El Tigre Background Origins

So way back in 2003 Jorge Gutierrez created a show for Disney called "Pepe the Bull". I was asked to work on it as a background designer. Below is a sampling of some of the bgs I created for it.



It had a very simple almost children's book style. Jorge and I were very excited about J. Otto and Jim Flora at the time, whose influences I think are pretty apparent here. Below is another image from the same production.



Pepe did not end up going to series, but the incredibly talented Jorge Gutierrez and his partner Sandra Equihua were not daunted, and got right back to work, developing another show, this one called "El Tigre". In 2004 they asked me to do some images for the pitch bible. Below are a few of the images that were in the document they used to pitch the show.

Tijuana


School


Sartana Lair


Factory


Jorge would give me the text that would run below the art, and so I would design the image. The desert town was called "Tijuana" in the pitch bible and is what eventually became "Calavera" in the actual show.

El Tigre Calavera


The school got redone quite a bit, but the cobblestone path remained.

Leone Middle School


We used the pitch bible version of Sartana's Lair as a jumping off point in the series, but we added a lot more detail and towers.

Sartana's Lair


The factory never made an appearance in the show as it was envisioned in the early drafts of the pitch. It was going to be where Rodolfo worked as a citizen when he wasn't being a hero.

It was quite the journey from Pepe to Tigre. Hope you find it interesting to see the development from point A to point B.