The two main characters featured in this project were original created for a comic book series I created and worked on for a year plus. The characters are twins and are inspired by my two younger brothers. These characters transform from human form to a anthropomorphic bear or dog (Xolotl- pronounced Sho-loht.) The Xolotl character is inspired by the Aztec psychopomp deity that guides people to the underworld. The original comic book series is more geared toward children and was not going to explore the underworld too much besides some fun hijinks adventures, but I wanted to explore the idea with grownup versions of the characters. So, I explored many iterations of character designs for both as I worked toward a look for this future story.

Ultimately, I started leaning toward a more cartoony look inspired by movies like Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Zootopia, and Bad Guys but also Fantasy Anthropomorphs.

I also wanted to explore the look of Mictlan which I haven't completely landed on yet, but I know I want a lot of color which led to the concept art below which features purple and green but also the Owl which is important to the Aztec underworld mythology.

The Journey to Mictlan is supposed to be an arduous one that many MesoAmerican cultures believe feature portals to the underworld (which can be found in caves). I had recently taken a tour of a caves here in Guatemala, which were lit solely by the candles that each tourist was handed, serving as a great inspiration for this series.

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I really wanted to capture the Cave look and I had recently take a class with Ben Eblen who promoted the idea of roughing out a scene in a 3D program to simulate the lighting of a certain scene.

I also wanted to incorporate a non-superpowered character who wasn't supposed to be on this journey with our two big guys, so I put him in a Startbucks Employee inspired uniform suggesting that he came straight from work which is a kind of hell on earth for him.

Ultimately, I think I have landed on a look for the comic and the next step is to complete the script and start drawing and even get a character model made of both main characters.