The Unknown Art of Animation Cleanup (Tutorial, ANY Software)

[@atticcreationz9475]

Links to each section for folks to return to when they're practising! 00:00 Introduction/Overview 02:29 Refining, Clarifying, and Working in Stages 03:35 Table of Contents for the video 04:23 Fix the Rough 08:17 Analyse and Set Up 11:40 Spot Key 14:41 Keys 17:46 Breakdowns 19:44 Inbetweens 21:50 One Last Check 24:38 Resource Recommendations

[@Bluestroke_]

During the making of our university shortfilm, our animation “supervisor” was actually one of the clean up artists from tarzan/huchback/etc (Angela Iturriza!!) and she taught us so much. I really fell in love with the process and all the thought behind it

[@zephyrias]

Whoaaa thats awesome!

[@KK.Lines369]

Or fall in love 💕?? in her

[@BBWahoo]

Dang that's cool, and you're cool too for telling us this anecdote!

[@princessthyemis]

whoaa that is amazing you learned from someone like that!

[@abcdefg-hv2ks]

Im not an animator, but darn, cleanup artists need to be respected more for their work. They're the ones making the work attractive and polished! And when there aren't any clean-up artists, the animation is a disaster (High Guardian Spice 🤢)

[@takahashierik]

There are always cleanup artists though, unless you're going straight from rough animation like 60s-70s Disney. If it looks bad it's usually because the artists are inexperienced, the job was rushed or there was poor quality control (or all of the above)

[@madjidchouarbi3921]

Even with clean up artists you can ruin a scene when the job is badly made. For exemple, Beauty and the Beast has some of the worst Disney clean up ever, because of the schedule and some unexperienced supervisors who couldn't guide the artists under them. On the other hand, Tarzan has got one of the best clean up from the new Disney generation, it's incredible to see what they did from some very scribbling and of model gorillas, and from most of Gleane Keane's ruff animations.

[@jmhorange]

@@takahashierik 60s and 70s Disney animation didn't have ink and painters to transfer the drawings to cels, because of the xerox process, but clean up artists were still needed. Those rough drawings in those films were either touched up by cleanup artists over the animator's drawing or in many cases redrawn by the cleanup artists. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of the animator's efforts shown on the screen in the 60s and 70s but equally so, there was a lot of the cleanup artists' work up on the screen too. All xerox did was eliminate the inking and painting process that came after cleanup.

[@COCO-uz5gg]

@@jmhorange xerox eliminated only the inking process. The resulting cells still had to be painted.

[@Shaked_Simcha]

I am a beginner animator and I still don’t no which direction I am going for. I didn’t even consider to be a cleanup animator, so thank you to bring it up as an option!

[@soniccookie655]

Don’t forget some animators get picked to do roles they are not used to depending on the project. It’s a hard choice between versatility or specialization!

[@oliviapellicer7376]

One of those Tarzan clean-up artists, Diana Coco, was a teacher at San Francisco's Academy of Art University and I was lucky enough to take her clean up class. She was BRUTAL but I learned SO MUCH about animation in general, and clean-up artists have my eternal respect.

[@Finchwing]

Thanks so much for making this!! I feel like a lot of cleanup is overlooked as just 'tracing' and being really easy, so I'm glad there's a video to explain it better

[@MarcHendry]

yeah it's maybe one of those things that's hard to understand until you've tried it, failed, and corrected for yourself

[@Gilluled]

I'm a new in-between animator in Japan. It's really interesting to see how you do inbetweens, because its very different from how we do it here. We line up the two lines, and place the top paper exactly inbetween the two papers (using the peg bar holes as a guide) in order to find an exact inbetween. I wonder why we do many things differently. 😅 Thanks you for the video! Super informative!

[@markthornton9485]

Having started my career as a cleanup/inbetweener in the 90s this is so great to watch. Great video!

[@MarcHendry]

you probably would have crossed paths on Anastasia with John Walsh or Kevin Condron, who taught me this stuff at Saloon

[@david_t_nethery_animator]

@@MarcHendry I don't know Kevin, but John Walsh is a A+ Number 1 top-of-the-line Key Assistant Animator in my book. You were blessed to have him as teacher.

[@NixonAnimation]

As someone who had to struggle through and discover how to clean up effectively myself, this is such a great video. Resources for clean up are basically non existent, kudos! 🎉

[@COCO-uz5gg]

Well, actually, they are very existent... I still have lots of internal guides to clean-up from different studios...

[@NixonAnimation]

@@COCO-uz5gg Really? Are you able to share them, or are they under NDA? I've mostly worked directly with clients rather than with studios.

