It surprised people when Nintendo revealed alternate costumes for Bayonetta that let her look like some of the company's family-friendly characters. Now, you can see the design process for getting Platinum Games' sexy witch-warrior into Princess Peach, Link and Starfox costumes.
A new blog post at developer Platinum Games' site shows the various sketches character artist Yong-Hee Cho came up with as part of nailing the look for the Nintendo-based outfits:
It all started one day when Kamiya walked up to my desk and said, "Hey Cho. Draw Bayonetta in a Princess Peach outfit for me. Thanks."
He walked off to leave me thinking to myself, "P-p-p-princess Peach and Bayonetta? How am I supposed to find the common ground between these two characters!? They're like night and day…"
For the Link design, Cho says that it was Nintendo that requested a racier top:
When I gave the designs to Nintendo to check, I was worried about how "kid-friendly" Bayonetta looked. Like, I didn't think it'd be a good idea to show too much cleavage, you know… but when Nintendo looked at my Link design, they actually suggested to me to open up her top a little more… Wow.
The Bayonetta games already have a strong character design foundation but it's interesting to hear how they approached the challenge of finding a middle ground between their aesthetics and those of really well-known Nintendo characters.