Concept Art Gallery

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 Permanently Missable, the Hundred Percent Completionists will go apopleptic.

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Examples:

Art Books

• Many of Blizzard's earlier game manuals themselves (Starcraft, Diablo (1997) and Diablo II) had pages of concept art and background stuck in between everything else. Even the World of Warcraft manuals have some.
• The big box version of The Legend of Legacy comes with a small, hardcover art book.
• Knights in the Nightmare had a 96-page full color art book as a Pre-Order Bonus. Not only does it feature a ton of concept art, it has story information on every single recruitable knight in the game.
• The strategy guide for Depth Fantasia (a generic MMO published by Enix) doubles as an art book featuring character designs by Shunya Yamashita.
• The Collector's Edition of Mass Effect 2 came with a small artbook. The original game had an artbook too, it just wasn't released with the game itself. There's also The Art of Mass Effect, which covers the whole trilogy.
• Virtually anything drawn by CLAMP now has an ancillary artbook or combination artbook/character guide/extra content companion book. Including (but not limited to): Chobits: For Your Eyes Only, Mutuality: CLAMP Works In Code Geass Artbook, the ClampNoKiseki artbook/chess sets, Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: ALBuM De REProDUCTioNS 1 & 2 (yes, that is the canonical spelling too), Kobato.: Illust. & Memories, the CLAMP School: North Side & South Side collections, and, many, many more.
• The Legend of Zelda has the Hyrule Historia, which was released as part of the series' 25th anniversary. Not only does it have concept artwork branching the entire series itself, it answers some questions the fans have been asking all these years. Subsequent similar books would be released in later years that added content from later games. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild also got its own devoted art book.
• Splatoon:
  • The Art of Splatoon and The Art of Splatoon 2, both of which contain concept art, character designs, and tidbits of background lore from their respective games.
  • HaikaraWalker ^note Haikara being the Japanese name for Inkopolis, is the art book for the second game's Octo Expansion and is stylized like an in-game magazine, even including interviews with various characters and information on the games' fictional bands. It is also the only Splatoon artbook yet to be released outside of Japan.
• The World of Thedas for the Dragon Age series, which functions as much as an encyclopedia of lore as an artbook.
• Endless Space's Emperor Edition included a 200 page art e-book showing concept art for the races, starships, and environments, along with snippets of the game's lore.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has "The Art of Equestria", featuring 261 pages of concept art from the first five seasons of the show. "Art is Magic" is this for the comics, and also contains interviews with the artists who worked on them.
• Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth has an official 289-page Japanese artbook called Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth Official Setting Documents Collection. It includes concept sketches for the characters, earlier designs for Zen and Rei, storyboards for the opening cutscene, and full-page spreads of finished artwork.
• Persona 4 had two: Persona 4 Visual Data and Persona 4 Official Design Works. Both primarily contain early sketches, and finished artwork, for characters and Personas.
• Turning Red has an official 160-page artbook called The Art of Turning Red including character designs, storyboards, colorscripts, and exclusive interviews with the creative team.

Anime & Manga

• The North American release of Negima! Magister Negi Magi includes some sample sketches (particularly of character prototypes) and the models for background elements.
• The accompanying booklets in the Japanese DVD releases of 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 Den-noh 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

• It's quite routine for comic book trade paperbacks to include sketch work and concept art. Sometimes the sketches become alternate covers!
• IDW's Transformers comics, especially their Spotlights, often showcase some of their concept art. A lot of it is beautifully detailed.

Films — Animation

• 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.

Films — Live-Action

• The Making of Serenity has early designs of the eponymous spaceship.

Live-Action TV

• The Mandalorian: The end credits of each episode feature a reel of concept art produced by the crew to establish the tone of the series and key scenes. Some of the pieces feature different designs for the characters that appear to be leftover from the cancelled Boba Fett movie which the series borrowed ideas from.

Music

• Animusic: Included as a bonus feature on the DVDs.

