Donkey Kong Country 2 - Squawk's Heavy Birden

A re-imagining of an iconic and memorable scene from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. This will always be one of my favorite childhood platformers for the music, atmosphere, and of course, the characters! This piece was created without a "real" concept to follow. I did some rough sketches of what I wanted it to look like and then I explored in 3D to see what else I could extract from the original idea.

In addition to trying to create a piece all on my own, I also wanted to continue exploring emotions and storytelling. Dixie is totally chill and relaxed, Squawks is under tremendous stress and Diddy is having a blast, maybe even at Squawks expense. In the original game, the three of them are flying through a tangled mess of bramble quite effortlessly. I wanted to try and reimagine that adventure maintaining the carefree nature of the monkies but emphasizing just how much weight Squawks was pulling on this journey. (Both figuratively and literally!)

Hope you all enjoy!