Last instalment - for the time being - of the chat with Angelo Montanini about his art for Hope & Glory (and assorted curiosities).
It's time to talk about the Chinese characters.
1 . ... and these two, too, instantly turned into characters for a novelette in the Hope & Glory series (I know, I'm repeating myself - but good ideas must be used when is found). She is absolutely gorgeous and almost alien. Iknow I'm being monotonous, but did you imagine a story behind this character? Who she is? What does she do? Why does she have those claws?
She is certainly an alien, but in the preparatory sketch, she was a common Oriental girl. As I worked I increased her esoteric feel, to communicate an even stronger detachment from common mortals, that must adore her as someone that came from a distant star.
2 . Creating an ethnic fusion like the one that we are trying to do - so far successfully, I'd say - with Hope & Glory, requires a balancing act between recognizable details and new ideas. There is always the risk of falling back on clichés, on things we've seen already. How can we escape this trap? (and no, you can'y just reply by telling me "by being good!")
By trying to avoid what everybody else would do, that is, stereotypes. Maybe leaving a small ironic signal as a provocation game.
3 . laste question (for the time being), and maybe again an improper question, but which one of the four models for Hope & Glory you did is the one you like the most? Or even better, which one was the most fun to imagine, more satisfactory when executed? And why?
Answering "all four" would be too easy; I actually started with the "British" and I had fun observing the progress of the chromatic effects. Maybe thesurprise of being able to combine fashion and fantasy with steampunk for the first time is what makes me give this opinion.
4 . OK; I lied, onemore question: imagine you are given absolute carte blanche, in creating a look or a concept for Hope & Glory. What would you like to design? Which aspects of this world would you like to explore graphically?
The pre-Colombian world offers an enormous number of suggestions, just as Cowboy and Indians... I would like to follow those roads if they are allowed in the universe of Hope & Glory.
Post Scriptum: just to show that meeting Angelo Montanini was a real moment of magic: one of his "dream projects" mentioned in the last answer is exactly what we are going to do next inHOpe & Glory.
But that, as they say, is another story.