A PASSION FOR FASHION…

Ian Gooding reveals: “We had a lot of fun dressing the [Niceland] characters of this world. When you take something very sophisticated and tailor it with little hats and brooches, and you put it on these funny little people, it becomes hilarious. The more serious you get with the clothing, the funnier it becomes. They dress 80s-centric because that’s their era and they think that’s really cool. Again, really cool and serious becomes funny when you scale to the people of Niceland.”

LEVEL THREE: THE CREATION OF THE WORLD OF HERO’S DUTY

Visual Development Artist Cory Loftis reveals: “For Wreck-It Ralph, I worked on the world of Hero’s Duty. In the very beginning, Mike Gabriel came into my office and he gave me some ideas to think about before I started designing. First and foremost, he explained that Hero’s Duty needed to feel like a real first-person shooter game; it needed to feel like a legitimate sci-fi shooter. I always kept that in mind when I worked on the design.”

A TRIANGULAR TECHNOLOGY…

Cory Loftis continues: “Hero’s Duty had to have that really strong triangular-shape language that Mike mentioned earlier, so I tried to pack as many triangles into the design as possible. The whole tower design is a big inverted triangle stuck into this planet. The windows are triangles; the decals are triangles; even the dust and debris that’s floating around in the air are triangles. Everything is sharp and angular.”

A WHOLE NEW WORLD…

Cory Loftis adds: “I watched a lot of sci-fi movies growing up. All of the movies I really liked had one thing in common about the design of the technology featured in them: the spaceships, robots and hi-tech things weren’t made of sleek materials. They weren’t glossy or shiny. They were rough; they were bolted and riveted together; they had hoses and vents; stuff leaked, metal rusted and paint was chipped. I tried to take this idea along with the triangular shape language to create this unique world; not just in the tower and the planet itself, but also into the props and characters that are in Hero’s Duty.”

LEVEL FOUR: THE CREATION OF THE WORLD OF SUGAR RUSH

Visual Development Artist Lorelay Bove reveals: “When we first started working on Wreck-It Ralph, we wanted to create a candy world that was new and different to anything we’d seen before. I’m originally from Spain and I’ve always loved Antoni Gaudi and his modernist architecture. When I was little, I thought his architecture was made of candy. That’s where the idea came to use this modernist architecture movement and mix it with candy to make our own world and our own style.”

SPANISH DELIGHTS…

Lorelay Bove continues: “We took a research trip to Spain to study the shapes, rhythm and patterns of the architecture of Gaudi and it seemed to fit our new world perfectly. But we did not directly copy Antoni Gaudi or the modernist architecture; we just caricatured and made it a new, distinct world. Alongside the trip to Barcelona, we also took a research trip to the world’s largest candy convention in Germany. It was like the Comic-Con of candy, and we took lots and lots of pictures for reference.”

SWEET LIKE CANDY…

Lorelay Bove adds: “If you look at the world of Sugar Rush, you’ll see the circular shape language everywhere; there are circles all over the place. Plus, everything is sugar coated; even King Candy’s castle. When it comes to the citizens of Sugar Rush, [Wreck-It Ralph director] Rich Moore had the idea of using Japanese Harajuku girls as an inspiration because they are so unique. It worked really well, especially with the Japanese candy we found along the way.” 

Source: Walt Disney Studios