Own a piece of animation history!
 

We started collecting Animation Cels in the late 1970's and now have over 125 pieces of Animation Art. We have reached a point where we need to downsize our collection and are offering the opportunity to collect our Original Production Art to others. Each piece is one-of-a-kind and not mass produced prints or serigraphs/sericels.

Most of our collection comes from Classic Disney Animation and is in the form of Original Production Drawings and Original Production Cels. Each piece represents 1/24th of a second of an animated movie. Disney used a 24 frame per second standard to achieve the high quality of its animation. Each frame was comprised of individual, hand painted animation cels filmed against a hand painted background from the early cartoons thru "The Little Mermaid". "Beauty and the Beast" was the first Disney animation using computer colored cels, ending the hand-painted tradition used for so many years for Disney's feature animation. A few drawings and Hand Painted backgrounds do exist, but hand painted cels were no longer used in this production or those that have followed.

Our collection includes pieces from all Classic Feature Animations from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" through "The Little Mermaid" as well as drawings from select early cartoons including Disney's first - "Plane Crazy" - created prior to "Steam Boat Willie", but released afterwards. Also include are a number of cels from the "Mickey Mouse Club" of the 1950's and "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in the 1960's.

We are offering our entire collection for sale. Please contact us for pricing on individual pieces. Pricing has been set for most pieces at our cost including framing where applicable, but if you see something you like, please make an offer as we are eager to downsize the collection. We do have some favorite pieces that will be hard to part with and these pieces have been appropriately priced to reflect that but everything does have a price, so feel free to make an offer.

The cels in our collection were acquired from a variety of sources over the past 30+ yerars including "Art of Disney" at Downtown Disney and EPCOT, "Suspended Animation" at Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World, various art galleries and from internet sources as well as art auctions. All are framed (except as noted) using acid free materials and museum grade UV plexiglass. Many have computer generated backgrounds as well as backgrounds created from original production backgrounds.

The animation images do not represent our entire collection, but please check back as additional pieces are still being added.

If you have any specific questions, please ask. We may be reached at Animation@AnimationSuspended.com .

Here is a brief glossary of terms used in Animation Art:

Original Production Drawings (OPD) - artwork created as the initial step in the animation process. Animation cels were made by tracing the outlines of the drawings.

Original Production Cels (OPC) - traced from OPD and colored by the Ink and Paint Department to create the celluloid images later filmed against a Production Background. Multiple cels were filmed against a single background to create the illusion of motion. Disney used a standard of 24 frames per second in its classic animations.

Certificate of authenticity - Methods of authenticating artwork by Studios and Galleries.

Courvoisier Gallery - San Francisco art gallery owned by Guthrie Courvoisier had the foresight to see the value in Disney animation cels. Gained agreement with Walt Disney to resell animation art from Disney films from "Snow White" through "Bambi" (1938 - 1946). Courvoisier created original backgrounds art for many of the cels he sold which he priced from a few dollars up to around $50 for those with original Production Backgrounds. These pieces are today valued at many thousands of dollars.

Nine-Old-Men - name given by Walt for a group of his key animators from the 1950's. Included were Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsberry, Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, Woolie Reitherman, Les Clark, Eric Larson and Milt Kahl.

Frank Thomas - One of Walt's "Nine Old Men".

Ollie Johnston - One of Walt's "Nine Old Men".

Bill Justice - Began his Disney career in 1937 as an Animator. He directed a number of animations and later was moved to WED where he programmed audio-animatronic figures for Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Country Bear Jamboree. He was named a Disney Legend in 1996.

Art Corner - A shop located in Tomorrowland when Disneyland opened in 1955 to sell Disney Animation Art. In 1955 cels from Disney animations sold for two or three dollars. Art sold at the Art Corner display a unique Gold Label on the back.

Thanks to all who have contacted us about these cels. We are very pleased with the interest so far and are looking forward to more inquiries.

We have been updating photos of these cels to send to those who have contacted us asking for more information, so if you do have any questions about a particluar cel please let us know. The images on the website will eventually be updated, but for now we are happy to send them as jpegs.

Thanks again to all who have taken a look at these moments of Disney animation!

We are in the process of uploading images to the DIS Photopost site - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/u436922...suspended.html .

If you have any questions about any of the animation art, please let us know. We will be offering some special opportunities in the near future.

Thanks for looking! :)

Here is one of our favorites from the opening sequence of the Mickey Mouse Club of the 1950's. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...MCOpening2.jpg

Creating a custom background (and sometimes foreground) image can really make a wonderful display of an animation cel. Some cels have pre-created backgrounds. These are typically from stock backgrounds, sometimes even images of backgrounds used in the film itself. It is a bit rare to find an actual matching background from the film and those combined images can add great value to the cel. The backgrounds are unique themselves and also sought after by collectors.

For our Robin Hood cel - our first acquisition back in 1979 - we displayed it for years in the same frame it came in from the gallery. After about 10 years, we had it re-matted just to let the piece "breathe" before going back under glass.

A few years ago, I started playing around with some free software that allowed me to grab individual frames from DVDs and then edit them to create matching backgrounds. Our first was Peter Pan and Wendy, but I finally got around to trying to create a background for our Robin Hood, Little John cel(s). These are two separate cels, mounted together for the presentation. Disney sometimes will combine two cels even if they are not from the same frame in order to create a more appealing presentation due to character expression.

Here is a the original cel (without any background - click for a larger image) - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14.../RobinJohn.JPG

Here is the actual frame the Robin Hood cel comes from - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/1461/thumbs/Robin.jpg - note the difference in the Little John image in this cel.

Here is the actual frame the Little John cel comes from - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/1461/thumbs/John1.jpg - again note the difference in the Robin Hood image in this cel.

The background and foreground from all of these images are identical. Only the actual cels filmed against the artwork are different since each character is animated separately - often by different artists. Here is the edited background - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...und-bright.jpg

... and here is the edited foreground - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...und-bright.jpg

The background and foreground images were printed on acid free paper and printed using archival inks. The cel was then layed over the background and the foreground placed over that to create the final presentation - http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...LittleJohn.jpg

We have also created similar custom backgrounds for our http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...s/Cruella2.jpgCruella DeVille, http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...bs/Icabod2.jpgIcabod Crane, http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...s/MrToad_2.jpgThaddeus J Toad, http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...mbs/Witch2.jpgWitch (from Snow White), http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/1460/thumbs/Nana2.jpgNana and http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...ter-Wendy2.jpgPeter Pan/Wendy cels. (click on an image for a larger view.)

Almost all of our cels are available for viewing right here on the DIS Photopost site. Please visit us at Animation Suspended.

Thanks for looking!

If you have questions about the process, the cels or pricing, please let me know! :)

For the next two weeks we are offering discounted pricing on the following multiple purchases (click on an image for a larger view):

From 1985's The Black Cauldron:

Gurgi (priced individually at $345) http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...mbs/Gurgi2.jpg
Creeper and Soldiers (priced individually at $425)http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...rSoldiers3.jpg

$500 if purchased together!

From 1959's Sleeping Beauty:

Flora (priced individually at $395) http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...mbs/Flora2.jpg
Fauna (priced individually at $595)http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...mbs/Fauna2.jpg
Merryweather (priced individually at $595)http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...ryweather2.jpg

$995 if purchased together!

Baloo (priced individually at $750)http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...mbs/Baloo2.jpg
Baloo original production drawing (priced individually at $175)http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/data/14...aloo_-_OPD.jpg

$750 if purchased together!

We still have about 100 Original Production Cels and Original Production Drawings. If there are any that interest you, please contact about pricing or other information!