Kevin Bayliss is a name that will be instantly familiar to anyone who considers themselves to be a hardcore Nintendo fan; not only was he responsible for the visuals in many of Rare’s classic NES titles, he worked as a character designer on games such as Killer Instinct, Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country – in fact, he’s the guy responsible for creating Diddy Kong.
Bayliss is now plying his trade at Playtonic Games – custodian of the Yooka-Laylee franchise – but he’s still keenly aware of his connection with Rare’s past and has started a series of art tutorials on YouTube to showcase his working process.
The first tutorial focuses on Mumbo Jumbo (created by Ed Bryan, another ex-Rare staffer who is now at Playtonic) from Banjo-Kazooie, and offers a fascinating insight into how modern game artists create artwork and concept images for their games. Once upon a time, Bayliss would have been putting pen to paper to concoct his characters, but these days everything is done on a computer.
Bayliss is also involved with the ‘Salamandos’ project, which aims to fuse his creations with the music of David Wise, another Rare legend.
Let us know what you think of the video, and tell us which characters you’d like Kev to tackle next.
https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/2020/10/...n-youtube/