Hand coloring cels vs. digital coloring

[Gollumbells]

I wonder how many people feel the same way as I do on this subject. #

In the first series the artwork and colours was more rustic and absolutely captivated me back when it first came out. The way they did things back in the first series seemed more ...... (hard to actually think of the word) I guess more genuine. Just the colours and the way it looked when that red light of a pokemon went into a pokeball ect.

This may sound like a rambling, but it is so hard to put into words. The new episodes are a bit too shiny I think, but some of the battles in D/P onwards have been so much better.

 

[Jaye]

Artwork and colouring in anime in general has progressed to the point where everything looks "shiny", thanks to technological advances and all that jazz. In my opinion that's really not a bad thing at all and I don't think they're over-doing it in Pokemon. I'm actually really enjoying the new - to borrow your word - "shiny" appearance of Pokemon. I feel it suits a show of this nature.

 

[Gollumbells]

I hear you, but there was something magical about the way it was. It may just be nostalgic, but that series was magical. The music, the colours as I have put it. Or it may be that I have grown up more.

 

[Jaye]

I'm no expert on animation but I don't think it was that by design. I think they were just restricted by budget and talent. Personally, I never paid much attention to the colours and such and whenever I watch an older episode I still don't notice anything remarkable about it.

But if that's how you feel about it than power to you.

 

[Adamant]

For the most part, you seem to be talking about the difference between the hand-drawn episodes and the computer-animated ones. Both methods have their pros and cons, so the switch (which happened in very late Jouto) definitely affected certain aspects of the episodes' looks negatively. Preferring hand-drawn animation to computer-animated animation is absolutely not uncommon.

 

[Dogasu]

Eh, referring to certain episodes as "hand-drawn" or "computer animated" is a bit misleading. The show is still very much drawn by human beings with pencil and paper. it's just the coloring / compositing / editing that's done with computers.

I think "hand-colored" and "digitally-colored" work better.

 

[Araragi-hakase]

If I remember right, they talked about something like this in the special that aired before Best Wishes! started. Maybe not what you're referring to exactly, but I remember them discussing animating the attacks specifically with computers to make them look ~cooler~.

I very much agree that the hand colored episodes had an element that the new coloring method lacks. When there's a show that's been on as long as Pokemon, of course there are going to be changes in the animation over time, for better or worse.

 

[Moe]

Seeing how the frame shown here looks, its a shame how comparatively washed out the end result ended up being before the digital colouring - though part of that might be the processing it went through for the dub. For vibrancy and sharpness I prefer how the digital colouring looks - but I'd imagine if they could remaster those early episodes from the originals with the more modern technology you'd get the best of both.

 

[Pidgeot]

To me, the hand-coloured episodes in the original series look much better than the digital episodes. The hand-coloured episodes have a wider range of colours and look more compelling, whereas the digitally-coloured episodes look as if they were done with less effort and love, and don't have as wide a range of colours and looks less compelling.

However, the AG and DP episodes do look a lot better, but they still don't look as impressive. Though the HD DP episodes look better than the SD ones, obviously. But the BW episodes look amazing, though the CGI hasn't really worked that well on a couple of occasions.

 

[Garren]

I very much agree that the hand colored episodes had an element that the new coloring method lacks. When there's a show that's been on as long as Pokemon, of course there are going to be changes in the animation over time, for better or worse.

To be fair, Pokemon was one of the last shows I remember switching over to digital animation.

 

[Dogasu]

It was also one of the last shows to make the switch to HD.

I guess the animators there are just behind the times?

Seeing how the frame shown here looks, its a shame how comparatively washed out the end result ended up being before the digital colouring - though part of that might be the processing it went through for the dub.

There are a lot of things that led to the colors having that washed out look back in the early days. It all depended on what kind of paint they used, how well the cels were stored before being photographed, the methods they used to convert the cels to film, etc. Getting the color you wanted back in the old days required a lot of trial and error; you paint the cel one color and hope it stays that color during the transition to film.

One of the perks of digital coloring is that you get out exactly what you put in. The guess work is gone, for the most part.

