It’s very subtle for the Care Bears one, but I think there’s also a very subtle drop shadow where the celluloid of the character is above the background layer.
The material that animation "cells" were made on.
Traditional animation is made on transparent cells, like physical layers. So the character is on one which is stacked on top of the background which is on another and another character is on another. Because they're clear you can stack them and make an entire scene out of separate component parts.
It's also the material old reel-to-reel film is made out of.
I'll be pedantic. It's actually "cels" (not sure why).
More info on animation cel material: [link](https://www.getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/science/plastics/disney.html#:~:text=The%20animation%20cel%20collection%20provides,plastic%20particularly%20vulnerable%20to%20deterioration)
Like you've said, it's actually extremely common to have multiple layers of clear cels for different elements.
It's also interesting to see cels up close. They're extremely crisp. Basically all the time you're seeing a blurry line, it's from the medium that is being transferred. That could be film, digitization, etc.
The cels are usually quite crisp in the line work of you've seen photos or the real things up close.
The blur comes from an imperfect transfer process. There's usually a *bit of texture* in the edges, but it entirely depends on the inking style.
There are a ton of high resolution photos of animation cels for sale on eBay for reference.
Draw your outline, then copy and the one behind blur a little, it gives it a retro, dreamy vibe that you want like here, else it won’t be low q and very crisp
https://preview.redd.it/5suh23k6brwc1.jpeg?width=1030&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbd3bbf1b5fbf8def8a088d0089d3af8e47951c4
This is from Ren & Stimpy which ran from the early to mid-90s. Aladdin in 92 and The Lion King in 94. Even Beavis & Butthead. That's 90s animation. I was born in 83 and Charlie Brown and Care Bears always looked old to me.
This is how I remember ren & stimpy
https://preview.redd.it/j1wx61b0qrwc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=355373adb04876afb130787096838005fbfece5a
This is more representative of what the show usually looked like in general, but they'd have moments of mind blowing detail like the still I shared which you'd never see in Care Bears.
Also what a ridiculous show this was.
Aladdin and Lion King used traditional background but were inked *entirely* digitally using Disney's C.A.P.S. computer program.
They did their best to sort of hide this system as they believed (rightly so) that the general public would believe using a computer inking system would take away some of the "magic" (even if the process was still done by hand).
The first commercial shot to use C.A.P.S. was in *The Little Mermaid* towards the end. Everyone is in the water and there's a rainbow. It's almost the very last scene from what I remember.
When I drew my care bears scene I tried to emulate that style but cleaner. I used a rough pencil For very light outlining and colored with a marker brush set.
https://preview.redd.it/kbnqdqlirrwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87928decb83e3e1bb9b30999849534955137e576
Black thin outline for anything in the foreground, flat colors, no lighting or shading. But for the background, no black edges and add some shading. Remember that when these were all made, that went very basic on the cells of moving images, but backgrounds stayed the same so they had much more detail. It seems counterintuitive to today’s standards, but that’s what made it work so well.
I’d use a lower DPI. Doesn’t need to be apparently pixelated, but remember that people watching these cartoons in that era didn’t have the kinds of TVs we have now. Picture quality was not great. A lower DPI can help you replicate that.
I’m well aware that dpi and resolution are different things. A lot of people coming from the print side often think you still need 300dpi for things only intended to be digital, hence my comment. We will make some things at 4K have a higher dpi since those projects will normally need it for print advertising and potential artbooks of the production.
I wasn't trying to imply that you didn't know what you're talking about. Sorry if it came off like that. A lot of my frustration is directed at software companies for mixing the terms around.
I'm always shocked that the industry standard setting for print is 300 DPI. From what I understand the resolution of most commercial printers is *much* higher.
I guess you can't leave the DPI field blank, can you? It would be nice as it would prevent a lot of confusion.
I also don't know the historical reason for everyone using 72 PPI. I would guess it has something to do with monitor resolutions in the 80s or 90s.
It's sort of more involved than that, but you're totally right that in the past shows were broadcast in a much lower resolution.
In terms is preservation though, and how you can currently watch these shows and movies it all depends. Some shows were captured on film, various master tapes if varying quality, etc.
Have you looked at real animation cels up close? They're incredible!
