BAS 127 character concepts

In BSA 2127 this year, we are making a short (30s to 2 min) 2D animation. I decided to base my story in this picture of an image of an Italian 15th Century manuscript from Croatia, where a cat has walked across it.




Image source:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130326-animals-medieval-manuscript-books-cats-history/

The story logline is basically a monk is trying to finish a manuscript and finds his work interrupted by a monastery cat.

Since the story is based in 15th Century Mediterranean monastery, I had to do research on mediterranian cat breeds, 15th Century fashion, 15th Century monks, manuscript writing and illumination processes and what tools were used in manuscript writing.

Mediterranean Cat Breeds:

Since the Mediterranean region borders both Africa and Europe, it has an ancient and extensive history featuring lots of migrations in both people and the animals they take with them. Due to this there are no distinct cat breeds that are endemic to the Mediterranean region.

15th Century Fashion:

for the fashion, I used the information found in the Men's section on this website: http://world4.eu/italian-14th-century-clothing/, although the website was a useful resource for historical fashions, the human character was a monk, so I needed to look elsewhere.

For 15th Century monk references, I found some illustrations on getty images which were more in line with the monk character

I'll provide site links since blogger hates images
Image source:

http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/photo/figure-of-monk-fresco-of-sacristy-of-upper-high-res-stock-photography/158647383

Image source:
http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/news-photo/figure-of-monk-detail-from-the-miracle-of-poison-fresco-by-news-photo/154713625#figure-of-monk-detail-from-the-miracle-of-poison-fresco-by-the-second-picture-id154713625

 

The first 5 costume ideas were from the fashion website, and the last two (bottom right) were from the monk images

Manuscript writing and Illumination Process:

For what tools the monk is going to use, I researched the manuscript writing and illumination process. Since script writing and illumination were time-honoured traditions, and the only way to print books prior to the printing press, their processes would remain largely unchanged for centuries.
Getty museum once again proved useful with their Youtube tutorials on what the manuscript writers and illuminators did throughout history (see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3325523639&feature=iv&src_vid=1aDHJu9J10o&v=nuNfdHNTv9o).

The process of making ink may be of some use in the story, so I also looked at tutorials on how to make iron gall ink from oak gall nuts:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Iron-Gall-Ink/

 My annotations on the manuscript writing processes.

Text reads from top to bottom:

Manuscript writing tools

[quills were often made from] goose flight feathers

[manuscript] pages made from stretched leather

[quill] shaved down to make room for hand

[manuscript] lines would be ruled prior to writing

flat [quill] tip produces this kind of writing

mistakes can be scraped away

generates 'dust'

'Gall nuts' or carbon are used to make black ink

gall nut on oak

[gall nut] contains tannins for ink

manuscript would be written on an angle because of how gravity interacts with ink and quills

top half [of quill feather] thinner than bottom (flight feather)

Character expression sheets:

 

The expression sheet and rough sketches of the cat character 

text reads top to bottom:

[the cat is] just out of kittenhood

have the cat be skinny to contrast man[uscript] writer

large, expressive eyes +ears

maybe use whiskers to push expressions?

 

The expression sheet and rough sketches of the monk character 

text reads top to bottom:

 can simplify lines

repeat this shape

stain fingers w[ith] ink?

short fingers + wide palms

large sleeves

only show eyes when really necessary?

Character turnarounds:

I cleaned up the characters and did turnarounds using ToonBoom, at the tutor's suggestion.

 

The cat turnaround

 

The monk turnaround

The colour pallets of the characters may be subject to change, but I'm relatively happy with their overall appearance thus far.

Next I may have to sort out backgrounds and environments