How are cartoons colored

[Darknight66]

I'm a little confused on the digital painting thing nowadays in cartoons, do they color in the characters digitaly or the backgrounds? or both?, do they use the same program to color in both the characters and the backgrounds?, if so, can anyone recomend any programs that would be able to simulate what they do ? I'm sure they use some sort of computer program , for example a picture like this doesn't look like it was handpainted

http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/jl/episodes/tabularasa/p1/Pan02.jpg

[I.R Joey]

In olden days cels were painted with either Gouache or some other kind of watercolor (I believe).

Now a days things are colored and edited digitally.

As for programs. well I'm not to much of an expert but I'd imagine Photoshop (who doesn't use it anymore) plays into coloring as well as similar programs.

[GagaMan]

It all depends on the cartoon, but I'm pretty sure with most traditional 2D animation they mainly do all colouring on computer, but paint backgrounds if they have a bigger budget.

[I.R Joey]

I believe there are some very cases where hand painted stuff is still used but not many (I imagine some indipendant people might do this).

I could be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure that the CN shows from the late 90's and early 00's were hand painted. I know for a fact that Samurai Jack was.

I learned from a lecturer at our school that The Simpsons was one of the last shows to switch over to digital coloring.

Does anyone know anything about how the "Painter" program might be used in the animation industry?

[Pc-Famicom64]

Every thing before The 1990's (Plus Anime) but after The 1920's:Cells.

Newer Animes (After 1996 or 1998 for Some studios) have ther Coloring for Moveing stuff (Like People) by Computers but The Backgounds are done by hand (most newer Animes after 2005 have the backgounds done by Coumputers, plus seasons of Animes that came before 2005) for Stander Animes after 1996/1998 (Studio Ghibli stell dose it with Cells).

The 1990's is a long story.

Hope this helps (I might be wrong about Studio Ghibli) .

^_^

[JDWeil]

Back in the good-old-days when hand painting was the norm, the regular art supply houses didn't make paints for animation ("We just had those Grumbacher colors" - Walter Lantz) so every studio had to compound their own paints, yep, even Terrytoons and the exact formulas were considered proprietory. Now these were the paints that were used on the cels, the backgrounds were a different matter. There, the medium of choice was gouache a type of watercolor though pastels were sometimes used and in one case, oils. Nowadays, most animation is computer colorized while the backgrounds are still done the old-fashioned way.