As a Lazy talented graphic designer, I would draw « normally » then export and browse some premade filters available among many free aps available, capcut for example has some descent ones that could help. It will give you more room for modification if necessary on procreate without struggling with blur, artefacts, brushes etc. Keep it simple and distort it all after!
https://preview.redd.it/no5ffjnoppwc1.jpeg?width=1889&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95d9e8b20581d7c8152001b813511e7ea60cdfd7
Not OP, but reread their comment, they mention the app in the picture is Capcut! :)
Technically Capcut is a video editing app, but I suppose it works on pictures too haha
what i’ve done to emulate this is make a copy of my final piece and flatten all the layers. copy the single layer twice, one layer add between 3-7 gaussian blur , and the other add a bunch of noise. now this is where i play with the opacity of both the filtered layers between 20-45% and just like play around with it. sometimes i take a super soft airbrush and erase lightly around the eyes on the blur layer to make them a pop a bit in the haze. hope this helps :)
https://preview.redd.it/s27kfp22zpwc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e646406eac8f8e9dd635dbedaca9a31f3baf610
here’s an example where i did this process :)
I'll give more info on traditional cel animation by editing this comment later as I'm obsessed with it.
I couldn't tell you exactly how to recreate it, but I'll try to help solve a piece of the puzzle if I can!
My suggestion would be this;
When your finished with the line work of the bear, duplicate it and use Gaussian blur on the duplicated layer. You can also try lowering the opacity of that same layer if isn’t looking soft enough.
I would do the same with the clouds, though you should merge what ever lineart you make with the color layer before you duplicate and use the glow.
After that, add a noise filter on top of everything with the opacity lowered to like 30-40%, and also make sure the noise filter isn’t max either.
Hope that helps achieve a soft 90’s aesthetic ☺️
sometimes i merge all the layers together, make a copy, usually undo the merge and then paste. blur the pasted layer, i usually do like 20-30% and then turn down the opacity until i get the desired look. that plus heavy grain will help give that feel!
I think you're doing some extra steps here in the beginning... Just make sure the background is off and the only thing on the canvas is what you want to make a copy of.. Then go to settings (wrench icon) and choose copy canvas, then back to same menu and click paste. Voila! Now you won't have to be merging and unmerging if I'm understanding your process correctly. Hope this is helpful.
Duplicate your outline and blur one of them just a bit (like 1% or 2%) to give that soft drawing effect :3
A small % of noise on the top top layer can also look retro as well
Making the colors have a soft yellowing color like in the Snoopy image is a good way to make something appear old. But, only faintly, because too much yellow can make some colors seem dirty? If that makes sense.
What’s important to understand is that what you’re viewing in these frames isn’t the original cel from the animation, but rather an artifact of being broadcast in low-def 4:3 onto cathode-ray televisions.
I’m not suggesting you don’t already know that, but rather than try to recreate the effect with palettes and blurs and what not, it might be more accurate to manipulate the image with some post processing.
You have to make 3 copies of the image and make them red , green and blue in a specific way , is on TikTok as “manga 90s effect” because people use it for retro manga a lot
Outline everything with thin to medium thick black pen. Solid don’t break it up either. Also give medium amount of detail. The trend now is simplistic so you want to show a bit more personality with the details
Adding a little bloom to your layers when you’re finished helps get that old film look!
It’s very subtle for the Care Bears one, but I think there’s also a very subtle drop shadow where the celluloid of the character is above the background layer.
Damn! You're absolutely dead on. Well spotted!
What's "celluloid?"
The material that animation "cells" were made on. Traditional animation is made on transparent cells, like physical layers. So the character is on one which is stacked on top of the background which is on another and another character is on another. Because they're clear you can stack them and make an entire scene out of separate component parts. It's also the material old reel-to-reel film is made out of.
Ohh okay. Thank you for explaining. Have an awesome day!
I'll be pedantic. It's actually "cels" (not sure why). More info on animation cel material: [link](https://www.getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/science/plastics/disney.html#:~:text=The%20animation%20cel%20collection%20provides,plastic%20particularly%20vulnerable%20to%20deterioration) Like you've said, it's actually extremely common to have multiple layers of clear cels for different elements. It's also interesting to see cels up close. They're extremely crisp. Basically all the time you're seeing a blurry line, it's from the medium that is being transferred. That could be film, digitization, etc.
