At Dardo, we are always pushing ourselves to explore new art styles and enhance our skills and collaboration by working together on internal projects. One of our favorite ways to grow as a team is to take games and art styles we love and use them as creative studies. This time, we dove into an exciting mashup of two inspirations close to our hearts: Brawl Stars and the iconic Akira!

We saw a perfect match in Edgar’s moody and intense vibe with Kaneda’s iconic energy, and we set out to explore how this pairing could look and feel. After brainstorming and locking down the direction, we developed animation studies and mood boards to inspire the team while capturing the Akira-like intensity, but with the boldness and vibrancy of Brawl Stars.

From the modeling and texturing to rigging, animation, VFX, and shader work, the team embraced every discipline to create an authentic Brawl Stars style. We wrapped up the project with our own Dardo spin on the memorable Akira poster, a tribute to a timeless image as well as a game that has truly shaped us.

This project has been a blast for the team and we learned so much along the way. Huge thanks to Supercell for making one of our all-time favorite games! We hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it.