There has to be a ton of this out there. Most games required hundreds of sketeches and drawings and unlike dev disks most people try not to throw these away. You can buy artbooks filled with concept art from the artists. So where is it all? I have a ton of no-name games but what about the blockbuster titles. Ok so the big N might have all of theirs locked up. Howabout something from Capcom or Squaresoft. I think you guys are holding out on me. Lets see it!
I bought a set of copies that were passed around Victor Japan for Keio Yuugekitai. Not original, obviously. There's about 60 pages worth.
I suspect that original artwork from Japanese companies rarely will show up unless they had a division outside Japan developing games. I have a couple of original artworks done for the gamebox covers, i have posted them already in a thread here. BTW: recently saw an auction for Atari gamedesign sketches and promotional material: http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/05/30/atari-sells-early-history-via-sothebys
The best I can answer is yes, I have some concept artwork for a canceled game but as I want to remain friends with the person who gave them to me, I won't mention the game. >_< I do have some Miyamoto crayon artwork of Mario playing a Gamecube...
I think this may be a bit much but rather interesting: Auction takes place on the 21st. At Sotheby's. LOT 151 PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS ATARI VIDEO GAMES 150,000—250,000 USD REGISTER FOR A PADDLE READ CONDITION REPORT TRACK LOT EMAIL THIS LOT TO A FRIEND BUY CATALOGUE CONVERT CURRENCY KEY TO LETTER SYMBOLS DESCRIPTION An extensive archive of original marketing materials (as detailed below) from the "Golden Age" of Atari, ca. 1981 to 1983, comprising more than 2,000 items of widely varying sizes and formats, including manuscript memorandum, internal specification guidelines, original sketches, blue lines, mechanicals, proofs, color separations (including acetates), and screen diagrams; the archive is mostly related to marketing materials for Atari games and game consoles, especially boxes and manuals, but includes some early design and graphic work for specific game characters and components; the archive contains mostly English-language materials, but proofs and mechanicals for cartons and manuals in French, German, Spanish, and Italian are also present. The whole archive organized into approximately 135 large file folders for graphic materials. CATALOGUE NOTE In the beginning was Pong: A remarkable survival from the adolescence (if not quite the infancy) of video gaming and a truly essential and consequential documentation of a pivotal cultural revolution. Video gaming is now a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry with world-wide receipts rivaling Hollywood. The newest generation gaming platforms—the Nintendo Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Microsoft's X-Box—provide hyper-realistic graphics that virtually bring fantasy worlds to life. But the fantasy of video games began on a much simpler scale, one that demanded greater imagination from its players. The first and most fondly remembered incarnation of Atari was started by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Atari was one of the first—and one of the most successful—firms to try to move the computer gaming industries out of arcades and bars and into homes. Atari first introduced Pong into traditional arcades, and it was not until the release of the home console Atari 2600 in 1976 that the company began to expand at an unprecedented rate. As new technologies improved, Atari developed systems that were compatible with both home computers and television sets—the games designed for the latter platform even promised color graphics on color TV's. Atari was also responsible for the publication and distribution within the United States of many classic games developed by Namco in Japan. Within a few years, gamers (as they were not yet called) were able to choose from among a huge variety of games in many genres: action, adventure, puzzles, mazes, fantasy, sports, and even education. (How many birthday parties were sidetracked when the guest of honor received Math Grand Prix and not Mario Bros., as he had requested?) The following games are among those represented in the present archive. Many of these games have been "re-mixed" for current platforms and are still available in classic format on-line or in "plug-and-play" systems. Adventure Air Sea Battle Asterix Asteroids Backgammon Berzerk Bowling Brain Games Breakout Canyon Bomber Casino Choplifter Circus Codebreaker Cookie Monster Counter Measure Defender Dig Dug Dodge Em Donkey Kong Jr. Golf Gremlins Hangman Haunted House Homerun Human Cannonball Hunt and Score Indy 500 Joust Jungle Hunt Kangaroo Mario Bros. Math Grand Prix Maze Craze Millipede Miniature Golf Missile Command Moon Patrol Night Driver Othello Outlaw Pac Man Pele Soccer Pengo Phoenix Pole Position Pong Qix Raiders of the Lost Ark Real Sports Baseball Real Sports Basketball Real Sports Football Real Sports Tennis Robotron Rubiks Skydiver Slot Cars Slot Machine Slot Racers Soccer Space Dungeon Space Invaders Space War Starship Steeplechase Street Racer Super Breakout Super Pong Super Pong Ten Superman Surround Sword Quest: Earthworld Sword Quest: Fireworld Sword Quest: Waterworld Video Chess Video Olympics Video Pinball Warlord Marketing graphics were particularly vital for these early games. While game designers could achieve a computerized Pac Man that looked essentially like the character on the box, sports games, especially, were an entirely different matter. The box for Atari Basketball might have featured generic versions of Willis Reed and Dave Cowens, but the players on the screen (limited to one per team) were bizarrely geometric. The basketball figures, like all video game graphics of the period, we formed by the combination