I’m sure I was pretty repetitive about saying, we can’t give them anything they’ve seen before. It’s got to be reinvented. There’s no way...we're going to make things out of just regular candy canes and lollipops. Whatever was done in the past with just gum drops and candy canes, we’ve got to do more than that. They don’t come to the theater to see something they’ve seen before.
Avatar had just come out, so I was sitting there going, it’s so great to get immersed in a world you’ve never been in before. He takes the underwater stuff, puts it above ground and just makes you feel like you’re in a new environment on a new planet. It’s just wonderful to be immersed, in stereo especially with this 3D. I wanted to make sure we gave them that experience – a world they’ve never been in before.So, Mike and his team looked to Japan for inspiration on the look of the game and the candy. They went to a Japanese candy store in L.A. and loaded up. One artist made a full candy race track with little candy fans cheering on the sidelines, and that served as the model that helped animators with the textures and colors of the film. Visual development artist Lorelay Bove said about the Japanese candy, "They do have a different color palette. It’s not like the candy you see here. It’s more of soft pinks and pastels – a very sophisticated color palette."
Lorelay is from Spain, and her childhood experience with the work of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí served as the other inspiration for the land of Sugar Rush. She related:
When I was little, and I went every weekend to the city with my parents, I thought they [the buildings] were made of candy. When the opportunity came for this movie, and oh, it’s going to be in a candy world, I’m like, maybe Gaudí.
Click on the image above to get a closer look at the little buildings in the background, and then compare them to the work of Gaudí. You can also really see his influence in the architecture of the candy castle where King Candy lives in the movie.
Next, find out more about the characters who inhabit the land of Sugar Rush...
