I'd like to share some original animation cells and drawings i acquired a few years ago from the 1983 - 1985 TV cartoon series "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". IMO, this form of animation is almost a lost art. It's much more economical to produce them on computers. Back in the days before computers, all the cells were first hand-drawn in pencil before being photocopied onto celluloid and hand painted. Each background was also hand painted in multiple layers.
Below i've written a breakdown of the show, the episode the post focuses on and some artwork sequences. I hope you enjoy it!
Background artwork. Caves always had little horns - it's how you knew the badies lived there!
Background:
I was browsing on eBay one night and saw an auction for a bulk lot of He-Man animation artwork. It was hundreds and hundreds of cells, drawings, backgrounds and it was literally being given away, discarded. I later learned that one of the creators of He-Man had recently passed away and a lot of this stuff was being dumped as if it was worthless.
I don't know about you but i grew up watching this cartoon, it was always on in the mornings before school and part of the Saturday & Sunday morning cartoons. It was ritual viewing.
The memories it brings back are priceless.
The bulk auction didn't show what was included other than a couple cells - it was too much for the seller to list - so i took a risk and bought them. I can't remember what i paid but it was peanuts, the shipping probably cost more.
A couple weeks later a HUGE box arrived at my house filled with the most amazing drawings and animation cells - it was my childhood coming back full circle. I now OWN a lot of the ORIGINAL artwork that made this cartoon! It's something that i would never have thought would happen when eating coco-pops before school, knowing if i stayed and watched the whole episode i'd only have 10 minutes to run to school before the first bell.
About the Cartoon
This was back in the day when Cartoons actually conveyed a positive message to teach kids rights and wrongs. Each episode would involve an adventure in which He-Man would save the day, resulting in a lesson being learnt.
The show takes place on the fictional planet of Eternia, a planet of magic, myth and fantasy. Its lead character is Prince Adam, the young son of Eternia's rulers, King Randor and Queen Marlena. Whenever Prince Adam holds the Sword of Power aloft and proclaims "By the Power of Grayskull!" he is endowed with "fabulous secret powers" and transformed into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. Together with his close allies, Battle Cat (who undergoes a similar transformation from being Adam's cowardly pet tiger Cringer), The Sorceress, Teela, Man-At-Arms and Orko, He-Man uses his powers to defend Eternia from the evil forces of Skeletor. Skeletor's main goal is to conquer the mysterious fortress of Castle Grayskull, from which He-Man draws his powers. If successful, Skeletor would have enough power to rule Eternia and possibly the entire universe.
Source: Wikipedia
ARTWORK FROM MU 77
MU77 (season 2, episode 22): TROUBLE IN TROLLA
First aired: September 22, 1984
Directed by: Ernie Schmidt
Written by: Larry DiTillio
Synopsis: Dree Elle summons Orko to Trolla to help overcome Skeletor's ally Whiplash, who has enlisted the help of a misguided Trollan wizard to attain magic powers. Orko tells viewers to not discount old people, who often have much wisdom to combine with the vitality of youth, resulting in a better time for everyone.
First Sequence - He-Man battles a squid monster!
He-Man carried a huge sword that gave him his powers - but he never actually used it when fighting. Like most of the fighting sequences it involved He-Man swinging something around in circles and throwing it away!Detail of Pencil Drawing. Note the blue underdrawing under the black pencil
How it was shown in the cartoon:
The drawings & Cells in sequence
Second Sequence - Detail & Notes For Depicting Motion
Here we have some great insight into the animation process. The sequence is only a couple seconds long but the effort that went into it is pretty amazing. The sketch artist leaves a note for the cell painter to add some rope with a dry brush.
Original Pencil Sketch with Animation Notes
"SPFX (special effects) - Note from here to #11 (frame 11) start putting some rope color dry brush. (See DWG 12)"
The finished painted cell
The back of the finished painted cell
The finshed sequence as shown in the cartoon
Thanks for Reading & Please Vote!
There's a lot more i could share so if you want to see more, please vote, re-steem and comment to let me know. It takes a while to go through it all, photograph, photoshop, make gifs etc so if you like this post then please make it worthwhile with your support and i'll continue posting some more. Thank You!
This is amazing! I watched all the episodes when I was a teenager. This is great stuff. Resteemed!
Thanks for the re-streem, i appreaciate that!
I'll get a few more up on my blog soon, some of the backgrounds are works of art too.
This is a true treasure you have there!
What a fabulous find/purchase! Thank you for sharing them on Steemit with us:)
HA! I loved that show growing up! He-Man and She-Ra were the best! Sounds like you got yourself a box of pure gold! I have such an appreciation for the work that went into all the great animated shows/movies "back in the day"... totally hand-drawn, painted, etc. Of course, animation has come such a long way, and there's something to be said about the amount of work put into CG animation, but classic hand-drawn stuff is pretty amazing.
Oh yeah She-Ra was always on after He-man, remember you had to try and find the hidden character then at the end you'd find out where it was and get a lesson!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UIWw4DDTApU
Great post Groundcontrol - very visual and informative... and... I used to love He-Man as a kid.
Upvoted and resteemed!
SK.
Thank you for the vote and re-steem!
It was fun going through them and finding the moment in the show to compare to the drawings.
I'll get a few more posts together so we can all reminisce!
You have a precious stone in your hand I think! It's really incredible the skills of the animation drawer in that time, they managed amazingly anatomy and motion and landscapes too. There were a huge work behind every episode.... Thanks for sharing and comparing with the final sequence!
Yeah i was really surprised to get the pencil drawings, i thought it was just the painted cells that i had bid on. I think the drawings are the true art here. The animation cells will always exist in the actual cartoon show that everyone sees but they are also hard to keep fresh, the celluloid will discolour and the paint will chip away.
The drawings will be a lost art when it's all done on computers in the future.
I reckon the early Disney stuff like Snow White will be considered some of the finest art in 50 years. That is the gold!
Considering you even liked the cartoon a lot they may have a big personal value. But talking about the economical aspect their value may be big too! Have you considered to digitalize some of them to keep them safe?
Thats probably a good idea for some of the drawings at least. They are great references for artists if nothing else. Look at how sharp and on point each pencil stroke is, theres no computer smoothing those! That kind of drawing translates to any artist, it's pure draftsmenship and control of shape, perspective, proportion.
Could save them in the blockchain!
I guess one day they could make a new live action movie and reboot like the Ninja Turtles which might make them go up in value, especially if they re-do the toys and cartoon. Everything seems to come back around. Probably have to wait until they've burnt out Marvel & DC and milked Star Wars to death, then they'll be looking for something that was huge in its day to remake.
What a treasure you've found. 'By the power of grayskull'. What a terrific show, it was recently on netfix so I watched some episodes with my boys-they didn't appreciate it as much as I did.
Haha, yeah kids today may not appreciate 5 frames a second animation and some scenes which are dead still with just some mouths moving. But to be fair they had to paint everything!
That intro music and monologue is like a time machine - "I have the powerrrr!"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7yeA7a0uS3A
You are very talented. @groundcontrol
He did not make it
This drawings me of when i loved drawing as a kid now i do not have the time, nice post.
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Cool stuff!
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Wow lucky you, this is treasure to have. Thanks for sharing.
Great stuff thanks for sharing.
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"A couple weeks later a HUGE box arrived at my house.."
Awesome find!