[@COCO-uz5gg]

@@NixonAnimation basically, they are photocopies from originals written by clean-up departments at some studios I worked for, when they still existed. They were meant to guide artists on what was expected from them, rather than explanations of the basics, which is what this artist on the video so clearly explains. Some of these manuals included the basics for absolute beginners as well. I´ve been retired for a few years now. The last productions I worked for (in Germany) expected the animators to work strictly on model, they turned the clean-up work into a simple trace-back job, and the whole load of the work was for us animators to do. This contributed to a loss of quality, since the pay was not the best, and you had to do three jobs for the price of one...

[@NixonAnimation]

@@COCO-uz5gg Thanks for the info! Ah yeah, that is no fun (and honestly, is more boring for a clean up artist). Reminds me of the situation many storyboard artists are finding themselves in now where they're basically expected to do key animation on top of their boards for no extra pay.

[@SEGAmastergirl]

Watching while cleaning up an animation lol. Learning on production when it comes to cleaning other peoples' roughs is interesting. It's easy to to assume that cleanup is just tracing over but it requires way more thought because you have to read into the previous animators' intentions with each line drawn. And as artists, we tend to be pretty messy, so it's up to cleanup to be able to correctly parse and understand what fits best. I find cleanup to be weirdly therapeutic, I guess cause I have to be methodical but not have to worry about setting up the ground work. It's already there, I just have to draw it out.

[@Infinite_Ztudioz]

I've been trying to keep up with my animation project and I struggle a lot with it because it overwhelms me, but all of a sudden you said “The amount of frames I'm going to draw per day” and my mind went crazy. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THAT'S WHY I GOT OVERWHELMED, I DIDN'T HAVE A CLEAR GOAL PER DAY

[@MarcHendry]

It's not a totally dependable way to measure progress, but it's kinda all there is. Good luck with the project 🤠

[@shoutuckerdidnothingwrong]

As someone who has given up on animation because of my perfectionism, I feel like this could have been my calling instead!

[@sleepylady2723]

I'm not even an animation student (yet) but this video looks like a huge life savior. I'm saving it for future studies, thank you!

[@pandaoofer7855]

I’ve always wanted to see how 2D animation clean ups worked! This was so interesting to watch

[@dorklymorkly3290]

I was never really paying attention to this profession, clean up animator/artist, I was aware of it ,but never focused on it. And here I am getting one of the best examples on what keys and breakdowns are. I have downloaded your video for safekeeping just in case YT does something weird.

[@Milkyyrice]

Never have I ever come across a video that so clearly explains the clean up process. Wow! Really highlighted the intricacies of the job that don't get nearly as much light as the rest of the animation process. So cool to learn! Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

[@jessejayjones]

Finally got around to watching this and so glad I did! You're right that there's really not as much info out there as there should be for clean-up animation! I will definitely be sending people looking into doing clean-up to this video. Thank you for taking the time walking us through and talking about your process. Super helpful!! 😄

[@jackiehonda]

I'd have never imagined how much technical and sharped-eye a clean-up animator needs to be. Amazing work, thanks for sharing Marc!!

[@ShyArt85]

I'm not an animator, but I'm an artist who loves clean lines! I find this interesting and very helpful! ❤

[@JacobJohnson-lh4gx]

Aww man I'm glad a video like this exists where a professional clearly explains tips on how to do things effectively. I remember when I was working in the animation industry here in South East Asia years ago. We didn't had this type of tutorials and whenever we asked the senior artists for advice. They would just say "just draw cleanly" which was vague and unhelpful in my opinion. If I ask further questions and encounter a grumpy artists, they would just get irritated ending in me not learning anything. I didn't have a clear plan on how to learn so I resorted to watching my co-artist closely and mimic what they do in order to get the job done. Maan I miss working in the animation industry, I got the chance to work in various deparments from BG, LO, CU, and lastly D.I.P, and most of the time I had to wing it haha. Thank you so much for making this! We appreciate the time and effort you put in to this.

[@RhianeTurtonator]

as someone whos an aspiring artist and animator, i really found this video entertaining an helpful! thanks dude!!

[@MicahBuzanANIMATION]

This video is an invaluable resource for animators. Thank you for making this!

[@GuardianSpirits13]

I always knew clean-ups were a tedious process, but I have so much (more) respect for it now! Working at Cartoon Saloon would be a dream job for me, but even as a hobby the tips here are incredibly useful. I've experienced "sticky lines" in my own work but never knew that there was more to them than just drawing a line in between two frames! It also eases a lot of anxiety for me that shapes are more important than lines... I have always worried that if my work isn't "perfect" in terms of impeccably smooth and clean lines it's not enough, but it's nice to hear that that's not necessarily the case!