Video Games

• Alice: Madness Returns has chapter-segregated artwork in the bonus content area, progressively unlocked by collecting location-specific bottles in the game.
• ANNO: Mutationem: The Collector's Edition comes with a digital artbook showcasing character art, early designs, various locations with alternate looks, and Animal Mecha that would have been fought as bosses.
• Baba is You has one right before the true final level, accessible by obtaining at least three bonus orbs. It's also a level proper, so to view the art you have to form a number word and a rule saying "Image is [Number]".
• Battle Engine Aquila has a concept art gallery. The better the player does in a level, the more concept art is unlocked.
• Bayonetta has one available after the completion of the game. Includes art from characters, objects, locations, enemies and bosses.
• Beyond Good & Evil has its gallery available right from the start. It also includes close-ups of two pictures from the end credits' Photo Montage.
• Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer has pieces of art unlocked by collecting Totems, which are discovered by tracking various series of pawprints.
• Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood 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.
• Brütal Legend: There is an in-game gallery that allows you to view concept artworks, but these can be unlocked through story progression or by defeating specific enemies a certain number of times.
• Chrono Trigger has one in the Extras section. Pieces of art are added when you see the thing depicted in them in-game.
• The gallery in Coffee Talk not only shows pixel CGs of some of the game's best moments, but also shows its concept art.
• The Day of the Tentacle remaster has a concept art gallery included.
• de Blob has concept art and test videos that you unlock by playing some of the bonus missions.
• The PS2 version of DoDonPachi DaiOuJou has the gallery mode, in which you can view the concept arts of the player characters, ships and the first level.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze have each an art gallery that fills up as you collect puzzle pieces in the levels and grow closer to 100% Completion.
• Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in North American English) has it as one of the rewards for Collection Sidequest.
• Concept art and design documents for Gunstar Heroes are included on the Compilation Re-release Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 25: Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box.
• The end credits of Homeworld consist of various pre-production sketches of unit models (including a couple that were Dummied Out or recycled as non-functional props) and cutscene storyboard samples, accompanied by almost ten minutes of Epic Rocking courtesy of Yes, who wrote a song especially for the game. It can be seen in all its glory here. Later games in the setting used the same concept, but their background music could never live up to the original.
• Idea Factory games (Cross Edge, Record of the Agarest War, Trinity Universe) have images of in game events, particularly the fanservice kind, and other concept art and background pictures.
• Jack Keane has a museum of concept art that's filled the more items you find.
• Several The King of Fighters home versions on both PS1 and PS2 have a lot of these. Older models, drafts, discarded sprites and the occasional spoof.
• The Matrix: Path of Neo has this as a reward for beating the game, the catch you have to find most of it in-game first. But, when you do, you get to see character models, along with level/mook designs (scrapped ones as well) and a few The Making of...in-game cutscenes and How to...perform weapon technique videos.
• Maximo:
  • In Maximo vs. Army of Zin, saving all the innocents, finding all the treasure and defeating all the enemies in each level rewards you with an unlocked picture in the concept art gallery.
• Medal of Honor: Airborne has bonus videos which feature various stages of the game's development, ranging from literal concept art of the in-game missions, to how the cinematics and weapon animations were implemented.
• Mega Man X Collection has those as unlockables. Mega Man X: Command Mission has this but as collectables in a resource / unit management mini-game that's not relevant to the plot.
• Every major release version of Melody was released alongside a “lewd gallery,” or a collection of special renders of a selected love interest, and made available to patrons who paid at least $15 per month. At first, the girl featured in the gallery was selected by a vote of the patrons, but as some girls consistently received more votes than others did, the developers started restricting the options for who was eligible to be featured, and they chose the girl without a vote at least once.
• Metal Slug has galleries unlockable after beating each stage, including storyboards, detailed artwork depicting the player(s) fighting numerous bosses, artwork of the game's female commandoes (which are generally Hotter and Sexier than the game's sprites, obviously) as well as deleted enemies, weapons and playable characters.
• Metroid
  • All three Metroid Prime Trilogy games. They're obtained by completing your Logbook and, in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, completing various miscellaneous tasks. You actually have to "buy" the individual pieces in Prime 3 and in the Compilation Re-release versions of Prime and Prime 2.
  • Metroid Fusion includes a gallery of unlocked endings and pieces from Samus' past, but only in the Japanese version.
  • Metroid: Zero Mission includes unlocked endings in all versions, and will display the concept art from Fusion by linking to Fusion with a Game Link Cable.
  • Metroid: Other M has a gallery of concept art unlocked via item completion, much like the Prime games.
  • Metroid Dread has backstory pictures unlocked via item completion and art pieces depicting earlier games in the series unlocked via Speedrunning the game on different difficulty levels as part of its Milestone Celebration for Metroid's 35th anniversary.
• Mortal Kombat has done this with every console release starting with Deadly Alliance with the "Krypt" feature that, in exchange for located keys or variable amounts of kurrency (really), would allow players to unlock characters, photos and a LOT of Concept Art. Or possibly Koncept Art.
• 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.
• No More Heroes has the collectible cards that can be found in the New Game Plus (those accessible from the first playthrough avert the trope). These cards show concept art from the game's characters, including both supporting ones and the antagonistic assassins.
