For designing the taiko drummers, who will represent the cows of the legend about tanabata, I first made some sketches realistic cows to get used to the shapes and body parts and structure. I then made a first design of a drummer in cow costume. I tried to kind of draw the taiko dressing from memory so I won't get to influenced and fixed on their actual clothing look. They have a sort of ribbon on their head which I used to represent the horns. Only after designing all the characters I had a look at my reference photos.
I designed the child drummer first, as it is going to be more important than the adult version (if the adult version will actually appear in the animation). Since most taiko groups I have seen, consisted of mixed ages of children, men and women, I also designed adult versions.
