Cuddly the Mad Pufferfish - Part 1

Hi everyone. Here's a first that I'd like to share with you. The first time this material is seeing the light of day by being published on my blog.

In 2003 on the heels of Daxter winning Best New Character of the Year at the Game Developers Awards in San Jose, California the year before, I was asked by the publisher of Animation Magazine to participate in a unique event for the upcoming Game Developers Conference. Several artists were asked to develop a concept along a common theme and share their work at a panel at the Con. I was one of them.

The concept was for a character called Cuddly the Mad Pufferfish. I created an extended body of work for this event and in early March 2003 I had my chance to show it to a standing room only crowd at the GDC. It was great fun! A very memorable time. From my impression of the audience reaction I think I did pretty darn good compared to the other guest artists on the panel with all due respect of course.

Aside from a few students whom I've shared the work with over the past decade, I've never published these drawings until now. Here's the first installment of Cuddly. I hope you enjoy this special feature as more art from the project is forthcoming. Let's start with the first set of concept sketches...