Friday, May 03, 2013

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of N Tropy - Part 1

Here's something special for Crash fans. This has been sitting around and not seen by human eyes since the development of Crash 3. They're dated January 22, 1998. Right before the creation of Dingodile.

These are the very first concept sketches for the time manipulating N Tropy. The first sketch is original art. The doodle that I created as Naughty Dog described what they were looking for. The ones after that are photo copies. There's plenty more to follow and I think you'll really enjoy the art. My further contribution to the archiving of the visual history of Crash Bandicoot...


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Huh, well this is sure a pleasant surprise! N.Tropy seemed like a character that had the least changes in development.

Hey Charles, any reason why N.Tropy's skin is blue? Reason being that the face always reminded me of Genie from Aladdin. I guess that's from too much time travel because it's so cold!

Also Charles, any luck withe the N.Gin sketches?

Charles Z said...

There's quite a bit of development art for N Tropy. He went through several versions before a final design was reached.

No luck with N Gin so far. Will keep looking and hopefully he'll show up.

Anonymous said...

I was waiting to see this! Thanks for sharing it with us Charles! Anyway as Pat asked: Why is N. Tropy blue? And also why he doesn't have ears?

Charles Z said...

He does have ears. In the final design you don't see them because of the head gear he's wearing.

Why is he blue? I don't know. That was Naughty Dog's call. Maybe they were looking for something different and realized they had no blue character. Maybe as Pat suggests it's because time travel is a chilly business.

Anonymous said...

In the game he doesn't have the gears so it looks like he doesn't have ears: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120225132729/crash/it/images/2/2a/Chtropy3face.jpg , but it could probably be because of the playstation one software capabilities, I think Naughty Dog did a great job with the in-game graphics, a so detailed character like N. Tropy is a challenge for a designer that only have a little ammount of polygons t use.

The strange skin colors is something that started with Neo Cortex that is pale yellow.
Nowadays Cortex is bright yellow instead.

Charles Z said...

N Tropy does have ears. He was designed with ears. The reason why you don't see them is because of his headgear. Later on when I get to the concept sketches where his final form takes shape you'll see that there's an aspect to the helmet that accommodates his ears.

ND is a talented group. They did a good job with everything they produced considering the limitations of the software.