will be speeding up as the character goes from the pose in drawing 34 and that in drawing 38. The ladder imparts information between animator and inbetweener.

Don’t forget that one can always trade artwork with other collectors. We can build our collections  easier if every transaction doesn’t mean the outlay of cold hard cash. I have traded for decades now, and my last trade was a few months ago when I traded a Tinkerbell from PETER PAN for three old Donald Ducks. The former was from the famous scene when she is on the mirror, the Donalds were from 1936. A good deal and a fair one is when both parties are happy with the trade. Was one side worth more than the other? Who knows? Who cares? We were both satisfied.

There is much much more involved with choosing original animation art, too much to go into here. I will be happy to hear from anyone who would like to get together as collectors or  to get help or advice—or even trade!

  ------

Peter Adamakos has been a collector of original animation artwork for over 35 years. His collection has formed the basis of major museum exhibitions in cities like Montreal, New York, Toronto, Tampa, Paris, Atlanta, Brussels and many more. His 29 year-old animation company has moved to Ottawa. He can be reached at or P.O. Box 37009, 3332 McCarthy Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1V OWO.