I admit it; I'm picky when it comes to cels.  
Unless it's a character I know that I'll never 
find again, I usually won't leap on it unless 
it's nice.  I've especially grown a 
fondness as of late for cels with backgrounds, 
even though I know they tend to jack up the 
price quite a bit more.

And usually I do collect mostly from shows I've 
seen, partly because good animation is a 
subconcious criteria when I watch the show.  A 
show with bad animation, unless it's plot line 
is awesome beyond words, isn't going to interest 
me as much, thus I won't collect it.

Now, obviously, that's not going to count for 
everything.  My first priority is usually the 
look - is it going to be worth the money I put 
into it?  Am I going to look at that piece 
months later and still be happy I paid $XXX 
amount?  Show familiarity is the second major 
condideration; I forced upon myself a $100 limit 
for artwork that isn't from a series I've seen 
before.

Now, mind you, all rules can be broken...as 
another said before, anything goes if the 
artwork in question "speaks" to me, no matter 
the price or whether I've seen it before.  My 
best example of such is probably a hentai cel 
from Dragon Pink - I'm not a big hentai fan, but 
the cel struck me as so beautiful, I had to have 
it.  (Cel shown below.)



So when it comes down to it...call me shallow, 
but this is (expensive!) art to me - 99% of the 
time, it's going to be looks over anything else.

-Pitten