[Artwork] Hololive - Korone Inugami with Banjo & Kazooie (Patreon)

I used to draw a lot of N64 characters as a kid. The other kids from my day care center had fun watching me draw all kind of popular videogame heroes. Banjo and Kazooie were some of them.

I like the sequel - Banjo Tooie - more than Banjo Kazooie, but the first game always has a special place in my heart. I think it was my second console game after Super Mario 64, one of the earliest N64 titles I got for Christmas. The sound design and visuals of each individually designed game world were pretty unique for their time, my best friend and I spent endless hours with the completion of every single challenge and collectables.

It was a wonderful experience watching Korone play an old game from my childhood, always driven mad by the difficulty but also always having fun mimicking various characters and commenting on absurdities in the game. With my developed experience as a game designer from my times at university, it was also interesting to see her as a newbie trying to understand the game mechanics without prior experience and learning to solve various puzzles on her own. I thought it was very cute that she talked to Banjo and Kazooie as if they were individual companions during her adventure, so I wanted the illustration to depict the three of them as a team.

The green-skinned cutie is Gruntilda, the antagonist in the game. Normally she looks like an old witch, but every time the player lost all their lives, a game over cutscene was shown where Gruntilda absorbs the beauty of Banjo's captured sister and transfers it to her own body. This was quite morbid and always scared me as a kid, which is why I always tried not to die in the game under any circumstances. I decided to draw her in her pretty form, since it is cuter and easier to draw her this way.

The most challenging part was to draw Korone's endless details on her clothes.