Concept Art Gallery

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

An increasingly common inclusion in DVDs and video games, this is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a gallery full of Concept Art and official art for the movie or a game, which can often be found in Updated Rereleases or The Making of... specials on some movies. There are also whole books which display concept art, though in those cases they are often not sold outside of the country where it was published.

Basically, any Cash Cow Franchise is bound to get one once it's popular enough.

Common inclusions

  1. Mook designs
  2. Older character designs
  3. Box/cover art that didn't make it
  4. Character reference sheets
  5. Details on characters you never get to look at very closely.
  6. Miscellaneous stuff that was Dummied Out
  7. Full screen images from in the game (especially in dating sims and certain role playing games)

In games, this is rarely available right from the start—you have to unlock it, usually by collecting random stuff. If any of that stuff is Lost Forever, the Hundred Percent Completionists will go apopleptic.

Examples of Concept Art Gallery include:


Art Books

In-Game, In-Manga, or In-Movie Examples

Anime and Manga

  • The Fruits Basket DVDs had one of these in the US release.
  • The American release of Mahou Sensei Negima includes some sample sketches (particularly of character prototypes) and the models for background elements.
  • The accompanying booklets in the Japanese DVD releases of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha from the second season and up had concept sketches for the characters, their Barrier Jackets, and their Devices included in them.
  • The 12 volumes of the Collector's Edition DVDs for Kiddy Grade in Japan each came with a hardback "Continuity File" book containing storyboards, character and prop design sheets and background material. There was also a mook which reproduced some of the same material along with colour art and episode guides etc.
    • Colour character reference sheets were included as an on-disc extra on the Blu-ray release of sequel Kiddy Girl-AND, and there is also a book available in Japan with the original black and white settei. The limited edition DVDs on the other hand, had a bonus disc containing music from the show playing over isolated background art.
  • The two Japanese limited edition box sets for Uta Kata each came with a "continuity file" book containing storyboards. Director and animator Keiji Gotoh also published some of his production art in the form of Doujinshi books at Comiket.
  • The Japanese Limited Edition DVDs for Dennou Coil came with storyboard booklets covering every episode.
  • The limited edition DVDs for the Karas OVAs included storyboard books.
  • The limited edition Japanese Clannad and After Story DVDs had a different booklet packed in with each volume (16 total over both series) and the contents included storyboards, character designs and conceptual art, key animation frames and reproduction ADR scripts.
  • The limited edition Patlabor 2 The Movie box had two bonus books, one with storyboards and the other with material including character and mecha designs, interviews and key drawing samples. This is a rare example of such a release outside Japan.

Comic Books

Film

  • Every extended version of The Lord of the Rings.
  • The Shrek DVD has several concept art galleries from when the film crew was deciding what ogres would actually look like. In them, Fiona's a lot less attractive than the Cute Monster Girl she turned out to be.
  • Several Disney DVD's, including Mulan and Aladdin, have concept art galleries as bonus features.
  • The Making of Serenity has early designs of the eponymous spaceship.

