Early sketches for The Bad Guys 2 give a fascinating insight into character design

Dreamworks' The Bad Guys 2 is one of the animated movies of the summer. The 2025 sequel to the original 2022 movie is a lot of fun, and if you like the character designs, you'll love these early sketches, posing and pre-animation sequences.

Supervising Animator and Character Designer Jorge A. Capote, AKA ChibeTTo, has shared a series of posts on Instagram revealing what the characters and animations looked like in early production stages before they were developed into 3D animation (see our guides to the best animation software and the best laptop for animation if you need to upgrade your own setup).

Directed by Pierre Perifel and loosely based on the children's book series by Aaron Blabey, The Bad Guys 2 sees reformed criminals Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark and Ms. Tarantula try hard to be good. However, they find themselves drawn into a high-stakes heist masterminded by a new trio of delinquents.

Jorge's early sketches and animatics show how the character designs for the movie evolved, from Kitty Kat, the Danielle Brooks-voiced leader of the Bad Girls, to the pineapple-sporting wrestler who competes against Handsome Jorge.

Jorge's work will be fascinating to look at for fans for Dreamworks' movie. It highlights the detailed process involved in character design, and how gesture and personality are developed in 2D first before the characters are developed further for 3D animation and rendering.

Working in 2D allows artists to establish the main visual concepts while enabling fast iteration to form a visual plan, communicate ideas and check that characters, scenes and layouts work.

You can see more on Jorge's Instagram account.

For more inspiration, see our guide to animation styles, and don't miss Gorillaz in Fortnite Festive Season 10.