After seeing the art that Matias and Seba had produced, we knew we wanted one of them. We even tossed around the idea that maybe we wanted both of them, but were unsure how ambitious we wanted to be. To help us decide better, we asked both of them to draw a test page, reproducing the last scene of Chapter 1 (see pages 23 and 24). This would theoretically allow us to see if they were just good at making sketches, or if they really could produce a comic/graphic novel for us. Let me just say that the results were astounding. I won’t put up the initial pencils or inks (maybe later), but here are the inks they gave us.
Needless to say, we were very pleased with their work. Great coloring, imagination and ability (in our non-artistic opinion). We still couldn’t quite decide between the two. Matias really seemed to catch the Nick’s dark, gritty vision of the world, while Seba’s sketches (I’ll show you some later) really matched my understanding of the characters I had written. That was when we decided to work with both of them. I can’t really get too much into what each artist will be doing without giving away the plot, but both Matias and Seba will be making huge contributions to the project. Their distinct styles will be quite crucial to the story. Chapter 1 is mostly Seba, and Chapter 2 will be also, but Chapters 3 and 4 will be drawn mostly by Matias. Both help with the development of ideas, characters and world elements. It really is a good mix.
Anyways, that’s how we decided on Matias and Seba as our artists. Check back tomorrow for some insight into the production process.