Steve Gerard Mayles (born 1974) is a British character art designer, and he is Playtonic Games' character art director. He used to work at Rare Ltd. as an artist and an animator. Mayles is most known for creating Banjo and Kazooie from the Banjo-Kazooie series. Steve Mayles' older brother is Gregg Mayles, who is currently the creative lead director of Rare Ltd. Steve Mayles joined Rare in 1992.
Early Life[]
Steve Mayles was born in Coalville, England. Mayles grew up playing on old systems such as the ZX Spectrum, and the Commodore Amiga. He loved art, so he then pursued a career in Graphic Design, albeit not having any degrees.[1]
Career[]
Mayles never received a degree for game design and art, since he states that "There were no degree courses for game design/art in those days." Steve Mayles applied for an interview at Rareware at the age of 18 in 1992. During the interview, he provided a portfolio of his artwork from his A-Leveled courses, and a disc of his own creations using Deluxe Paint 3 for the Amiga.
Steve Mayles was a Rareware artist from 1992 - 1994 and was promoted to a Senior Artist from 1994 - 2005. He was promoted again to Lead Creative Artist from 2005 - 2008 and was yet again promoted to Principal Artist from 2008 - 2011. Two years later, he was promoted to Character Lead from 2011 - 2012, and a year later was finally promoted to the Principal Artist from March 2012 - September 2014.
Steve Mayles then left Rareware on September 30th, 2014.
When the company Playtonic Games was officially revealed to the public, Steve Mayles was revealed to be the Character Art Director.
Notable Works[]
- Battletoads & Double Dragon (1993) - Character Artist
- Donkey Kong Country (1994) - Art Director, Character Designer
- Battletoads Arcade (1994) - Additional Background Artist, Additional Character Artist
- Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995) - Art Director
- Banjo Kazooie (1998) - Art Director
- Donkey Kong 64 (1999) - Support Team
- Banjo Tooie (2000) - Art Director
- Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) - Character Artist, Animation
- Viva Piñata (2006) - Animation
- Banjo Kazooie Nuts 'n Bolts (2008) - Art Director
- Kinect Sports (2010) - Artist
- Kinect Sports 2 (2011) - Artist
- Kinect Sports Rivals (2014) - Artist
- Yooka-Laylee (2017) - Character Art Director
- Tamarin (2020) - Characters
Trivia[]
- Steve Mayles appears to have a friendly rivalry with Grant Kirkhope[2], as shown in every E3 2016 interview that they were in together. Grant Kirkhope would playfully insult Steve Mayles multiple times throughout the interview, while Steve Mayles pretends to often be bored whenever Grant Kirkhope talks.
Gallery[]
