4/03/2022 Research Week

Research into 2 things

foxes

and the Ming Dynasty

Some of the research

Appearance

• The forepaws have five digits, four are in contact with the ground and the fifth, a dew claw on the back of the leg sits about 15mm (0.6 in.) off the ground. Once thought to be vestigial, a recent paper by Russian zoologist Jan Englund proposes that it may serve to help catch small mammals, by increasing the reach of the claws in the event that prey has moved during a pounce. The dew claw is lacking on the hind feet, which would seem to support this hypothesis.

- good to note for modeling

The Ming Dynasty lasted primarily 1368 to 1644 (though those latter couple centuries maybe were split into the southern ming?) (wikipedia)

• Preceded by the Mongol lead Yuan Dynasty

• Followed by the Manchu lead Qing Dynasty

• Last Dynasty lead by Ethnic Han people

• Founder was Zhu YuanZhang, who was a simple peasant!

- This one is really interesting to me because I'm from Nanjing which is where this founder man's tomb is located. There's a very famous pathway lined with stone animals and I actually have pictures of being there as a baby and later in my early teens. Its very strange looking at those pictures

- Anyways its good to know this for the future. I took a stab at redesigning the characters with a more Ming Dynasty look but I don't really like how it turned out. This is why I'm not the character designer for this project.

Quick update- I got around to showing the very first complete pass of the animatic to some people who don't know anything beyond the premise of the short. I got some interesting feedback