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

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

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 🤢)

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

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!

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! 🎉

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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!! 😄

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

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

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.

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

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!

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!

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

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!

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

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!

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 :)!

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

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

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.

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

KZfaq 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 ❥

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!!

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.

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for the chapters.

So many life saving tips thank you so much !

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.

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

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.

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

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 😭😭😭😭💕💕

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

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

Came to learn a little about how cleanup works; left having learned how to make an entire Disney movie.

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

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

This is my favorite video ever

Thank you for sharing this. What a treasure!

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!

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

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

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

(chanting) LINES, LINES, LINES, LINES! (but for real tho this turned out great!)

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

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

Thanks for making this

Great video, I learn alot, thanks for sharing

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)

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

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

So helpful and clear ty

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

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

great video, thank you!

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.

KRITA GANG LETS GOOOOOO !!!!!!!!

Woah nice work mate. Thanks so much for sharing. freakn awesome 🥰🥰🥰

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

Thank you!!! You are a savior! Holy cow!!! Ahhhhh

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

This could have been Sooooo much help on a small project i had...Glag to come across your video !!

excellent video!! FINALLY

Thank you so much for making this

This is gold

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.

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

THANK YOU