[Scriptoris] designing charter masters

[Kimberly Koch]

Hi all,

Since there's been some discussion lately about
designing charter masters, I'd like to point out that
there are several resources already available to us
that give some information about this process.

The FAQ on the scribal site answers a few basic
questions about charter masters:
http://scribe.ansteorra.org/faq.html

Master Darius has a nice article about scroll design,
"Basic Layout for Illuminated Pages," on the scribal
site:
http://scribe.ansteorra.org/Articles.html
 
This article is aimed more at original scrolls than
charter masters, but there's still a lot of really
good information there that's applicable.

Margaret Pierce wrote a superb article about charter
design, which sounds like it will be in the handbook
that Baroness Chrystal is working on.

In the meantime, here are a few tips:

- Do not use crosshatching or other kinds of shading.
- Make the design simple to paint by leaving out
excessive detail. For instance, don't draw in the
veins on leaves. Beginning painters have a hard time
painting around this sort of detail, but advanced
painters can easily add in the detail themselves.
- Don't leave large areas of white, which are
difficult to paint without streaking. An exception to
this might be the blank space behind a versal, which
is often intended to be diapered.
- Don't draw large areas of black. They don't always
copy well.
- Try to adapt the complexity of the illumination to
the level of the award. For instance, an AoA level
scroll might have a versal and a single border, a
Grant level award might have two borders, and a court
barony might have illumination on all four borders.
Most of our charters already follow this convention,
but many people aren't aware of it. It's not a hard
and fast rule, but I think it's a really good idea,
for two reasons:
1) It's nice for recipients of higher-level awards to
receive more complex scrolls.
2) We need simple designs for the AoA-level scrolls,
because they get given more frequently. If they are
too complex, many people are reluctant to paint them.
Additionally, if they take too long to paint, we
simply won't be able to maintain the supply of painted
scrolls that we need. If charters are simple and quick
to paint, more people will paint them, they will take
less time to paint, and we will be more likely to
maintain a good supply.

Remember that when you create a charter master, it's
just going to be photcopied. You don't have to create
a perfect scroll in one shot - feel free to cut and
paste, use white-out, and draw your designs on
blue-line graph paper (the blue doesn't photocopy!).
It's a lot easier to create a charter master than an
original scroll. :)

Have fun!
Sara




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