of multiple micro-cubes: their arms resemble elephant trunks, and the body outline of each player is delineated by wildly prominent noses and knee caps. Even the ball is square. But elementary as these materials seem now, these are the games that animated designers and gamers alike to advance to such current hyper-real titles as College Hoops 2K7, NBA 2K7, and Backyard Basketball 2007. In the same way, Pro Stroke Golf and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 are following a path blazed by Atari Golf. The player on the Atari box cover may have been a romanticized hybrid of Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller, but the video golfer more closely resembles a rectilinear Joseph Merrick. By fortunate coincidence, some of Atari's most popular and enduring games are among those with the deepest representation here. For example, Dig Dug, a maze game with the objective of eliminating underground monsters, has a huge group of materials ranging from typewritten copy for the game manual to original color sketches of the various bonus fruits and vegetables to geometric black-and-white versions of the same to a fine watercolor drawing of a Pooka to a mock-up of a TV-screen diagram. The legendary Pole Position, which was developed by Namco and published in the United States by Atari, is represented a similar range of graphics. At one end of the scale is a rough pencil and red pencil sketch of a Formula 1 race on graph paper; at the other end is a thirteen-color TV-screen diagram depicting four race cars on the track. In addition to games, the Atari archive also contains material relating to various game systems and consoles, the Atari Club, marketing tie-ins with Sears department stores, and hand-held games, including the Touch Me. Ironically, Atari first released Touch Me as an arcade game, which Milton Bradley closely imitated with their hand-held Simon. When Simon proved more successful than the arcade original that it was modeled after, Atari re-released Touch Me as a hand-held, but it never overcame Simon's head start. The most intriguing non-game material in the archive is probably the marketing drawings for the Kee Games Video Game System. An ostensible rival to Atari, Kee Games claimed that its system offered "fantastic variety [and] flexibility." But in fact Kee was a secret subsidiary of Atari, created simply to circumvent exclusivity deals demanded by some arcade and pinball distributors of the time. The subterfuge was soon discovered, but Atari continued to use the Kee brand for some marketing and distribution efforts. This archive contains no material beyond 1983, the year of the so-called "great video game crash." The crash was largely spurred by the growth of the home computer industry, which promised all the games that dedicated video game platforms could provide, as well as many other benefits. Atari was one of many victims of the competition and contraction that resulted. Atari was also hurt when several key programmers defected to start up Activision. In addition, the company became involved in a lawsuit with Nintendo and Coleco over the rights to Donkey Kong. In short order the company's chief executive was forced out and the home game console and home computer divisions were sold. The original Atari was no more. Copyright © 2007 Sotheby's Terms of Use | Privacy Policy: Your Privacy Rights | Contact us | Help | Locations worldwide
Coolest concept art I saw was at a TGS. Sega was trying to show off their new Sega Ages 2500 (this is right after it had started). In a nice, shiney showcase, they had the original sketches of the characters, enemies, and what eventually became the cinematic scenes in the first Phantasy STar. I've got a picture here (that I didn't take) somewhere. EDIT: http://www6.airnet.ne.jp/tera/sega/datas/ Look at the two links under ■オマケ情報■
I've got concept "arts" from the unreleased Snow White (Atari 2600), with Jewel Savadelis sign for approvation. And some other computer made concept artworks, but nothing I can say.
We have all these are books. The art of Final Fantasy. The art of Halo,Dragon Warrior,Devil May Cry,Street Fighter. Hundreds of pages of artwork. When I look to the comic book industry there doesn't seem to be a comic book you couldn't buy original art from if you have the cash. Yet videogame artwork is impossible to find. Does the videogame art just get thrown out? I wonder if a few of the top anime collectors have beat us to it and are hording it all.
i have quite a lot of concept art /sprite work / coverart from older amiga, atari, spectrum and sam coupe titles, some of which was done by yours truely, and a close friend of mine who worked for the long since dead elite software, as well as a few other game developers. no idea of its value, and would proably never sell, but nice to know its there, and always looks good on my resume!
cant really say due to n.d.a's and such, but if you search hard enough on the sam coupe scene, youll probably find some of my work, but more publicly i helped out on quite a few of the old amiga demos, and pd games
With a pre auction estimate of 150-250k the Atari art collection recieved a bid of only 120k and did not meet reserve. They are now waiting to see if any substantial offers come in today. Many items do sell the day after auction bidding sometimes for more than they failed to sell for the day before. If this does not happen the seller says its a good chance it will be broken up into 161 lots. http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159374916 http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/05/30/atari-sells-early-history-via-sothebys http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/arts/15auct.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Suprised they got a bid that high. I mean the description is not the best I guess if I were shelling out that much cash i'd need a visual