I am very pleased to showcase my interview with the incredibly talented Santiago Solís Montes de Oca, the illustrator of Montezuma's Tantrum, written by Nuria Gómez Benet and translated by Elisa Amado. This book is graphically stunning and it was such a treat to learn more about how the bold imagery came together. Enjoy learning more!
Montezuma is in a bad mood today. He doesn't want to see anyone or do anything! The people in the palace are very worried. They try everything they can to make Montezuma smile. They bring gifts, make music, and even dance. What to do?
Peek underneath the dust jacket:
Let's talk Santiago Solís Montes de Oca!
LTPB: How did you become the illustrator of Montezuma's Tantrum? What were the first images that popped into your mind when you saw Nuria Gómez Benet’s text?
SSMdO: Araya the editor of Ekaré Barcelona summoned me to the national library of Mexico and told me that she wanted me to illustrate a book for them, showed me some of her books that were in the library’s collection and made sure there was time to make the images, that they were very interested in quality. When I read the text of Nuria the first thing that I thought was that I needed to keep the humor and the rhythm, because it is a poem with a lot of musicality. I needed scenes of landscape, silence, suspense and other more explosive because the tantrum accumulates like a pressure pot.
LTPB: Can you talk a little bit about the visual evolution of Montezuma’s Tantrum? What kind of visual research did you do to accurately blend the Aztec art style with your own?
SSMdO: Since we are children, they tell us stories and tales of the cultures that give us identity, we know that they are there, we recognize some symbols, but it is very different when you have to make images about it, because it already requires a more attentive look at the details, the collections in books and museums, the clothes, the colours, the architecture, some patterns of textiles and vases... In addition, cocoa is not a product that was cultivated by the Aztecs but rather traded with other cultures from tropical areas. That’s when Mayan references appeared where the monkeys carry cocoa pods and I imagined it would be nice to have them as the collectors and chefs of chocolate that the emperor would drink.
LTPB: What did you find most difficult in creating this book? What did you find most rewarding?
SSMdO: Every time I start a book, it is very difficult for me to begin, imagine the new world to create, the colors, the characters, the perspective, the camera frame, it is a technical and conceptual challenge. I needed Moctezuma not to appear all the time because that would make a book boring and not funny, and that’s when I found the snake, an animal that has many connotations: wisdom, temptation, the cunning and for the Aztecs the rebirth and fertility of the earth. For me, he is the advisor, keeps the wheel spinning inside the palace, knows all the secrets and will try at all costs to please the emperor. It’s a character that moves the plot, that makes the book acquire that humor and that rhythm that I was looking for. That finding made the book work very well.
LTPB: What did you use to create the illustrations in this book? Is this your preferred medium? How does your process change from book to book?
SSMdO: As I said earlier, I like to challenge myself with technical and conceptual challenges. I like that each book has an aesthetic search. The publisher wanted something digital and I wanted it to have a manual flavor. In the technical part it is my first book made entirely in Proceate, I think that I worked quite well. I try to imitate my coloring with colored pencils and I think that helps to generate a nice texture and less flat that sometimes can have the digital. It was the first time I used the program and although it has some limitations as to file size and layers, we did it!
LTPB: What are you working on now? Anything you can show us?
SSMdO: I’m working on an own book about wearing glasses (I use glasses), the idea is to put in a not so long book about 300 portraits that I did of people with glasses. I am also in the process of illustration in book for a Chilean publishing house, the theme is about migration. There is another one about ghosts. And some pictures for a scientific magazine about monsters. These year closing will be very stressful but very satisfying if everything goes well!
LTPB: If you got the chance to write your own picture book autobiography, who (dead or alive!) would you want to illustrate it, and why?
SSMdO: It’s a good question... I think I would like to illustrate it Manuel Monroy, is one of my favorite Mexican illustrators, his management in color and his creation of atmospheres are expectacular and above all its technical quality is incredible. Also I am pleased to be your friend! Now if Manuel is very busy, I love the work of the Portuguese Madalena Matoso, she is brillant. They are two opposite illustrators in the formal, but geniuses, I have many books of them.
A Montezuma-sized thank you to Santiago for talking to me about this book! Montezuma's Tantrum published earlier this month from Greystone Kids!
Special thanks to Santiago and Greystone for use of these images!
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