 

[Rocketshipper]

Personally, I think the show looks waaay better now than it did back in the pre-digital age. I love how bright and crisp all the color is now, the old episodes to me looked kind of grainy and dull sometimes, and I think the "smoothness" of the animation has improved a lot too. We've had battle scenes and action since the digital switchover that I can't imagine looking as good in the pre-digital days. It seems almost like, in addition to just colors and stuff, they also increased the framerate of the show or something. I remember back in the Johto days wondering "Why doesn't the show itself look as good as the movies or the openings do? (the openings went fully digital with the 3rd opening, "OK!")" I'm glad they switched the show itself over

 

[ivantuga2]

Personally, I think the show looks waaay better now than it did back in the pre-digital age. I love how bright and crisp all the color is now, the old episodes to me looked kind of grainy and dull sometimes, and I think the "smoothness" of the animation has improved a lot too. We've had battle scenes and action since the digital switchover that I can't imagine looking as good in the pre-digital days.

While the pre-digital episodes had their own charm of the animation that I like, I agree with you, I love how the scenery is so detailed and beautiful right now and how fluid the animation has become. The first time I thought "Wow, the animation looks really nice now!" was starting with the DP HD episodes, when they began to get advantage of the new resolution's standards, even though the way the houses, cities and other places were drawn from mid-AG until DP119 already looked quite good, IMO, especially the episodes animated by Masaaki Iwane.

It seems almost like, in addition to just colors and stuff, they also increased the framerate of the show or something. I remember back in the Johto days wondering "Why doesn't the show itself look as good as the movies or the openings do? (the openings went fully digital with the 3rd opening, "OK!")" I'm glad they switched the show itself over

They did increase the framerate from 24 frames to 30, from the last AG episode to the first DP's episode, even back when DP was airing I noticed that the show was a bit "quick" compared to the OS and even AG. When I began watching BW, I got the impression that the battle animation has become even more quick, which while ticked me off at first, actually makes sense, as in real life the Pokémon wouldn't take too much time to charge at another Pokémon with an attack as in the first regions. At least that's the impression I've got.

 

[Iteru]

I greatly prefer the digital colouring. It looks bolder for lack of a better word and more eye catching.

 

[투 애니원]

It depends. There are moments when the newer episodes look like they were created by MS Paint especially when there are scenes where the characters are just standing. I prefer the digital coloring for battles and scenery.

 

[Sheep]

I definitely prefer digital tbh; it's easier to edit, has more viable "shortcuts", and overall faster to work with in comparison to doing each layer by hand. I like the effects and animations digital coloring brings to the table so there's really no competition for me there. That's not to say the traditional coloring style was bad, though - it's just not something that I'd want back at this point (assuming it suddenly became worthwhile to use it again).

 

[BladeLight52]

I guess I like either one. I like the hand colored cels for its late 90's-early 00's charm, and I like the digital colored episodes for a fresh new look of the current series. In my opinion, because OK! was the first opening to be entirely animated with digital coloring, I think they should have switched to digital in episode 194 rather than much later in the series (since 193 was the last to use the original title card and episode 194 updated the "Dare Da?" Eyecatch).

 

[Cybersai]

The hand drawn animation looked really outdated by the time Johto rolled along. In fact so many of the Johto episodes have this dull, washed out look to them.

When they switched to digital during the last 10 eps of Johto, I think the one where Casey returns with her Meganium was the first one with the new art, everything looked so much better. The majority of Johto eps look so dull.

 

[Yoshi1001]

I don't have a particular preference one way or the other aesthetically (they both have merits, though digital is the way to go moving forward), but this is one of the reasons I'd like to see movies 1-3 on Blu-ray. Between movies 1-7 you'll really see the progression.

 

[Sith Droideka]

Well, personally I don't agree with forcing cells to hand-color all those frames of animation. They could be doing more important things, like dividing.

On a more serious note, the current stuff looks far better than the old cels. The old series looks crude and sort of lifeless by comparison to digital coloring.