What was the approach to rigging these characters? He gives us a little bit of a sense of the world as well - what’s happening, what the game is, and what’s at stake for the players. For us, he was always just some sort of hologram AI character. Tsandilis: It’s never clear if The Duke is actually a real person. And he’s just a real jerk out to show Mouse that the tunnels are his stomping ground, why he’s the champion, and why he never loses.

I always knew what he was going to look like. I only draw villains, ugly things, or stuff that’s hiding in the shadows. Plante: Going to Nitro, I love drawing villains. But we found it just flowed better this way without those extra beats. That’s something we talked about: “Is she someone that is partaking in this game willingly? Or is this something that she’s forced to do?” Originally, in early concepts of the story, we had her tied down to the platform and then eventually let go. Tsandilis: Mouse is kind of an unwilling participant in this game. How would you describe the three main characters in Duke’s Game, both in terms of their physicality and personalities?

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