The technique used in the movie

LILO & STITCH was in fact the first animated feature to use watercolour-painted backgrounds since DUMBO and hand-drawn (if computer-coloured) cells. A conscious effort was made to give it a warmer,old-fashioned look, dispensing with the “Deep Canvas” technique used in TARZAN, ATLANTIS and it’s immediate followup TREASURE PLANET, and having a minimum number of shots using either a “multiplane” or “3D camera” effect. This decision required a lot of background artists to be trained in the technique.

To give a brighter image to the film, the studio used watercolors to paint the backgrounds. This technique had not been used since Dumbo in 1941. Due to the production schedules, which have continuously tightened since Dumbo, watercolors were risky; one wrong stroke could ruin a piece, and with some 1,200 backgrounds for this movie, there was no time available to waste. Opaque gouache and acrylic paint, the current industry standards, are much more forgiving than watercolor because they let an artist paint over his mistakes. Using watercolors, the Disney artists had to carefully plan a background before they began working on it so as to avoid mistakes. Sanders and the studio's Backgrounds Department searched for easier ways to get the bright look, but finally decided that traditional watercolors were the proper way to go, and had the Orlando crew trained in the technique.