Thread by @danhoangart

Here’s a look into the visual development process on @FallGuysGame which I’ve had the joy of working on with the brilliant team @Mediatonic 💛

Rewind to 2018 - The Art for the initial pitch was created in a week. I was super excited by @GosuJoe’s pitch and had to figure out what the character looked like. To speed things up I downloaded a free 3D model and started playing around with different proportions

Fundamentally I wanted the design to feel simple because we knew there would be a lot of players on screen at once. Here I was really trying to make myself laugh with the design because we knew humour would play an important role😁

Part of the reason for using 3D instead of 2D sketching was that it gave me the advantage of shoving the model into Mixamo to preview some rough animation. This informed our decisions and allowed us to move on quickly.

This ‘Yetiguy’ vinyl figure designed by @thisisnevermore (Fall Guys Senior UI Artist) had a strong influence on the design.

Here's an early look at customisation for the initial pitch. I’m glad the crown and heart pants made their way to the finish line ;)

Concepting in 3D also allowed me to rapidly churn out different compositions and camera angles without having to redraw everything multiple times.

I had a real blast building this scene, creating and imagining silly little gameplay moments and stories.

Usually it's the artistic potential that gets me excited about a project, with Fall Guys my urge to play the game exceeded that for the first time.

Fast forward to later in the year and the project had been green lit 🥳 In our hearts we knew we just needed to refine what we already had with the base Fall Guy design, and to verify that we explored some other options, none of which resonated as strongly.

Here are some sketches I collaborated on with @amyloupearson (Pre-Production Art Lead). At first I was torn about having the Fall Guy’s face + an additional face from the costume on top, but I think we ultimately got it to work really well in the end.

Large arms and hands for grabbing, small feet to add humour to the run cycle (not small enough at this stage). Lowering the eyes may seem insignificant, but it’s actually a big change because we pay so much attention to faces, it helped give the Fall Guy a sense of naivety.

One morning @amyloupearson dropped some play-doh on my desk to mix things up. It’s actually terrible for sculpting with, but that forced me to keep the forms simple. After a quick and dirty paintover we’d found a sense of weight and mass we wanted to give the character

Here are some motion studies I sketched as a reference for the Animators. Fall Guys barely have any legs, thinking about them as flour sacks helped me imagine how they'd move. Understanding 2D & 3D design processes can give you a wider range of tools for creative problem solving

Figuring out how they get back up was tricky…

???: “First they get up on their knees-”

Me: “What knees? They don’t have any!”

Antlersaurus Rex? I still like the oversized kaiju-esque tail - but we thought it'd interfere with gameplay. Something we nurtured early on this project was the back and forth synergy between Art & Design💛

Collectively we can produce bigger problems for the engineers😇

We looked at Mascot costumes to help us figure out how we wanted the costumes to feel and be broken down. Who knew the Pigeon would go on to reach such great heights...🦤🦈

Customisation systems are challenging to design, creatively and technically. We consciously designed the base Fall Guy so that it could be versatile and work with a diverse range of costumes

This was a breakthrough-set, and not a million miles away from where we ended up. We'd landed on a set of rules that allowed us to start imagining how it would feel to start mixing and matching costumes.... like Pick N Mix!

3D modelling by Antoine Dekerle. Here I was trying to achieve a tactile feeling for the materials. Vinyl toys and figures have been a key reference throughout the project.

I'll park this thread here for now, plenty more to come! Let me know if you have any questions :)

One day @ThePhilWarner approached me with an idea he had for a final level where players would have to try and stay on a platform while a giant chicken rampaged! I don’t think I’d ever seen him so excited! 💛😁🐔

I recall someone describing this sketch as equal parts cute and absolutely terrifying

My thinking was that if you remained idle this elephant-hoover would come along and mess you up🐘

If you can make yourself laugh with your designs chances are it might resonate with others too

We used to joke about Fall Guys being observed in the wild with Attenborough style narration. It wasn't the tone we ended up going for, but there's something about this sketch I still find charming...

What kind of tech and cameras would be used to capture the greatest gameshow the world has ever seen?

Throughout the world-building processes you often end up with hundreds of unused sketches and ideas, on the bright side you end up building a library to pull from in the future.

Some very early artwork exploring the 'tone' of Fall Guys. I’m no graphic designer but mocking up title screens is always fun!

I remember being inspired by social media video transitions and camera work… seeing if it could be incorporated somehow 👴

Ready! Set! Go!

Note the silver Fall Guy falling over straight off the start line 😂

(I'll kick off another thread to dive into more level / world design)