Thursday, February 08, 2007

Chicken Little: Ace in Action

One of the games I did concept art for recently came out---a "sequel" of sorts to the Chicken Little movie, based on the buffed-out movie-within-a-movie version of Chicken Little and his buddies. Originally Buena Vista Games wanted us to do a straight up Chicken Little 2 sequel, but we liked the creative freedom and game play possibilities presented by CL's alter-ego. This image was an attempt to "sell" the idea to BVG and the marketing guys.

In the end, they liked the picture well enough to use it on the cover of the game. However, they felt the need to make a few "adjustments" first. Look here to see how they "modified" it for the final game cover. I can understand why they didn't want a pink game box for an action game, but. . .whoa. Compare it with the original:







I guess the point of this post is to clear my name, artistically speaking. The final cover is not my fault! However, the final version of the game is great, and it was a real blast to work on. I'll have more posts covering the visual development of the game later.

All images copyrights Disney 2006.

17 comments:

S.T. Lewis said...

I thought it was cool that they used your painting (kind of) for the game cover. It's too bad they didn't tell you they were going to use it but that they wanted a blue background... I'm sure you could have made it look a billion times better than it ended up looking if you had just known. I love this. I can see why they wanted to make the game after seeing it.

kory said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kory said...

Hey Sam!
Rock and Roll Brother.

great saturated colors, and not yucky candy-like colors. Some people over do the color stuff, but you seem to have it under control.

keep it up.

Mark Behm said...

Wow. What a mess.
Yours, on the other hand, has a great feel to it.

I love the signature billowy-soft BG. Great work and you have my condolences.

Now don't give them a layered file next time. Make them work for it!

Scott Altmann said...

I don't think the box art is terrible, but when comparing to the original it makes you question their taste levels. Just my opinion of course.

I do love the original though - really fun characters and great color harmony.

Tim Bye said...

Fab picture - Yours is definitely better than the box version! Top stuff Sam!

Kaek said...

Hello! beautiffull colours, and the characters are so expressives.

greetings

Ron Jensen said...

I agree with you that the pink wouldn't have worked well, and yah they should have given you a shot at changing it for the cover, but SWEET! your image is on a game sold at Wall Marts everywhere. Even in other countries. Your famous now.

Florian Satzinger said...

Cracking great, Sam! Congrats!!

Heather Dixon said...

Sam, you're famous! I definitely like your red version better, although I can guess they might have changed it to blue because it looks more machinish-sci-fi. Red is way more eye candy, though.

sarah said...

This is a really sweet painting, that's too bad about the changes. I didn't know there was a game based on these guys. Cool.

:::Ismael Gudiño::: said...

Great Works!!
I am Ismael Gudiño, I am caricaturist of Salta Argentina, and interests me to exchange links with you

www.sitio12.blogspot.com

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Oh wow that is a Sweeeeeeeet painting !! I really thought I wasn't going to be that fussed on Chicken Little as a movie but the kids got it on DVD and I actually thought it was a lot of fun !!

Dillon said...

I can't help but to comment how awsome these pieces are. I don't think I will be able to scroll to the botom your blog page with out commenting on every piece. Amazing!!

Mark Montague said...

Great picture and there is nothing wrong with pink.

How soul-destroying. But at the end of the day, it's the men in suits who make the final decisions.

Joe Bluhm said...

Color and light... color and light... I'm hypnotized.

Philip Dimitriadis said...

I really love this piece!!! Nice work. I started working on Chicken Little 2, then it got shot down, nice to see some other realted work. Nice photoshop!!!!