Jack Bennett spends his days creating story-led video games. Now the founder of Odd Bug Studio has swapped pixels for paint, designing a bold public sculpture for ellenor’s Dartford We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Art Trail.

By day, Bennett creates immersive games shaped by atmosphere, discovery and feeling. Now he has turned those instincts to public art, creating Peter Blake Bear – a bright, playful design inspired by Sir Peter Blake’s links to Dartford and chosen by the council to represent the borough on the trail.

By day, Jack Bennett builds worlds. As founder of Odd Bug Studio, he creates story-led games shaped by atmosphere, discovery and feeling.

“We make art-based story games,” he says. “A lot of our work is about telling stories in the simplest way possible, but with the most meaning.”

Now he has swapped the screen for paint, creating Peter Blake Bear for the trail.

“There’s no undo button,” he says.

For someone whose usual canvas is digital, it has been a very different experience.

Jack’s sculpture, Peter Blake Bear, is bright, playful and impossible to ignore. Inspired by Sir Peter Blake and his links to Dartford, it is full of colour, confidence and clean graphic lines.

Asked to describe it in four words, Jack does not hesitate.

“Colourful. Flamboyant. Controlled. Stunning.”

If his five-year-old self had seen it?

“Rainbow.”

Some children might even see a touch of Elmer, the much-loved mascot of local hospice charity ellenor, in its bold blocks of colour.

Jack grew up in Swanley, attended Wilmington Grammar School for Boys and spent much of his youth in and around Dartford. He has watched the area change over time.

“When I was younger, it felt like the only creative connection was the Rolling Stones,” he says.

His father was a window cleaner and cleaned the windows of the house where Mick Jagger grew up.

For someone from a working-class family, a creative life just did not seem possible.

“Coming from working-class roots, that kind of creative life felt almost unobtainable.”

But he pursued it anyway.

The glossy world of blockbuster titles held little appeal.

“They seemed a bit soulless,” he says.

Instead, at university, he found others from similar backgrounds who wanted something different.

“There was no option of it not working,” he says. “We set up Odd Bug Studio and started making something ourselves.”

Even the studio name tells a story.

“In games, when something’s not going right, it’s called a bug,” he says. “And we’re all odd bugs from different places.”

For Jack, games are far more than entertainment.

“Games are the ultimate art form,” he says. “They encompass every other art form there is. Storytelling, art, lighting, colour, composition, animation, music. Everything comes together in one place. To make games, you have to be an artist in a lot of different ways.”

So why swap the screen for a giant fibreglass bear?

Partly, he says, because he had not painted physically since university nearly twenty years ago. Partly because he wanted to challenge himself. And partly because making something real feels different.

On screen, mistakes vanish. On a sculpture, they stay put.

“Making circles on a non-flat surface is even harder,” he laughs.

Yet what matters most to Jack is not simply how the bear looks, but what it might do.

He hopes it becomes a talking point between generations, with younger visitors drawn in by the colour and older ones recognising the cultural references behind it.

For some, his design may recall Sir Peter Blake’s iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover for The Beatles or his artwork for The Who. For others, it will simply be a giant bright bear worth stopping for.

“It will spark that conversation between grandparents and grandchildren,” he says.

That spirit of connection sits at the heart of ellenor too, the local hospice charity for children and adults with life-limiting illnesses across North Kent and Bexley, supporting families through every stage of the journey.

For Jack, the link is clear.

“What games offer is interactivity. Everyone’s story is different.”

Perhaps the same is true of public art.

As for seeing the bear take its place on the trail, he is philosophical.

“I’m happy because people get to enjoy it and hopefully it’ll raise loads of money for charity,” he says.

There is, however, one condition.

“If somebody draws on it,” he says, “I won’t be happy.”

Fair enough.

With more than 80 sculptures set to appear across Dartford, it will be one of the most ambitious community projects ellenor has ever delivered.

Some artists paint landscapes. Some paint portraits. Some build digital worlds.

And some create something simpler, and perhaps just as powerful: a bear that brings colour to a town, starts conversations, honours memories and helps fund the care local families may one day need.

ellenor’s Dartford We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Art Trail is led by ellenor in partnership with Dartford Borough Council and Wild in Art. The project is inspired by the animated television adaptation of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, produced by Lupus Films. Supported by local businesses and community partners, the free public art trail will bring decorated sculptures across the borough this summer, raising funds to support local hospice care.