[@cfan6716]

Beautiful work! Clean-up artists definitely need more appreciation.

[@thatpersonyoudidntknowexis149]

I lied on my resume so here I am learning how to do this at 3am 😂

[@quinsomnia4934]

This really helps clarify steps that tutors often skip, thank you!

[@hoatzinn]

dude this is such a great tutorial! i've been struggling with the rough-to-cleanup process for a while because i was having trouble breaking down the stages, but this really made it click! thanks for putting this up :D

[@FrilledMayfly_AmberlyFerrule]

This is fantastic! I don't do clean up for my animations since it's something that I just hate doing, but I still learned a lot, even things I can apply to my rougher animations!

[@npcrookeface]

This was so helpful 😁😁😁 I find that clean up is one of the hardest and most meticulous part of animation yet it's hard to find in depth tutorials for it. This was insightful and informative and I will definitely use this to help me in the future!!! Thank you

[@korka553]

Thank you so much for making this video! You have taught me more in 25 minutes than my school has in the last 3 years!

[@sidb4626]

this makes so much more sense than what little i learned in school about cleanup animation! thank you so much for making this video

[@MadMeeper]

THANK YOU so much for this video. I've been trying to explain to people how hard and how important good cleanup is. It's a true art form that is just as important as the roughs themselves. Cleanup is essentially re animation.

[@lamptrent]

practically-minded, no-nonsense, actionable advice! this is one of the best tutorials I've ever seen. thank you mr. hendry!!

[@randomheri5242]

I've been a cleanup artist for many different productions. Cleanup animators are unsung heroes and glad this video was in my reccomendations

[@muimotion]

Really cool Marc! Clean Up should be understood and respected more by other artists! Really informative video!

[@rattttooooo]

not seeing anyone say just how impressive your animation is! its so so close that i genuinely wouldnt be able to tell if i had seen this without context.

[@MarcHendry]

eyy thank you so much!

[@ClareHehe]

this was an extremely interesting watch. the artists that do cleanup definitely deserve way more respect.

[@TANIMAYTO]

This has so much specificity and nuance. It's exactly the sort of tutorial that is sorely needed!

[@robloxusertartagliakin7177]

GAWD. this is such a helpful video ive never seen anything in-depth on cleanup before and it really seems like an essential skill to have

[@paccuniverse]

You are a Saint! Thank you for making this video. I consider myself a beginner self-taught (Indie)animator hoping to improve my skills later 🤣😅. Right now I'm just working on random, little music/meme animations and later on in the future I hope to be able to create my own toons/stories. I feel I'm having more trouble with the consistency/inbetweening animation, but I'm also practicing anatomy, proportions, etc :P This was very helpful and I actually learned a lot from this, cleanup is pretty challenging. This was on my recommendations, glad I clicked :)!

[@shannimation_bone]

KZbin served me this magnificent tutorial-big thanks to Marc! This piece is profoundly useful, covering various aspects like fixing inconsistent lines and providing tips and tricks for clean-ups. I've been working on improving my 2D animation skills more efficiently, and Marc's tutorial just popped up ʚ◡̈ɞ I'm so grateful for the resources you've shared in the description. Thank you so much for making our animation journey a bit easier, and for letting us know we're not alone in this ❥

[@Cyprimm]

I’ve learnt so much about cleanup from you!! Thank you so much I thought I’ve known so much but here you are with info on such an underrated part of the process haha

[@IAMA1]

Got this in my recommended and decided to check out your portfolio vids and your work looks amazing. After watching this (great video btw) I looked at your earlier videos and found that I actuality watched your notes on animation series years back. Those were great animation analysis videos and I'm glad to see you're in bigger industry projects now. I hope that'll be me one day

[@MarcHendry]

thank you! I've been working in (mostly kids tv) animation since late 2016, so about when those uploads dried up lol. Good luck with everything

[@sketchyson]

I fee like I've been looking for this video for my whole animation career. Thank you so much Marc!

[@EmberWolfsArt]

As a kid this is the job I dreamed about. I saw some behind the scenes of animated movies and that was what fascinated me. It is a shame it is not more recognized. I remember they called doing the equivalent in comic books was "cheating" and I always wondered if they even understood what the process actually was.

[@samalass466]

I'm currently working on the cleanup on a short film I'm doing all solo. It's definitely a massive pain.

[@dwintster]

Great explanation and love the pittle addition of Vilppu atvthe end. He and his drawing manuals ; animal, on location and videos were my gateway to figure drawing from imagination and life with a structural approach almost 2 decades ago.

