I am used to seeing this type of illustrations in the award winning Gulf News, and I happened to be in the newsroom last month when Hugo was beginning to sketch his wonderful renditions. I remember standing behind his shoulder as he patiently completed drawings, paying attention to every detail, explaining to me the various renditions of the popular comic book character, and the actors that have played him.
Now I see the result of all that craftsmanship published. I figured that readers of TheMarioBlog would enjoy getting the behind the scenes story. Here is my conversation with Hugo Sanchez, who is part of the graphics/design team of the Gulf News under the direction of design director Miguel Gomez, working under the leadership of editor in chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad.
A chat with the illustrator
Mario:
How did the idea come about: Editors or from YOU?
Hugo:
I came out with the idea to do something big, you know, the 75th anniversary of Batman! I sold the plan to my colleagues Jose Luis and Seyyed from the design team and together, we landed a rough structure to present it to Miguel Gomez (Design Director). Once we had a solid concept and some dummies, we presented the material to the Tabloid section editor to get the space and support.
The core of the project would be the Batman evolution across the years through illustrations. I had been testing new digital sculpting tools and techniques for two months already before the project started, so with the use of that resource I prepared a couple of samples (photos sample A & B) to present them to the team and we decided to produce all the evolution in the same way, due to the high potential this new tools offer to create digital sculptures with a huge amount of details
Mario:
I know that at the Gulf News, these are always team projects, even if one illustrator (you in this case) leads the way. So, Who else contributed to this project?
Jose Luis Barros and Nasir Khan | Design & look and feel
Seyyed De la Llata | Copy for the introduction and the psychological profile
Dwynn Trazo, Nino Jose Heredia | Iconography, batmobiles and gadgets
Hugo A. Sanchez | Project manager, Batman evolution 3d sculpts & look and feel.
Natalie Long, David Tusing | tabloid! Editors
Mario:
What was the digital output?? Anything special for digital? Link to see it.
Hugo:
We are right now working on the web version. In this particular case the web version had to come after the print because the deadline and the complexity of the idea. Basically we want the users explore on each one of the Batman 3d sculptures and not just see one angle like on the print version, so it will come soon. (photo web plan sample)
When the unexpected happens
Hugo tells me that interesting things happened when the illustrations were published.
"Also we were part of the Comic Con excitement during last weekend," Hugo said. "After published, one portion of our infographic, the Ben Affleck Batman--which we worked as a prediction based on official information and strong rumors about the movie Batman vs. Superman-- went viral because some fan boys posted the image as official.
"Later," Hugo told me, " when the Comic Con started, they presented officially just the cowl and cape of the new batsuit in one of the exhibitions and other fan boys created a Photoshop montage combining out a digital sculpture with pictures from the official exhibition and tweeted them. Again the fan reaction exploded."
"We created a prediction in a responsible way . Although I cannot deny how fun it was to be part of the hype created for the upcoming movie, we did not publish that part of the feature as a cheap or irresponsible plan to get any kind of extra attention. From the beginning we were really clear that the sculpture we published was based on the single official image released and not rumors."
Hugo says that now he will update the Ben Affleck Batman sculpture with all the new official details, and that version will be the one the Gulf News will include on the web infographic.
