grove transformed cel

Vampire Hunter D
Bloodlust
B-13
Matching production background

small grove transformed screencap

I bought the cel and the background separately. When I initially put them together I was a little confused. I knew I had the setup correct, but some of the details seemed off. The background definitely matches this scene, but it is too small when matched with the cel. After staring at it a while, I think I have figured it out. I remember Rick telling me that all of the backgrounds used for transformed Grove were CG and not hand painted. This background proves him incorrect. I think what really happened was that both the painted cel and the painted background were scanned into the computer. Notice that a large portion of the left and bottom edges of the cel do not appear in the screen capture. The production team must have changed their minds about how close they wanted Grove to appear, since the amount that is cut off is much more than what is typical for most cels. It would have made sense to adjust the image in the computer instead of repainting a new cel sequence. They were already going to be using CG to alter the image to make Grove transparent and to add the flashes of light coming from his body. In the end, all this manipulation of the Grove layer resulted in the original proportion between the cel and the background being altered.