Inspiration

The design in El Tigre was an honest attempt to reappropriate a lot of stereotypical Mexican iconography commonly used throughout the world. Especially in cartoons. Not sure we pulled it off but the attempt was genuinely heroic!

Sandra and I really tried making our characters as culturally authentic as we could but still universally empathic.

Aside from Mexican popular culture and folk art, some of our inspiration came from the art of Miguel Covarrubias, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Guadalupe Posada, Diego Rivera, Sergio Aragones & ancient Mayan art.

I bet you can't name all the references for each.

Where did El Tigre come from?

These are more panels from the Siggraph presentation.


When Sandra & I started developing the idea for El Tigre, we tried something that we had not done before for inspiration. We usually based our ideas on things we felt knew on a cultural level and liked aesthetically & conceptually. Just to make it hurt more and be a little braver, this time we would base the show on our personal life experiences. At the time we realized that all of our favorite music, films, books, etc... they're all based on real things! Things that happened to the artists & creators.


Growing up in Mexico City, my grandfather was a big military general, and my father was an architect. When I was little, all my aunts and family friends would always say, "You're so much like your grandfather," or, "You're so much like your dad. What are you gonna be when you grow up? Are you gonna be an artist, or are you gonna be a general?" And that's where the dilemma of Manny being a superhero like his dad, or a supervillain like his grandfather, came from.



Same thing with my grandfather. I'd go visit him, and his office looked like a supervillain's lair, with all this crazy stuff in there.



And that's how I saw them, as a kid. I'd go to my dad's office, and he'd draw me whatever I asked him to draw, and it just seemed like he had superpowers.


So the world in El Tigre is how we remember the Mexico we grew up in as kids.

best promo ever!

El Tigre PKG from giancarlo sabogal on Vimeo.

images from the Siggraph presentation, part 1

I tried picking out the most drunk pictures I could find from the El Tigre kick off party at El Carmen to introduce our panelists. Next to their pictures you can see what everyone looked like in the series...