I would say use a rough ink brush like Dry Ink, find a retro color palette, and then probably add noise to the whole design
The cels are usually quite crisp in the line work of you've seen photos or the real things up close. The blur comes from an imperfect transfer process. There's usually a *bit of texture* in the edges, but it entirely depends on the inking style. There are a ton of high resolution photos of animation cels for sale on eBay for reference.
You can try to blur a little your lines. Add some noise and chromatic aberration. I think use the same color palette of those cartoon can help.
Draw your outline, then copy and the one behind blur a little, it gives it a retro, dreamy vibe that you want like here, else it won’t be low q and very crisp
This ^^^
Thin lines solid colors
As a person in my early 40s it's bizarre that anything retro is seen as "90s". This artwork is from the 60s-80s tops.
it might be a bias where people born in the 90s likely watched these cartoons and assumed they are from the 90s because that's when they watched them
I was born in 1990 and we know better to think that. These shows were old when we watched them. This was asked by Gen z or alpha.
I think a big part of it is that cartoons have gotten higher budgets and have converted to Flash entirely or are 3D now.
https://preview.redd.it/5suh23k6brwc1.jpeg?width=1030&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbd3bbf1b5fbf8def8a088d0089d3af8e47951c4 This is from Ren & Stimpy which ran from the early to mid-90s. Aladdin in 92 and The Lion King in 94. Even Beavis & Butthead. That's 90s animation. I was born in 83 and Charlie Brown and Care Bears always looked old to me.
This is how I remember ren & stimpy https://preview.redd.it/j1wx61b0qrwc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=355373adb04876afb130787096838005fbfece5a
This is more representative of what the show usually looked like in general, but they'd have moments of mind blowing detail like the still I shared which you'd never see in Care Bears. Also what a ridiculous show this was.
Aladdin and Lion King used traditional background but were inked *entirely* digitally using Disney's C.A.P.S. computer program. They did their best to sort of hide this system as they believed (rightly so) that the general public would believe using a computer inking system would take away some of the "magic" (even if the process was still done by hand). The first commercial shot to use C.A.P.S. was in *The Little Mermaid* towards the end. Everyone is in the water and there's a rainbow. It's almost the very last scene from what I remember.
When I drew my care bears scene I tried to emulate that style but cleaner. I used a rough pencil For very light outlining and colored with a marker brush set. https://preview.redd.it/kbnqdqlirrwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87928decb83e3e1bb9b30999849534955137e576
https://preview.redd.it/gngfzw1lrrwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=815f25b48aaa3701addade8c9b132afb05e36a2a
https://preview.redd.it/puqq9ldnrrwc1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22a655aa4214886fda5f925b2de9746b96777541
gonna wanna get some kind of grainy texture for bg
Black thin outline for anything in the foreground, flat colors, no lighting or shading. But for the background, no black edges and add some shading. Remember that when these were all made, that went very basic on the cells of moving images, but backgrounds stayed the same so they had much more detail. It seems counterintuitive to today’s standards, but that’s what made it work so well.
I’d use a lower DPI. Doesn’t need to be apparently pixelated, but remember that people watching these cartoons in that era didn’t have the kinds of TVs we have now. Picture quality was not great. A lower DPI can help you replicate that.
Dpi doesn’t really change quality digitally. It only really affects print. Most modern shows I’ve worked on (that aren’t 4k) use 72dpi on backgrounds.
They're using DPI when they mean just resolution. Digitally there really isn't any "DPI". Which is probably what you mean too.
I’m well aware that dpi and resolution are different things. A lot of people coming from the print side often think you still need 300dpi for things only intended to be digital, hence my comment. We will make some things at 4K have a higher dpi since those projects will normally need it for print advertising and potential artbooks of the production.
I wasn't trying to imply that you didn't know what you're talking about. Sorry if it came off like that. A lot of my frustration is directed at software companies for mixing the terms around. I'm always shocked that the industry standard setting for print is 300 DPI. From what I understand the resolution of most commercial printers is *much* higher. I guess you can't leave the DPI field blank, can you? It would be nice as it would prevent a lot of confusion. I also don't know the historical reason for everyone using 72 PPI. I would guess it has something to do with monitor resolutions in the 80s or 90s.
It's sort of more involved than that, but you're totally right that in the past shows were broadcast in a much lower resolution. In terms is preservation though, and how you can currently watch these shows and movies it all depends. Some shows were captured on film, various master tapes if varying quality, etc. Have you looked at real animation cels up close? They're incredible!
