Our initial prototype for Tribes of Mexica was done in a very short amount of time. We were quite pleased with it, but we knew that there’d be a lot of changes going forward.

One of the features we really wanted to improve was the overall art style. After debating it for a while, we decided to give ToM a magical, fairy tale vibe that’s not predominant in videogames. We gathered a variety of references, but eventually settled on James Jean’s work (who, appropriately enough, used to be the cover artist for the ongoing Fables comic book series).

The beautiful, double-sided cover of Animal Farm.

James’ fine linework and smooth fills were quite striking, but his detailed illustrations would be rather difficult to reproduce in a videogame. More than that, though, we didn’t want to force artists to simply emulate another style, but instead to use it as a rough guideline while bringing their own flavour to the look. With that in mind, we contacted numerous illustrators and commissioned a single piece from each one: a coloured sketch of a Cipactli.

Our original Cipactli.

The Cipactli boss fight proved the most memorable part of our prototype, but we thought that his deformed, Godzilla-like design lacked personality. The monster’s premise was interesting enough — a cayman with jaws on every joint and frog/fish like features — but since it didn’t really come through in-game, it became the perfect subject for a makeover.

Out of all the test runs we did, these were our favourites:

Cipactli #1, a villain with a sinister smile and curled eyebrows.

Cipactli #2, a grotesque figure peppered with snarling jaws.

Cipactli #3, a lithe humanoid with a tribal motif.

Cipactli #4, a muscular beast in a comic book style.

Being so close to a project can make it easy to lose perspective, though, so we figured it couldn’t hurt to ask for some public opinions. We’ve created a little Cipactli poll just below, so please cast your vote and leave us some comments!

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