Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Coco - Part 6

Okay Crash fans here's the last entry in the development art of Coco Bandicoot. These are the final drawings I did of the character when she was first designed. They were sketched on May 6 1997 at the same time that the previous 3 images I showcased a few days ago on February 6 were drawn. The entire collection of Coco concept development art is now online.



13 comments:

Anonymous said...

She is so cute :D It really looks like she is younger than Crash.

Unknown said...

Ah, it's good to see that old pink laptop again!

It's amazing how Coco never changed throughout her development (minus the clothes) unlike how the other major characters in the series went through different designs throughout their development.

Say Charles, when beginning production on Crash 2, did ND wanted to you to redesign Crash or keep him the same? Also, when were you on board when Crash 2 was in it's early stages? Also, did you design other classic enemies such as crabs and the Venus Fly Traps?

David said...

Coco looks like a bouncer in the second draw, I didn't expect that, haha! These are all the Coco draws in total, or only the concept drawing and skethces? What about the final and definitive draws? I mean, the draws without sketches auxiliary lines like most of your Coco draws you posted.

Unknown said...

It is very great to see the evolution of Crash's main sidekick (next to Aku Aku, of course)and sister. I seriously love how all of the Crash characters came out. I wish that they kept you with the series after CTR, but it was very thoughtful of Vicarious Visions to contact you for CNK. Along with Joe.

Speaking of VV, how did they suddenly contact you? Were you expecting it somehow? Or did it just randomly happen?

Also, I know you worked on some of the DIC cartoons of Sonic the Hedgehog (I'm pretty sure you only did Satam AKA Sonic the Hedgehog). Did you work on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (the more slapstick humor cartoon) and Sonic underground (from late 1999)?

Because a fellow person known to many Crash fans who goes by the name of Jordan Reichek (who worked on the Writing for Twinsanity, along with the respective box art, and wrote for Crash Tag Team Racing) Worked as the character designer for every episode of Adventures of Sonic. Well, that's according to IMDB.

Thank you for taking the time for reading these comments Charles! Or Chuck? (just kidding XD)

Charles Z said...

Pat - I was on board for Crash 2 early on. I didn't do any redesigning of Crash. I did some additional drawings of Crash. I didn't work on crabs or Venus Fly Traps.

David - Everything I drew for Coco on Crash 2 is now on the blog. There were other drawings of Coco with Crash that I came up with on Crash 3 I think. They'll be posted in the future.

Jacob - VV contacted me out of the blue by phone. They were in LA and wanted to meet with me. I really blew their minds when they came by my school. I was really furious at ND and was very upset and angry at our first meeting. This was after the credit fiasco with ND over J&D. I'm surprised they still wanted to work with me after the way I handled the meeting. I was really upset and let my anger show. To their credit they let me get it out of my system.

Charles Z said...

They asked me to contact Joe and I called and told him that a new Crash game was on the way. VV wanted to get back to the roots of Crash and thus Joe and I were on board. They really loved Crash and wanted to do a quality job. The deal was negotiated through my school and everyone on board the development team was hired through me. We had John Nevarez doing BG designs along with Joe and he was also doing kart design also. John is now at Pixar.

There was Allan Simmons who worked on WB's Batman and Superman animated series. He designed BGs. We had Snakebite on Photoshop for BG color. He's legendary in the comic book world. An all star cast. I was on characters. There's a large amount of original art from CNK in my possession. I negotiated for ownership of all the original art we created.

CNK was a turning point. If we couldn't come up with a quality Crash game it would be the last one in the franchise. The success of the game kept it going for a few more years. VV was a class act. I'd work with them any day. The original owners are gone now. They sold the company. But when they were there they were terrific to work with.

Charles Z said...

I forgot to follow up on Jacob's reference to the Sonic animated series. Yes I worked on Sonic as I recall back in 1991 at DIC. I think it was the Saturday morning version. There were two shows going on at the same time. The other was for daily syndication. I think I did some work on Mario too back then. I have Mario drawings around someplace.

Also I know Jordan Reichek. He was there and we've crossed paths at different times since then.

Hush said...

Hello Charles,
I just want to ask a question about Coco's overalls. I'm really sorry if this has been asked again. So my question is, what kind of fabric were coco's overalls made of? Were they denim, or they were just a light blue-colored fabric?
I don't know if this question sounds silly, but I am pretty curious.
Thank you in advance, E.

Charles Z said...

Hello Hush / E. I never really thought about it. I assumed they were denim when I designed her but it could be open to interpretation.

Hush said...

Hey Charles, thank you so much for your reply. I've always thought they were denim too! I am going to cosplay her soon, so I guess i'm going with denim overalls after all. Thanks again, and thank you for creating all those amazing characters :)

Charles Z said...

That's cool, thanks and have fun!

David said...

Hey Charles, I floated this post almost two months after you've posted to pursue the subject of Coco´s overalls. Speaking of that, I also noticed her overalls, and I don't like how they look very much, the red buttons holding the straps and the absence of pockets give them the appearance of blue-colored factory as Hush said. They don't seem to be denim or jeans overalls. I'd like that you change that (just like you are changing and experiencing with Crash now) and improve Coco's overalls, drawing them like a bib-and-brace denim overalls, you know, with metal buckles that hold the straps and with pockets, including the back pockets and the large chest pocket and all the lines of the jeans overalls that come with them. You can make the overalls a little tight, I mean, that would mold Coco's body would highlight her figure, just like the drawing of Pey that I showed you. You can draw her overalls more or less as Pey did. Coco will look more beautiful like that.

Charles Z said...

Hi David. After I worked on Coco, Naughty Dog developed her the way they saw fit for the game. What you see as far as color and texture and all that went into the final version of Coco are elements they decided upon. If I draw Coco again in the future I'll keep in mind what you suggest.