Clean up is the most important yet underrated parts of the making of animation. How else do you get clean lines and consistency? Christina Naerland also says it’s frequently the job given to newbies.

It’s usually the biggest, most expensive department of an animation studio.

I still don’t know much about it, other than its aim being to make animation not look, well, bad.

So I found this video which illuminated on how it is done.

It is not simply tracing over pencil tests or key frames. Initial animation can be a stick figure, incredibly off model etc. So you have to constantly use the reference sheets. Sometimes it is almost animating the whole scene all over again. The roughs are not globally consistent, but clean-ups have to be. And considering clean up teams may have dozens of people, all with their own personal styles they must leave behind, it is a tough job.

It is probably why it is the first job they give you, it’s like throwing a toddler in the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. It’s probably traumatising, but it means they at least will be much less likely to drown next time. It’s a trial by fire. It could be a really great thing for me to do in the industry.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just do storyboards.