In The Hall of the Zombie King

Happy Halloween, Banjo-Kazooie fans!

First thing's first: [link]
The music track for this part of the game. "Hall of the Zombie King" is STILL one of my favorite pieces of videogame music of all time, and considering that's a piece of music from a N64 game, that's saying something. I just love how regal it sounds on top of sounding like something bad happened. (psst, if anyone can find an awesome remix of that song, let me know)

Man, Rareware sure knew how to traumatize the kiddies. "Hey, kids, look at the friendy jinjo king. Oh, look, Gruntilda just KILLED the guy for helping you and now he's a horrendous soul-sucking monster. Enjoy!"

My second favorite Banjo-Kazooie character. I should probably draw him alive one of these days because I really do enjoy the character in both forms.
But you know, it IS October...

Once upon a time five years ago, I drew a picture of Zombified King Jingaling. (warning: I ramble a lot in the deviation's description)
Since then, this picture somehow became my most viewed deviation and, for a while, was my most favorited deviation. I've seen people steal that picture and I've seen it on Youtube for Banjo-Tooie music clips. And, all things considered, while it isn't a bad picture for what I could do at the time, I knew I could do way better than that now and draw it more true to the game.

And thus, here we are. Me redrawing old stuff in my gallery. I tried to keep the things I liked in the older picture (the cape, to a lesser extent the pose) while removing silly things that bug me now (the ears, the way I drew the eyes).

One of the things I love about Banjo-Tooie in comparison to Banjo-Kazooie is how Rareware raised the stakes. Banjo-Kazooie, it's "Go save your bratty sister you don't even really like", whereas Banjo-Tooie it's "EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND LOVE IS GOING TO DIE" and has character casualties. In a way, King Jingaling is a pretty important character even though his fate is basically "hand over a jiggy and be zombified". His zombie state in a way is a warning to the player of what would happen to all the cute denizens of the Isle of Hags if you don't finish the game and let Gruntilda and her sisters get away.

Zombie King Jingaling is sort of like this guy I drew recently in that he both terrified me as a kid and, at the same time, is just overwhelmingly tragic and sad. He seemed like a really decent fellow before he got the life force torn out of his body. Was he attacking Banjo and Kazooie because they happened to have life force, something that was stolen from him, or was he attacking them because, in a way, he blamed them for what happened to him?

I don't know, they never really made it clear just how much of King Jingaling is still in that dessicated shell. He's obviously relating stuff he knows about the bosses so he's got some thought process going...

This picture is also more shadow and light source practice. Overall, I wanted to give this picture a very cold, desaturated feel with minimal color. The light is not at all warm; instead, it just reminds the zombie that the outside has way more light and lifeforce than he possesses.

Man, I miss my N64...

------------
Textures from Texture King: [link]
Disclaimer: Zombified King Jingaling belongs to Rareware.
Done While Listening To: This awesome remix of Hall of the Zombie King.