Former RARE artist shows off original Donkey Kong Country sketches

Donkey Kong’s design didn’t go through many iterations in its early years, but that changed when Nintendo and RARE teamed up to work on the Donkey Kong Country series. This resulted in a completely new look for Donkey Kong; one that would become the character’s main visual style for decades to come.

In a new video from former RARE artist Kev Bayliss, we get to see some sketches of the early work on Donkey Kong Country. These sketches showcase the many different ideas the team had for Donkey Kong. It was obvious the team was trying to find a way to rework Donkey Kong with a fresh design, and it took awhile to land on the approach we see in Donkey Kong Country.

While some of the drawings shown are quite different from Donkey Kong as he appears in Donkey Kong Country, you can see how elements of each one helped pave the way for the final result. Pretty crazy to see just how different some of these designs were!