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“Let's celebrate what we look like instead of just going to the typical, everyday look that all princesses look like a look that says they have to have a perfect body and no chunkiness, no curves.” The spirit of D&D “We have to start introducing something a little more ‘norm’ and learn to value it, you know, and that's what I decided to do with our culture,” says Equihua. There was a choice by Equihua to distance Maya from the usual Disney princess design or the Barbie ideal – “it’s alien-like, she says” – arguing we need to demand more, and begin seeing female heroes of all shapes and sizes.
MAYA AND THE THREE SKIN
As well as adding a few design secrets in there to build storytelling – Maya’s design is asymmetrical, for example, because she’s caught between two worlds, her heroic destiny and her love for her normal life.Įquihua tells us: “I grew up in Tijuana, in Mexico, and a lot of my peers were short, we were short and we had a certain type of skin colour and I began to realise the more I was down there that we have so many beautiful features on the face as women we have curves and not only in the US and Mexico but a lot of women out there also have curves and we have to learn to be proud of them.” Equihua explains how she designed Maya to reflect her Mexican heritage, childhood, and culture. There’s that Black Panther comparison again.
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There’s a sense that Maya and the Three is exploring new ideas and celebrating diversity. There's going to be truths and there's going to be nuances that will come from someone of that literal upbringing in that culture and those ideas and I think for me, I'd be an idiot to not let a genius designer like her basically take the lead and design all female characters.” “ when it's a female designer, like Sandra, she's designing her own culture, she's designing something she intimately knows. He shares how male designers can fall into the trap of drawing idealised women. Reflecting on his wife’s involvement Gutiérrez explains how it has been important to represent women properly in Maya and the Three. Sandra Equihua, character designer on Maya and the Three, and Gutiérrez’s wife, interjects: “Jorge's theory in life is more is more, mine is less is more, so while I've always been okay tone it down a little bit with, Jorge is just like you know an explosion a throw-up of colour, his palette is limitless.” Designing MayaĬharacter designer Sandra Equihua believes its time we saw more varied female characters in animation (Image credit: Netflix) (opens in new tab) His college tutors told him he was “a floozy with colour,” they said, “you have to make the audience work for it, because you're just giving it away for free.” He combines a build stylised look, an animation style that merges 2D, 3D, and stop motion, but colour is his passion. The director’s love of colour is what sets him apart from other animators.
MAYA AND THE THREE FULL
Gutiérrez reflects: “Having gone through all the ruins as a kid you're told, literally, these crumbled buildings and these stones on the floor, they used to be colourful and high and full of people and full of colour, and you never see them.
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MAYA AND THE THREE SERIES
The series is a callback to his childhood. Colour us impressedĭirector Jorge Gutiérrez loves using as much colour as possible in his animation (concept art by Paul Sullivan) (Image credit: Netflix) (opens in new tab) Maya and the Three is a nine episode series – or as the director prefers, three epic movies – that delves into the myths of his own Mexican culture, and brings the style and design of Mesoamerica and Caribbean culture to the screen in a vibrant, fantastical way we’ve not seen before. The Black Panther comparison begins to make sense the more Gutiérrez talks. And so that became the fuel of making something like this.” And I guess our stories aren't meant to be told’. So then we started, we asked, ‘why doesn't the camera go south?’ Why doesn't the camera go to these countries?’ And at some point as a kid, you start watching this stuff, and you go, ‘well, if the people who are the heroes don’t look like us then I guess we're not meant to be heroes. “There are things that are in every myth all over the world. Inspired by ancient legends, as well as Clash of the Titans and Wizard of Oz, Gutiérrez is keen to transfer these universal myths into something more personal.