This is the second part of my brief chat with artist Angelo Montanini, about the designs he created to illustrate some of the cultures that will be available to the players inHope & Glory.
After the first and the Anglo-Indian Raj, it is now the turn of the most exciting, in my opinion, places in Hope & Glory: Africa.
1 . If the first design caused a lot of enthusiasm, the second one instantly became "canonical", and the two characters appear as protagonists in one of the novellas that are part of the first batch of Hope & Glory products.
The Africa of Hope & Glory is an ascending continent, a mosaic of cultures that are finding their pride back. Innovation, contamination, tradition. Did you meet any difficulty or any particular challenge in developing the look of these two characters?
No problem at all, because once again contaminations with the Fashion world suggested me how to resolve the two outfits.
2 . And talking about a more general topic, how does it feel , to a graphical artist, the current obsession of part of the public for "cultural appropriation", seen as the ultimate sin? Can anybody seriously think of creating anything new without taking inspiration from other cultures, other times and places?
I think the answer is implicit in the world we are living in. If we will be unable to understand and adapt to old and new cultures with which we come in contact daily, we will simply disappear, together with our culture.
3 . The African design is wonderful, but let's do a cruel game: it's been a few months since you sketched it. Looking back at it now, is there anything you'd do differently?
I sincerely like both characters. Maybe I would adopt a less secondary point of view on her. She looks a little pushed to the side by his puissance. No good.