Video Games

  • Super Smash Brothers Melee & Brawl let you collect Trophies of everything from every single Nintendo Video Game.
  • All three Metroid Prime games (the first game also included an unlockable concept gallery for Metroid Fusion, too). They're obtained by completing your Logbook, and, in Prime 3, completing various miscellaneous tasks. You actually have to "buy" the individual pieces there.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns has an art gallery that fills up as you grow closer to 100% Completion.
  • Mushroom Men, as a reward for finding the various collectables scattered across the worlds. In the gallery, it will actually tell you what world the missing piece is from, so you can backtrack and collect it if you're so inclined.
  • The obscure platformer Scaler, also as a result of finding collectables. (And in one case, it's possible to collect a piece for a storyboard containing a spoiler before actually getting to that point in the game. Huh.)
  • Psychonauts includes these—which in the game are called "Primal Memories" on a per-character basis. You get them for "sorting" all the emotional baggage in a level.
  • Beyond Good and Evil actually has its available right from the start. It also includes close-ups of two pictures from the end credits' Photo Montage, presumably because they're absolutely adorable.
  • Zack and Wiki
  • The Free Space series, during the credits, which are available for viewing from the beginning.
  • These are among the unlockables in the PlayStation remakes of the early Final Fantasy games.
  • No More Heroes has such a gallery.
  • The Syberia adventure games.
  • Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo has a navigable gallery that's unlocked in one of the modes.
  • Chrono Trigger has one in the Extras section. Pieces of art are added when you see the thing depicted in them in-game.
  • Evil Dead: Regeneration has a bunch of "making of" segments (some involving Bruce Campbell!) and concept art.
  • In the original Maximo, this was your reward for getting the four Sorcereress's Kisses.
  • Most Compilation Rereleases of a particular series have a tendency to do this. Sonic has had three compendiums so far, all of them offering different things:
    • Sonic Jam gave the player some advertisements, access to Sonic the Hedgehog CD's opening and ending FMVs, and some of the artwork.
    • Sonic Mega Collection then dropped the adverts (but kept the Sonic CD FMVs), in favour of a few bits of promotional artwork, and the covers to every issue of Archie's Sonic The Hedgehog comic series to the date of the games publication.
      • When Mega Collection was re-released as Sonic Mega Collection Plus the comic list was updated.
    • Sonic Gems Collection then added the game Sonic CD, removing the need for the cutscenes, but also gave the player remixed music, artwork from the three main games (Sonic the Fighters, Sonic CD and Sonic R), every single picture from the Sonic Screensaver, screencaps from the Sonic Adventure 2 cutscenes and Sonic Heroes FMVs, and other miscellaneous art. Bizarrely, there was a page of artwork for Knuckles Chaotix, the only pre-Dreamcast console game not on either Mega or Gems Collection, leading to lots of Wild Mass Guessing about the game's (non-)inclusion.
    • A non-compilation version: Sonic Unleashed. Both the PS3/360 and Wii/PS2 versions have a rather large concept art/music/video gallery, each item of which was unlocked through talking to villagers, searching the hubs and levels, and finding item capsules. In fact, the very last of the PS2/Wii verisons' bonus missions can only be unlocked by finding all the item boxes, minus the one bonus video found in the actual level.
    • Actually, as to that, every Sonic game since the original Sonic Adventure includes full music and, often, video galleries. This arguably goes as far back as the Sound Test in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
    • Sonic Generations has a concept art gallery (including both concept art for Generations itself as well as from some of the games that inspired its levels), as well as a large library of music from past Sonic games that can be substituted for the game's standard BGM, but you have to work for it by completing challenges and finding Red Star Rings in the normal levels.
  • Part of the Bonus Features in the Star Wars: Empire at War Gold Pack, including very interesting unused concepts for bases.
  • Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 featured concept art and "The Making Of" videos that were unlocked by completing missions. You can complete the same mission on a higher difficulty to unlock even more content.
  • The Conduit not only has an in-game art gallery, but the Limited Edition of the game included a color booklet with more art.
  • The Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series, like Scaler, has an art gallery unlocked by picking up collectables. Again, you can see spoilers - in one case, the final boss, far before you've ever reached him.
  • Ratchet and Clank prominently feature this in almost every game.
  • The new Wolfenstein game cleverly uses concept art for in-game intelligence.
  • The two Contra games for the PS2, Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra, both feature unlockable galleries of concept art for their respective games.
  • Tomb Raider: Underworld on the DS has concept art and character profiles unlocked by collecting artifacts and solving sliding puzzle treasure chests (the chests yield yet more artifacts).
  • Jack Keane has a museum of concept art that's filled the more items you find.
  • Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones had a concept art gallery that could be unlocked piecemeal based on collecting sufficient credits within the game. It included concept art from all three games in the Sands of Time series.

The Internet

Western Animation

  • Hanna-Barbera did this for the closing credits of some of their shows in the late 1970s. Specifically, the art would be shown in the background during the credits. Two examples are Yogi's Space Race, and Super Globetrotters.
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