"Watch For Sharks"

At around the same time that a very popular Kiss The Girl cel appeared on eBay, Leslie Combermale from ArtInsights offered me a selection of cels from a private collector. I liked almost all of them, but some stood out from others.

In the end it came down to two: one of a large Ariel with an almost full tail, looking uncomfortable as she explain her collection to Sebastian (not in the shot). The fact that she gets into a better position later in the sequence, plus the fact that Flounder, who comes in about three quarters through the sequence, is absent, led me to pass it up for this one:

The smiles on both characters are fantastic. The dialogue I imagine between them is:
Ariel: "We totally going to get grounded for this. Are you okay with that?"
Flounder: "Hell yeah!"

Even though I know that's not actually the case, the though makes me smile :D

Really, the scene is where Ariel is telling Flounder he can sit out the adventure and "watch for sharks". Flounder smiles for a few seconds before realising what Ariel has just said.

I was momentarily concerned about the shape of Flounder's face, as he is in transition to smiling a bit wider, but I find that it's not really a problem after all. Not a full body shot of Ariel, but the tail is highly visible and the full set of Ariel's colours, plus the coupling of the two contrasting characters, makes this a terrific piece! This being from the shipwreck scene at the beginning, it is currently the earliest appearing cel in my collection.

The collection that I bought this from was apparently not made available exclusively to ArtInsights. Animation Sensations (a.k.a Georgetown Frame Shoppe) has listed many of the pieces shown to me by Leslie on their gallery's site. Considering they still list this piece on their site as available when it is safely in Leslie's physical possession on my behalf, I'm wondering just how many cels on their site are actually still available.

They have it listed at Animation Sensations for $200 more than what I paid for it. Looks like ArtInsights gives a better deal this time!

This piece cost $US2200. Photographic background. Unframed. The authentication seal is in the bottom-right corner.

Update:
As requested by one reader, and since I have the image anyway, here is the cel with the numbers at the bottom. I'll save you the trouble: they match!

I also discovered that this cel was sold a few months before I bought it on an auction site for $881.00. The price inflation would be due primarily to the additional costs of buying through a gallery, since they do need to make some money through the transaction. Even taking that into account, however, I'd guess the buyer/seller made several hundred dollars profit in the three months he had it for. Good for him.