McDonalds Happy Studio: Game Comps & Assets

There is a lot to say about this wonderful project called, Happy Studio! For 4+ years I had the pleasure working as Lead Illustrator on Happy Studio for McDonald's Europe! With a power house team of 5 illustrators and 3 animators, we created several themed virtual worlds for kids. Within the world, players could customize an avatar, decorate their front gate with fun Happy Studio assets, walk around the themed environments, meet other players, play Licensed Property (L.P.) games created by our team, and accomplish L.P. challenges within the worlds. These games were promoted on McDonald's Happy Meals in Europe. In short, I was given the most amazing opportunity creating and designing games for some major global brands - far too many to list here! As a lead, I was very much a part of the creative process and creating artwork with the illustration team. I also checked quality of artwork created by the team, problem solving art related issues, managing an out of house artist, overseeing animation & illustration and providing feedback. I worked closely with the animators to plan what was required for each project. On many occasions I helped plan games with the game designers, brainstorming ideas and problem solving game related issues while working closely with the directors. I would present a list of the assets provided by the client, together we determined what needed to be illustrated and animated by our team within the budget and deadlines. I would delegate work to myself and other team members based on skill level and/or availability. Using Confluence, I would create detailed illustration asset lists, music requirements and animation lists per project. I worked closely with the producers who held daily scrum meetings with each department team lead. I mentored co-op students and trained new illustrators. Take a peek at the video I found on You Tube! This pretty much sums up what this fun site was all about! Sadly, the site has been discontinued. All good things must come to an end! :(

Below is a sample of the hard work that goes into each one of the above game compositions. The mask creator alone had hundreds of assets for users to choose from! These were all designed by me and given to the 3D department.

Below are some 2D painted assets I created for the 3D Happy Studio world. This is just a small sample of the many assets we created over the course of 4 years.

Every Licensed property required a world "takeover". Creating and using assets, we would have to decide where to integrate the properties. Along with a call to action, the users could click the L.P. and play the game we created for that specific LP! Below is a sample of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games LP I created. I also created the animation keyframes along with some directional notes for the 3D team to follow.