King are the studio behind some of the most well-known mobile games in the world, with a world-class creative studio that is no small part of that success.

Candy Crush is their flagship game and arguably one of the most popular mobile games of all time, and whilst freelancing at King, I had the pleasure of working up some key art for it.

To keep players engaged, special challenges are launched periodically throughout the year and promoted in-game with bespoke art created for each one.

For the autumn 2020 challenge, I illustrated this harvest-themed key art.

As someone who does not come from an illustration background, this was quite a challenging process for me. Knowing that the final result would be viewed by potentially millions of players added extra pressure but ultimately made the challenge more rewarding.

Along with the background scene, it was necessary to create a lot of elements from scratch.

All of the assets had to be illustrated to match the in game art style whilst adhering to King's meticulous art guidelines.

Making the assets fit into the existing game world was imperative, be it as organic, semi-lifelike objects such as the pumpkin cauldron or cardboard cutouts on stands.