How was Dragon Ball animated?

[SSJToreto]

Okay this is probably a stupid question, but I wanna know. Obviously DB wasn't digitaly animated like the anime's and cartoon's of today.

What I want to know is how did they animate DBZ? Did they draw every frame on paper and paint it out or something of that nature?

[Jerseymilk]

Short answer: Yep.

Long answer: Why yes they did.

[Xyex]

I think the only ones exempt from this were movies 12 and 13. They got at least partial computer treatment. But yeah, nearly everything before 1990 was drawn and painted, frame by frame, by hand.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that part of the last saga (Kid Buu saga by the dub) was also done with some help by computers.

And I thought about asking a similar question, but there's no point in a new thread for it - just what parts of movies 12 and 13 used the computers?

[NeptuneKai]

Well I have a question too, you say the whole show was done by hand but at points the aura's around the characters look digital. Were they done by computer or is it just a reall good paint job? The only example of this I can remember is Ginyu in Goku's body charging up his KI.

[Kid Trunks]

Personally I much prefer that old style of animation, particularly in the saiyan saga. Was GT's animation done by computers, because it just looks terrible?

[TheGreatness25]

I think the best animation was probably the end of the Frieza Saga, and throughout the Cell Saga. I feel they got sloppy by the Majin Buu Saga because a lot of the time, they'd look just weird. Shrimpy arms, or something like that. There was always something. The very first moment Gohan became "Mystic", he came up to Goku, and he just looked terrible. Then again, they did follow Akira Toriyama's style. So in the beginning, Akira Toiryama drew them with round eyes, then he made them more linear, and just his drawing advanced.

[Snail]

I think the best animation was probably the end of the Freeza Saga, and throughout the Cell Saga. I feel they got sloppy by the Majin Buu Saga.

I totally agree with that.

[SSJ3raditz]

I think the only things DB Series-related that was digitally colored was the Dragon Ball 10th Anniversary Movie and every DBZ movie after Movie 9.
And DBZ Movie 12 did have some 3D animation in there such as Janemba's Cube Fade, That inverted background when Goku was turning SSJ3 etc.

[DemonKingPiccolo]

I think the best animation was probably the end of the Freeza Saga, and throughout the Cell Saga. I feel they got sloppy by the Majin Buu Saga.

I totally agree with that.

For the most part, yes I do agree, but I think some of the episodes that had fight scenes between Majin Vegeta and Goku were absolutely beautiful, and I don't think that much computer was used there.

I love old school animation, the new digital stuff isn't the same to me.

Step:
1) An animator draws a character on a piece of paper, and then draws a series of pictures after it to create the animation.

2) Each picture is traced onto glass sheets (called "celluloids" or "cels" for short), and painted. Usually animators produce all new cels that are placed in front or behind the cel with the character on it (creating "layers"). These other cels create backgrounds, foregrounds, other characters, trees and bushes, other objects, ect. Often with Dragon Ball, moving mouths are put on a different cel, so the face stays stationary while the mouth is the animated part.

3) The cels are placed under a special camera where they are filmed. If a character is running, they often keep the same background and foreground cel for each shot, and just switch the cels with the character on it. This is so the back ground and foreground stay the same while the character is moving, or have the background and foreground moving while the character stays stationary.

4) Often shots where the camera pans out (example, Super Saiyan 3 Goku's first appearence), up, down, or across is done by moving the camera over the same cel, not drawing a whole new cel to compensate for the panning shot. Doing so would not only be costly and difficult, but time consuming as well.

Sigh, I miss the old animation. Drawing something on paper is much more exciting then letting a computer do it for you.

[Mayuri Furiza Kurotsuchi]

I think the best animation was probably the end of the Freeza Saga, and throughout the Cell Saga. I feel they got sloppy by the Majin Buu Saga.

I totally agree with that.

For the most part, yes I do agree, but I think some of the episodes that had fight scenes between Majin Vegeta and Goku were absolutely beautiful, and I don't think that much computer was used there.

I love old school animation, the new digital stuff isn't the same to me.

Step:
1) An animator draws a character on a piece of paper, and then draws a series of pictures after it to create the animation.

2) Each picture is traced onto glass sheets (called "celluloids" or "cels" for short), and painted. Usually animators produce all new cels that are placed in front or behind the cel with the character on it (creating "layers"). These other cels create backgrounds, foregrounds, other characters, trees and bushes, other objects, ect. Often with Dragon Ball, moving mouths are put on a different cel, so the face stays stationary while the mouth is the animated part.

3) The cels are placed under a special camera where they are filmed. If a character is running, they often keep the same background and foreground cel for each shot, and just switch the cels with the character on it. This is so the back ground and foreground stay the same while the character is moving, or have the background and foreground moving while the character stays stationary.

4) Often shots where the camera pans out (example, Super Saiyan 3 Goku's first appearence), up, down, or across is done by moving the camera over the same cel, not drawing a whole new cel to compensate for the panning shot. Doing so would not only be costly and difficult, but time consuming as well.

Sigh, I miss the old animation. Drawing something on paper is much more exciting then letting a computer do it for you.

Most new Japanese animation uses the same technique, except the cels are painted and animated digitally, instead of using the machines to animate them. However, a lot of backgrounds are CGI, but most of the key animation is still done by hand. American animation on the other hand is a different story. Since most of the stuff that gets animated now is low budget, its usually done in something similar to flash, where the same models are used over and over, and all animation is done on the computer.

[SS Kakarot]

Yes, all of DB was created using Animation Cels.
So that's DB, DBZ, DBGT, all the movies and specials, even the Videogame opening's from UB22 and Final Bout.
Should anyone be wondering what DB Cels look like, I have a gallery you know.