• Upon clearing Ōkami for the first time, you'll unlock the game's concept gallery, which includes art from characters, locations that appear in the game, and locations that were planned but scrapped during development.
• Panzer Dragoon Orta has a catalog of concept art inside "Pandora's Box". As you progress through the game and get better level scores, it unlocks more content.
• Paper Mario:
  • In Paper Mario: Color Splash, Mario unlocks concept art at the Prisma Museum for donating his Battle Cards and filling in colorless spots. Every time a milestone is reached, more concept art is unlocked until all 40 pieces are available to view. The art usually depicts early level and character designs.
  • In Paper Mario: The Origami King, the museum holds pieces of concept art, mostly for areas found in the game. You have to spend Toad Points, which you get by rescuing trapped Toads around the world, to view the art. The larger pieces cost more Toad Points. Additionally, as to avoid spoilers, you can't unlock concept art for an area you haven't been to yet.
• Persona:
  • Persona 4 Golden has a concept art gallery accessible from the menu, called "Giants of P". It includes early art and designs, and more pieces get unlocked as you go through the game.
  • Persona 5 Royal has the gallery in the Thieves Den. By playing the game, you can unlock more art pieces to view. These usually depict clearer, high-res versions of art seen in the game (such as All-Out Attack cut-ins and photos sent in text messages), or character modelsheets.
• 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.
• This is part of the Old Save Bonus of the Professor Layton series, though in this case it's more of a New Save Bonus, as you unlock concept art galleries in the first two games and the fourth game using passwords from the next game in the series.
• 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.
• Ratchet & Clank prominently feature this in almost every game. Three of the games, however (Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal and Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time) have "The Insomniac Museum" as a reward for 100% completion (in the former two, as the third simply requires completion of one Collection Sidequest and an Optional Boss). Besides concept art, it included concept models and many other scrapped ideas, along with things for players to have fun with.
• Rengoku: Some promotional art and renders can be viewed from the Gallery menu, acessible from the title screen.
• Resident Evil: Outbreak and Outbreak File #2 both contain galleries where points earned in the scenarios can be redeemed on concept art and renders of the characters, enemies and settings.
• Scaler, as a result of finding collectables. And in one case, it's possible to collect a piece for a storyboard containing a spoiler before getting to that point in the game.
• The Sega Saturn version of Sengoku Blade: Sengoku Ace Episode II includes a second CD containing official artwork and hundreds of pieces of fan art.
• In Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, the art museum at the Hub Level features all art concepts of the game that are unlocked by collecting keys hidden throughout each level.
• In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, the Episode select menu has a gallery mode featuring early concepts of each level and past designs of characters before they were finalized.
• Most Compilation Rereleases of a particular series have a tendency to do this. Sonic the Hedgehog 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 versions' bonus missions can only be unlocked by finding all the item boxes, minus the one bonus video found in the actual level.
  • Another non-comp version from the Sonic universe would be Sonic and the Secret Rings. It has a Special Book filled with concept art, music, cutscenes (including storyboards and incomplete FMV renders) and the cover of every Sonic game released to that point. Items in the special book had to be unlocked using various methods.
  • 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.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom has a concept art gallery in Bikini Bottom's movie theater, accessible by trading 40,000 Shiny Objects. Among the usual things like early enemy and level designs, the gallery includes art of a scrapped Robot Squidward boss that would eventually see the light of day in the 2020 Rehydrated remake. Said remake initially lacked a concept art gallery of its own, but one was later patched in.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman, has a gallery of concept art freely available in the main menu. Unusually, it's full of art for the cartoon the game is based on rather than the game itself.
• Super Smash Bros.: The Melee, Brawl and for 3DS/Wii U games let you collect Trophies of everything from every single Nintendo Video Game (plus the third-party universes represented, in the latter three games).
• Thief: Gold, the Updated Re-release of Thief: The Dark Project, had a lot of additional goodies, desktop themes, easter eggs and "making of" material packed in. In addition to this, you can find a lot of concept art from the whole series online.
• 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).
• 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.
• Valkyria Chronicles has a gallery where you can look at and rotate the character models. Funnily enough, you can't rotate some of the characters in certain ways, presumably to avoid panty shots.
• The X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance series have Sketchbooks hidden throughout the games that contain concept art for characters and locations.

Visual Arts

• Alexandre Cabanel: As Academicism heavily encouraged, Cabanel drew lots of sketches (today known as Master Studies or études) before working on the actual oil painting. Some are pose references while others are mock paintings to figure out the color palette. Most of them are available online or compiled in the 1989 art exposition "Déssins d'Alexandre Cabanel 1823-1889" of the Musée Fabre, France.
• Jason Stieva: He has an alternate Instagram account called Shallow Grave Studios; there, he posts overview and detail pictures of his Gothic Times pieces in various states of assemblage.

Webcomics

• The Fan Art page for Darths & Droids contains development and concept art.

Websites

• 4Kids' two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles blogs have become these, showing designs for characters, vehicles, props, and backgrounds.

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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