by Julian Solis

Tomas, to start the interview, tell us a little about yourself. You’re no newbie artist and you’ve done a large amount of work on Star Wars comics and trading cards for Wizards of the Coast. How did you originally start working for these companies?

Thanks to the generosity of people like Ron Marz, in the case of Dark Horse or Anthony Waters and Darrell Richie in the case of Wizards.

Ron knew me through samples I did for Crossgen and introduced me at a convention to his Dark Horse friends and that’s where the Star Wars experience came from.

I met Anthony and Darrell in San Diego and within ten minutes of talking they took me to the Wizards booth and introduced me to the trading card editor.

How did the switch from Star Wars to Conan happen?

The Conan editor, assistant editor back then, had his office next to the Star Wars editor and saw pages of mine for their series as they arrived, it seems he liked them and when he took over the book and with Nord leaving the series, he proposed me to continue with it.

What was the most attractive aspect of working on this book?

First of all because this was none other than Conan and exactly the opposite of Star Wars.

I had already been working on covers and stories for four years with the rigorousness of actor likenesses, the exhausting work of starships, weapons, etc. and it seemed like a great opportunity to not only handle a book, but to let loose and to do something a little more intense and to my liking.

With Star Wars, even if I enjoyed it greatly, I was more limited. All that documentation work and technology can sometimes “harden” your style a bit, which is exactly what happened to me.

On Conan, on the other hand, I can be looser and more chaotic. I think I’ve advanced more on this Conan period that I have in the past few years.

Were you a fan of the character, be it in comics, the original stories or movies?

Yes, completely. Not so much on the printed page, even if I’ve read a lot of the stories, but mostly on the art side. Seeing monsters like Buscema, Adams and Alcala - among others – blew my mind when I was young and I still enjoy it today. Besides, I obviously watched the movies a thousand times.

Regarding the art style of the comic, how much of the same look that Cary Nord established for the book do you intend to keep and how much do you plan on distancing from it?

It’s not something on which I really plan on, I’m not that conscious of those things even if I do notice them. I would like to maintain certain pre-established lines because I think they are really useful and to keep my style at the same time. But if tomorrow comes and they don’t fit anymore I wouldn’t hesitate in changing everything.

I think it’s more about the work looking coherent with itself and for it to flow, that’s what concerns me, specially now on the first few tries, but I can’t deny that I’m a bit darker and more obsessive than Nord; we’ll see where this takes me in the future.

How would you describe your style on the Conan book?

As I mentioned, I’m a bit more detailed and darker. I like the idea of a savage Conan, laconic but with brains.

I hope to be able to express that and the violence that accompanies him everywhere.

When drawing the characters and the world of Conan, do you use reference from previous artists?

Of course, it would be a crime not to, but at the same time I think it would be very poor of me to limit myself to that. I think it has more to do with certain things that put you in the mood or that help you not stray from the essence of the character to re-interpret them later in my own way instead of copying poses or images from others.

I think that’s the correct way of using reference unless, of course, it’s a job like Star Wars, where the characters and other elements have to be exact.

How would you describe the new Conan book, compared to the one that is ending?

I think it will be more intense, Conan is a little more seasoned in that part of his life, he’s growing up and gaining experience. He’s definitely leaving behind being a young daredevil to become a very dangerous man. This could be called his mercenary phase.

These days it’s rare for writers and artists to stay on a book for long. Do you have a goal in mind as to how long you’d like to be working on Conan?

A LONG TIME! (laughs) I think that I’d like to, at least, take the character from stage of his life to the next one (which includes a lot of time and effort), just like Nord did by showing us a teenaged Conan looking for adventure and to prove his worth to another one turned into a thief.

Do you have any more art books planned for the moment?

No, not for now. I’d love to sit down to paint and sketch a thousand different things that pop into my head. The publication of Women and Monsters that came out here had some of my older work and I’d like to show the kind of things that I can do nowadays, things that don’t necessarily have to be reflected on the stories on which I’m working at the moment because they may have nothing to do with the aesthetic that I’m required of at that moment. But well, I’ll eventually have the time…!