The Art of... DISNEY ILLUSION ISLAND
“Mis-ka, Mou-ska, Mickey Mouse,” chants Richie Shoemaker, summoning forth the Clubhouse to question the Dlala art team having fun inside.
DISNEY ILLUSION ISLAND OBVIOUSLY TAKES MANY OF ITS VISUAL CUES FROM THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF MICKEY MOUSE, WHICH AIRED IN 2020. WHAS THAT THE STARTING POINT FOR THE GAME, VISUALLY? WHERE DID YOU GO FROM THERE? Lucy Kyriakidou (art director): It is definitely a compliment as we are all big fans of the cartoon, but it actually wasn’t one of our main points of inspiration for the art direction.
Aj Grand-Scrutton (writer and creative director):
Yeah, I definitely see the similarities and we are definitely not offended by the comparison, but the shared design sensibilities are more through the fact that both The Wonderful World and Illusion Island share the same love of those early Mickey Mouse cartoons. Chris Jones (art manager): Yeah, we all took inspiration from similar moments in Mickey’s history, but with a view of creating art that would work best for the type of game that we were creating. For example, we knew that the camera would need to be zoomed out at times, to accommodate the multiplayer aspect and mechanics like wall jump. With this in mind we wanted to highlight certain features of the characters.
40 | MCV/DEVELOP September 2023
Lucy: For Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy we looked at the whole history of reimaginings, over the decades, and took inspiration from the early designs, with the white faces and limited colour palettes. Once we had these inspirations we experimented with the characters, pushing the designs to see what makes them iconic, and what would feel right for Illusion Island. Aj: This was key for us. We had zero interest in making controversial design changes or changes for the sake of it. One of our key pillars for the game was “Authentically Disney, Distinctly Dlala”, we wanted to find a way to capture genuine-feeling designs for the characters but ones that were fit for the purpose of the game and unique to Disney Illusion Island. Lucy: If you look at our designs you’ll see we have
those recognisable silhouettes, combined with big hands and feet for clarity. We also wanted to make sure that they were dressed ready for an adventure… or a picnic. My favourite detail is the repeated shapes that can be found on each character. It’s a small design element that brings it all together! Aj: I absolutely adore Lucy’s designs for our fab
four, and also - who would have thought that a little studio, hidden away in Essex, England, would be doing designs for these iconic characters? Not only that, but they’re placed in this big beautiful new Disney world that we created.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
