Cutout cels?

Hiya Ted,
You could very well be right I have seen stranger things done to cels in the past.
I once got a cel that had a opened condom package stuck in the paint on the back of a cel and it had to be put there before the paint dried because the paint came up and over the edges on the package.
I have had paper clips, tooth picks,whole small paint brushes,coins and a few other things put in the paint.
Studios can be strange in the things they do, All they care about is what you see on the front and that it lines up with the Background and it lasts until they shoot it under camera.
I was just trying to give you some ideas as to why they may have done what they did,only the guy who did it may know what it was done for.
over in the east where alot of this stuff is done they farm out the painting and they sometimes let the painters take there work home to work on.
I wish you luck in finding what realy happened to your cel.
Roy

I know a lot of wierd "time saving" tricks are attempted by studios.
On this IY cel http://www.rubberslug.com/member/inv_info.asp?ItemID=44766
The background is cut so the cel of Kagome can be slipped behind the rocks for the effect rather than painting another foreground layer.
In comic art it's quite common to have a page pieced together with section that have been redone and glued in place. That is become less as more work is being done on computers.

Ted,
Your theory is probably correct. Some animators used to cut out images that were on multiple Cels and apply them to a background for display. This doesn't seem like the case with your cel since the image was (most likely) on 1 cel to begin with and the cut-out images were placed on another cel, not a background. Vintage Disney cels were cut out and displayed in this fashion when they were first offered for sale to the public. You may never find out the actual reason why...but I think your theory is sound.
~Mark

I have a fushigi yuugi cel that is 3 layers plus a background. one layer has nuriko on it, the other tamahome, adn the top layer has a peice of background paper that was painted and pasted onto a layer for the front.

http://iwakuralain16.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=168911

the top left layer of the rock is cut out paper, but of course none of the acetate layers are cut out. lol

Another example in the cut out and reapplied cel category:
http://tag.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=206561