Cell Animation

Cel Animation

In 1910 Earl Hurd at John Bray studios invented the Cel animation process. A cel is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. This type was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate.

Generally, the characters are drawn on cels and laid over a static background drawing.

An advantage of cel animation is that the creator does not have to keep drawing the same image as the animation is set up in layers.

the only disadvantage to cell animation is that it takes a long time to produce a cartoon or film due to the huge amount of frames needed to make movement and is very time consuming as well, and because of this it is more expensive to produce 2D/traditionally animation films. 

Here are two examples of Cel animation: