The Art of Brawlhalla

In late 2013, I was asked to help with the development of a PC platformer/brawler (inspired by Nintendo’s “Super Smash Bros”) called “Brawlhalla”. The game is available on Steam, and will soon be available for the PS4. I helped develop the game until early fall 2014. At the time I came onboard, the game had very little perspective when it came to style and story. For close to a year, the team at Blue Mammoth Games were mostly experimenting with the possibility of creating a fighter game. A rudimentary rig was created, and animation tests began. Eventually, I’d come to help co-art direct the production. I helped to establish the first roster, and overall design language of the characters. A language still being used for the game after my departure. This blog will showcase the early work I created for “Brawlhalla”. 

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Bodvar designs and skins. It’s sorta weird to see this character as sorta the, “MARIO”  for Brawlhalla. I remember having to design this character in less than an hour. To was completely on a whim, and now he’s fully animated in the latest launch trailer for the game. Pretty funny how that stuff works out. 

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Some environment art I developed. That’s as far as I was able to go on the environment stuff. 

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Maybe my least favorite character

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Volst seemed to be a winner from the get go. I sorta brainstormed that helmet while on a walk around the studio. 

[theartofbrawlhalla]

[theartofbrawlhalla]

[theartofbrawlhalla]

steampunk 

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some unused designs

[theartofbrawlhalla]

[theartofbrawlhalla]

I was never a big fan of Lucien, and hoped that we could redesign him. The high collar didn’t quite work for my eye, when place on the rig. That said, I was really happy with the way his skins turned out. 

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Hotspur was fun to work out. The skins, not so much. I’m not sure my sense of humor was welcomed for those skins. ;-) 

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Hattori was definitely one of the more difficult characters for me to develop for this game, but in the end she turned out very well. Hopefully there weren’t too many changes to her design over the past three years. 

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I always liked this character, and I really hope that Cassidy was able to stay in the game. 

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I’m not entirely sure that this character “Ada” still exists in the game. Also, that colored version at the top was not rendered by me, though it is a good example of the level of collaboration on the game.

[theartofbrawlhalla]

In late 2013, I was asked to help with the development of a PC platformer/brawler (inspired by Nintendo’s “Super Smash Bros”) called “Brawlhalla”. The game is available on Steam, and will soon be available for the PS4. I helped develop the game until early fall 2014. At the time I came onboard, the game had very little perspective when it came to style and story. For close to a year, the team at Blue Mammoth Games were mostly experimenting with the possibility of creating a fighter game. A rudimentary rig was created, and animation tests began. Eventually, I’d come to help co-art direct the production. I helped to establish the first roster, and overall design language of the characters. A language still being used for the game after my departure. This blog will showcase the early work I created for “Brawlhalla”.