Seis Manos

Background Art, Color Scripts, and Vehicle Design

When I came in to Seis Manos the team was already designing some of the main locations. I immediately took to the style of the show, and helped solidify the gritty anime/graphic realism look. Local colors and textures were very important to convey the sense of place and time:70’s middle of nowhere Mexico.

The goal was to design the backgrounds with architecure and iconography that would reflect the characters history and personality. Color and Lighting were defined by time of day and weather, according to the emotional beat of the scene. Garabina's Shack is clutered and overflowing with various mexican folklore icons, religious artifacts, and curandera healer props. Chiu's School is a Chinese temple built with Mexican brick, mortar, and tiles. San Simon's Police Station is referencing the 70's action film Assault on Precinct 13.

We developed our Backgrounds from maps, sketches, and line drawings, throught 3D blockouts in Sketchup, to color thumbnails and finished paintings. Here you see a sample of that process, and I contributed many more background designs, bw layouts, color scrpts and finished paintings. I also participated in the post production process, touching up and mainting the quality of the background art that our partners in Korea provided. During that time I collaborated closely with other departments so that the BG art would fit the requirements of compositing and style of the show. You can watch Seis Manos on Netflix.