[@SirisLayer]

this is so good! I struggle a lot with clean up, whenever i start refining / inbetweening my rough sketches, I easily loose confidence in my shapes and the drawings i actually make. I'll definitely try to give it all a more systematic approach!

[@terribleeditor4556]

I work with 3D stuff but this is pretty fascinating. I can tell it takes a lot of time and patience, especially if you decide to make some changes during cleanup.

[@forzenfukuroanimations]

This is very informative and useful, I haven't ever worked for a studio or into a professional production of someone else's, and the idea of doing the clean up process confused me...Clean up animation isn't as simple as the prior process at the beginning in my opinion, and that's because its the time of really refining those edges, and being precise to keeping it in the way it's intended! Plus I don't understand much of the "timeline writing notes" they write on the side of the canvas and animation (this might be because I don't use these for myself)....so as I sit and watch a bunch of videos to help teach me🥲 But you explained this very well!!!!

[@ellisett]

Thank you for explaining the process! I’ve been scouring the internet for how to do cleanup and haven’t found much (just like you mentioned). Thank you so much!

[@jarfle]

Thanks for making this

[@dropsketch]

Amazing video! Clean up always frightened me because of how much of a massive undertaking it is but these steps make it a lot clearer and it seems more exciting to me now then before!

[@lindestudio4952]

Wowww, that's a perfect animation. Thanks for sharing this material with all of us. Since I was 9 I wanted to be an animator but, not having information or where to study, I dedicated myself to music, now I am studying one of my dreams and I am super happy doing it. ❤❤ . Thanks

[@TheHERROU]

never seen nobody talked about the actual process of clean up, I´m work in my thesis short film so it comes really handy, thak you a lot.

[@ChloeHatler]

This was so so helpful!! You brought up so many terms for things that I knew existed but had no idea had official words for them, for example the concept of SEP! Thanks so much for the awesome video, very easy to follow and interesting to listen to!

[@nicolasa-g1038]

This is so helpful! Somehow it never occurred to me to key my cleanups, but I think my next assignment will go much easier now

[@VolodymyrRodimushkin]

Your video material evokes a sense of deep respect and gratitude for the work you have done and the generosity with which you have shared your experience. Thank you very much!

[@99kroi]

this was very fun to watch and very useful!! thank you so much for the tips

[@Technilogica2019]

god this is such a fascinating watch i've been animating for a little over 10 years now but haven't done much with hand drawn lately, i definitely know i'm gonna be out of practice whenever i pick it up again

[@nasanieru09709]

AAAAAAAAAAh as a student whos finding more than whats limit learning we have in our school this really helped soooo much....hope to see more of these industry insights of what animator really do step by step every corner of the room hahahhahahah thank you sir this was very educational

[@gamelovercool3594]

The most informative video I've ever seen. AMAZING JOB

[@taemon804]

i’ve been waiting for someone to make a thorough video about clean up, thank you!

[@PierreGombaudArt]

Hey Mark! This is a very interesting video, thanks for giving us the opportunity to see this process in detail. I was part of the Moho team on My Father's Dragon and was always very curious to see and understand in detail the meticulous work involved in cleanup. It's even more technical than I imagined! Thank you for your hard work

[@rainsparks29]

1. ayyyy Krita! That makes me happy 2. fantastic resource, cleanup has always been a mystery to me. I understand the principles but figuring out how to properly turn roughs into lines for colouring has always been a bit of a ??? in the middle of my process so this is really great

[@nansifyanimations]

Yooo!! This showed up exactly when I needed it! I have been struggling with this for so long and begun looking about it recently and this is a perfect video! Thank you 😭😭😭😭💕💕

[@Schizomi7467]

THANK YOU!! Finding tutorials for this was always hard!

[@prestonparish]

Great video. Love the soundtrack, listened to it many times when my sisters played the SNES game in the 90s.

[@peachenelle]

It's always cool and interesting seeing the process for other animators, and nice to see my own overlap (as well as learn a few things along the way!) Great video.

[@NovaNocturneArt]

Thank you so much for putting the effort into making a video about this unsung artform! What fantastic information!

[@sp47208AJ]

Amazing video! Although I'm not interested in working as a clean up artist- I learned so much about whats expected thanks to this video and hold much more respect for them. Thanks for taking the time to create the type of video that you wish you had earlier on in your career. Super insightful!