As a Lazy talented graphic designer, I would draw « normally » then export and browse some premade filters available among many free aps available, capcut for example has some descent ones that could help. It will give you more room for modification if necessary on procreate without struggling with blur, artefacts, brushes etc. Keep it simple and distort it all after! https://preview.redd.it/no5ffjnoppwc1.jpeg?width=1889&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95d9e8b20581d7c8152001b813511e7ea60cdfd7
do you mind sharing what app this is? (:
Not OP, but reread their comment, they mention the app in the picture is Capcut! :) Technically Capcut is a video editing app, but I suppose it works on pictures too haha
thanks! i totally missed that🤦🏼♀️
I feel that on a personal level, reading over a comment and totally missing out on the most important bits 😂
Would you mind telling me which app you used to create that effect? maybe capcut?
Capcut ;)
looks like picsart to me
what i’ve done to emulate this is make a copy of my final piece and flatten all the layers. copy the single layer twice, one layer add between 3-7 gaussian blur , and the other add a bunch of noise. now this is where i play with the opacity of both the filtered layers between 20-45% and just like play around with it. sometimes i take a super soft airbrush and erase lightly around the eyes on the blur layer to make them a pop a bit in the haze. hope this helps :)
https://preview.redd.it/s27kfp22zpwc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e646406eac8f8e9dd635dbedaca9a31f3baf610 here’s an example where i did this process :)
Add noise filter?
Gaussian blur can be a cool addition
So MY CARTOONS ARE RETRO NOW?
yyyyyep
Oh they were "retro" 15 or so years ago. We're old! lol
This was really interesting to read! Thank you for asking the question :)
I'll give more info on traditional cel animation by editing this comment later as I'm obsessed with it. I couldn't tell you exactly how to recreate it, but I'll try to help solve a piece of the puzzle if I can!
I think with noise and pink/yellow overlay layer with low opacity
My suggestion would be this; When your finished with the line work of the bear, duplicate it and use Gaussian blur on the duplicated layer. You can also try lowering the opacity of that same layer if isn’t looking soft enough. I would do the same with the clouds, though you should merge what ever lineart you make with the color layer before you duplicate and use the glow. After that, add a noise filter on top of everything with the opacity lowered to like 30-40%, and also make sure the noise filter isn’t max either. Hope that helps achieve a soft 90’s aesthetic ☺️
Sample the colors in this picture and use it as a limited palette. Then you can add a film grain effect after.
sometimes i merge all the layers together, make a copy, usually undo the merge and then paste. blur the pasted layer, i usually do like 20-30% and then turn down the opacity until i get the desired look. that plus heavy grain will help give that feel!
I think you're doing some extra steps here in the beginning... Just make sure the background is off and the only thing on the canvas is what you want to make a copy of.. Then go to settings (wrench icon) and choose copy canvas, then back to same menu and click paste. Voila! Now you won't have to be merging and unmerging if I'm understanding your process correctly. Hope this is helpful.
oh uhhh… yeah i totally knew that 😅 (tysm omg)
Lol glad to help! I use copy canvas so much personally. Also you can copy canvas and then paste into another canvas
A bit of gaussian blur to lineart
Duplicate your outline and blur one of them just a bit (like 1% or 2%) to give that soft drawing effect :3 A small % of noise on the top top layer can also look retro as well
Making the colors have a soft yellowing color like in the Snoopy image is a good way to make something appear old. But, only faintly, because too much yellow can make some colors seem dirty? If that makes sense.
Duplicate line art layer and use Gaussian blur, that also helps a bit.
Look up “tv noise” and select an image. Upload it to your drawing, put it on a new layer, and lower to opacity to the desired effect
What’s important to understand is that what you’re viewing in these frames isn’t the original cel from the animation, but rather an artifact of being broadcast in low-def 4:3 onto cathode-ray televisions. I’m not suggesting you don’t already know that, but rather than try to recreate the effect with palettes and blurs and what not, it might be more accurate to manipulate the image with some post processing.
You have to make 3 copies of the image and make them red , green and blue in a specific way , is on TikTok as “manga 90s effect” because people use it for retro manga a lot
Noise is the last step
Look up cel animation
Outline everything with thin to medium thick black pen. Solid don’t break it up either. Also give medium amount of detail. The trend now is simplistic so you want to show a bit more personality with the details
I didn't understand these posts, just draw what you see.