[Marphy Black]

I recently came across a few blog posts of one Paul Richards who was a concept artist at 3D Realms circa-2001. They feature a large collection of the Duke Nukem Forever concept art he created at the time. These were actually posted a few years ago, but I don't think they have ever been brought up here before:

http://autodestructd...hives-pt-3.html
http://autodestructd...hives-pt-2.html
http://autodestructd...hives-pt-1.html

Some of this is already seen scattered about in the DNF art book and the in-game extras menu, but I think having the direct source images can be appreciated.

And just for fun, two higher resolution versions of Richards' concept art that you won't see anywhere else:

[Daedolon]

I thought that Bombshell picture was everywhere?

Haven't seen the other one though!

[Richard Shead]

Wow....amazing find!! A lot of that concept art is actually 1998-era, though!

[Mr. Tibbs]

Thank you, RinyRed! Some great stuff here.

[Gambini]

Good catch! Thanks for sharing.

[NUKEMDAVE]

After looking at these, I can now say that the final version of DNF was definitely lacking... a lot.

[gibfrag]

Wow the dog looks really cool!

[Bloodshot]

Some of the concepts for the shrink ray and the sniper rifles are really fucking cool, and would have been way better than the portal-gun ripoff shrinkray, or the railgun that looked like a stretched watermelon with a scope stuck on top.

[OpenMaw]

I don't agree with the comments talking about how the guy "majorly improved" as if these aren't very good. These are freaking awesome. I WISH I could do concept art of this quality.


I love the various takes on the grey aliens, and the very vivid personality to all the characters. The re-imagined Proton and Techbots on display are pretty cool. (The little rolling robot, the helicopter and that green slug thing are clearly re-imagined versions of Duke 1 enemies). And I think Duke Rocks is right, a number of these feel more like what was being done in the Quake 2 era of DNF.


Still, it's very clear from all of this that the spirit of the game changed a lot over the years, and that saddens me, because just looking at this stuff, and hearing stories from the likes of Wieder, it's obvious that DNF was going to be a winner back then. A big winner. How could they have not gotten this thing out the door with all the talent you had there at the time?

[Gambini]

To be honest, I found this concept art to be rather bland (mind a few exceptions). I didn´t point it because nobody else mentioned it, but now that you do... It´s interesting only because the game´s history.

[Richard Shead]

Commando Nukem, on 20 December 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

I don't agree with the comments talking about how the guy "majorly improved" as if these aren't very good. These are freaking awesome. I WISH I could do concept art of this quality.

Yeah, he himself wrote that they were "embarrassing".....lol, I guess that just shows how extreme the industry standards are these days.

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I love the various takes on the grey aliens, and the very vivid personality to all the characters. The re-imagined Proton and Techbots on display are pretty cool. (The little rolling robot, the helicopter and that green slug thing are clearly re-imagined versions of Duke 1 enemies). And I think Duke Rocks is right, a number of these feel more like what was being done in the Quake 2 era of DNF.

Several of the environmental sketches had been previously published in a book from the late 90s about the video gaming business. Years later they were dug up by us fanboys and added to the archive of obscure and rare DNF media. The book also included some quotes from Broussard and a full body 3D render of a Quake 2-engine Gus. That and the fact the a lot of the images had the E3 '98 DNF logo attached to it.

Quote

Still, it's very clear from all of this that the spirit of the game changed a lot over the years, and that saddens me, because just looking at this stuff, and hearing stories from the likes of Wieder, it's obvious that DNF was going to be a winner back then. A big winner. How could they have not gotten this thing out the door with all the talent you had there at the time?

This. I think one of, if not THE biggest tragedies in the history of virtual entertainment is the downfall of DNF and how amazingly awesome it could've been at one point, had 3DR played their cards correctly. They were sitting on something really special, and let it go....