[@SosoIllu]

This is sooo usefull , thank you so much for this amazing video ! as a self taught animator using krita this is the video I needed the most X) ! I'm so excited to watch your future video X)

[@NeightAnimate]

Thank you very much! Sending this to my animation team! ❤

[@BooLightning]

I clearly have a LOT left to learn, way more then i thought when i started learning animation

[@neylasretrocard8994]

Thank you so much for this advice and info on cleanup!! This will help me a lot on my animation!

[@GarnetBlazeAnimator]

This was very useful. Cleanup is where I struggle the most.

[@hayk_animation]

Great stuff! I take my animation all the way to clean up and color myself and use a lot of the same techniques

[@MarcHendry]

oh hey man, I've been following you for years 👋

[@andreakhaid]

Wow wow! This is so comprehensive and helpful. Thank you!

[@lin3378]

I'm working on a clean-up job/gig right now, but my drawing tablet broke and I'm using the mouse to do it. It is not hard because I'm using a vector tool to make it, but it ends up kind of stiff, so I use the mouse in parts where I want it to be more handmade. Clean-up appears to be the start/early career to beginners, I hope I can learn more, make better clean-up and to learn other stages as well.

[@rhedded]

Was not expecting to see Krita, it's such a good free software that so little people know about and it really is great for animation, even for someone like me who hardly knows how to animate. With that being said, could you show what's going on with the layers and how to use them sometime? I never understood how to best utilize layers to my advantage because it took me so long to convert from paper drawings

[@internationalicon]

Such important information! It’s so extremely complex, though well-organized and well-explained. Maybe write it as a short book too?

[@GregorTheScot]

this is a fantastic and important resource which I'm excited to revisit, thank you for putting this together!

[@jabumahlangu6830]

Top notch content I animate with Flash and clean ups are tedious. This just made life easier.

[@aspenve]

This is amazing. You manage to explain and demonstrate in such a perfect way to actually learn from. I would love if you could detail and explain animation timing charts if you ever have time.

[@StrawberryNova]

Really enjoyed the video! Really interesting!!! ALSO the level of caught that my attention was at the Lion King video game music I love it

[@zadayaz]

this is something i wish i had seen while i was still in school, i always hated cleanup and couldnt figure out how to keep from making my rough animation look worse

[@MarcHendry]

yeh me too. It takes so long and made my work look worse lol

[@FilmmakerJ]

So wait a sec... your example of the Beauty and the Beast rough animation clearly shows major distinctions between the roughs and the clean-up. And I was always under the impression that the rough animation had a 2nd rough pass that covered more details than that. But your example suggests that the clean-up animator isn't just a technical role, but rather someone who has to impart their own stamp on the character's performance by introducing any number of on-model details, secondary actions (like with the detail around the Beast's mane), and the final overall appeal of the character. Do I have that right?! If I do, then the term "clean-up artist" REALLY undersells just how powerful a role in production it is.

[@MarcHendry]

I think it depends on the rough animator! and it varies from production to production. But CU people should have the skills to do all that, in case they ever need to

[@sketchysina]

such a great video, incredibley helpful thanks for your hard work marc

[@colinehasaki]

So many life saving tips thank you so much !

[@droidigan]

SUBBED!!! I always hated cleanup but y'know what? it is very underrated! heard some great tips!!

[@melissa_solley]

Thank you for sharing this. What a treasure!

[@dplj4428]

Thank you for the chapters.

[@dplj4428]

13:46 maybe the line thing is why one person said that practicing lettering is the key to better drawing.

[@andrewsharpify]

Awesome man! Thank you for all the great tips. clean up is something I really struggle with so this is a huge help. Cheers!

[@TheUraniumCore]

This is my favorite video ever

[@khadijaaghazade7795]

Thank you for the information! It was very clear and I learned a lot!

[@timidfelidae2108]

thank you so much for this holy shit this is so thorough!!

[@AJAiken]

Marc, thanks for making this! It's great to see more about clean up. It doesn't look like you rotate your view to draw the lines, unless you've cut that out? When I was taught clean up (on paper) we'd rotate the disk, so I always rotate the view when I'm cleaning up in Harmony or Photoshop (or whatever). It means I can always draw lines in the direction I'm strongest at. The other thing I'd add is that practicing drawing lines, circles, curves etc. is very important. Especially when cleaning up on paper!

[@MarcHendry]

ello! yeah I do rotate it, but I think I do it less often than most people. It doesn't pick up in the time lapse recordings, but in the real time recordings, I didn't cut that out on purpose, I think I just missed showing any of it.

[@PractisingDrawing]

Thankyou somuch,,,,great tutorial..subscribed...waiting for more tutorials especially the once wherein krita is used....

[@heyice7049]

Thank you for the lessons, it was really helpful!!