Donkey Kong designer reveals his biggest problem with his Rare redesign, and explains how his childhood breakfast cereal ban shaped Diddy Kong, too

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"We'll get somebody good to model it, to draw it properly when the time comes. But the drawings are just concepts."

Donkey Kong Country
(Image credit: Nintendo)

To all the aspiring artists out there, the designer behind Donkey Kong shares some words of wisdom.

Kevin Bayliss, art director at Rare and an art designer on Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Battletoads, and more, shows us that "you don't have to be an amazing artist to get a career."

He shows off prototype drawings of Donkey Kong and points out why some of his design decisions were made. DK doesn't have a neck because Bayliss wasn't very good at drawing them, "so I just drew a head basically in his stomach."

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That's not the only shortcoming on Donkey Kong, Bayliss explains: "Unfortunately, when I designed him, because he basically had BATTLETOAD eyes, it is hard to give Donkey Kong any expression other than 'annoyed' - this is something I take a little more into consideration when creating characters today!"

Donkey Kong has had a redesign in footage from Mario Kart 9 that brings him more inline with his filmic counterpart. Not everyone likes the new style, though: "DK ain't look right," writes one unsettled viewer.

Bayliss also shares an interesting fact, Diddy Kong was inspired by the Coco Pops monkey. "When I was a kid I loved this character, but I wasn't allowed to have the cereal because according to my parents it was just full of sugar. (What did they know?)," he tweets. "Who'd have guessed that many years later, that same little monkey on my TV screen inspired me to create DIDDY KONG?"

It's strange to think about a time before Diddy Kong. He's been around since 1994, just before I was born, and now I feel weird that the Coco Pops monkey is also older than me. My favorite cereal is the Lion bar one. So sugary, but so good.

Bayliss says good art design in games "comes down to your ideas and if you can put your ideas across. Not how well you can draw a face, how well you can draw a fish, how well you can draw a banana. It all comes down to 'is the idea any good?' We'll get somebody good to model it, to draw it properly when the time comes. But the drawings are just concepts."

So, don't let any perceived lack of ability hold you back. Make that concept art and spread your wings.

In the meantime, if you're a fan of Rare and other companies like it, check out our list of all the best retro games you can play.

Issy van der Velde
Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.