> Secondly, all of my most precious possessions 
> were discarded by my parents while I was away 
> this past summer, so my cels are now my most 
> precious possesion, and there's no way I'm 
> letting them get their grubby little hands on 
> them. (hides cels protectively)

You know, it's very interesting you say this. . . 
This is something that happened to me as well - 
it was longer ago than last summer, but my father 
went though our basement to "clean" and basically 
threw out everything I had touched as a child 
without asking anyone. Every game, every toy, 
anything that wasn't tied down.

Another thing to note is that I am the middle 
child of my family - the second daughter with a 
younger brother. My sister had everything new 
since she was the first. My brother had everything
new since he was the first boy. I was usually 
left with my sister's ill-fitting hand-me-downs, 
both for clothes and toys. Reletively speaking, 
there was very little that had been bought just 
for me, as opposed to me fitting into someone 
else's discarded things.

I think that both these situations are what has 
created in me a VERY aggressively strong concept 
of MINE. . . Of owning something. *Especially* 
something that no one else has, like a cel. 
(Those A1Ends and pans make me feel completely 
peachy. ^_^) And it only makes it more attractive 
that all my cels were bought for ME and no one 
else but ME.

I would be lying if I said a sense of owning 
something was the only reason I collect cels, but 
I'm sure it's a bigger part of the reason than I 
want to admit. ^_^   Characters are very 
important to me and even more important is 
*scene*, anyone who goes to my gallery can see I 
collect for those over anything else. I like 
images that have a sense of completeness within 
themselves (which can be achieved even if you 
don't have all the layers to a scene).

But if you want the reason I give to people who I 
know won't understand. . . I tell them I like to 
study the art in the cels since I have been an 
art student. The use of shadows, of different 
colors that don't seem like they should go 
together, etc. There is a lot to learn from cels 
in that area (not to mention cels are *PERFECT* 
for studying how to illustrate perspective), and 
usually "normal" people accept that. They look. 
They say ooo and ah.

(Then I smile brightly at them, and think: "MINE" 
as I walk away. ^_~)

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac