Brenda Cook Video Game Art Portfolio (Restored)

[@professorbadvibes695]

If Brenda Cook ever sees this comment section, I hope she knows that her work is spectacular and deserves to be appreciated!!

[@sesukun2064]

one could say that Brenda "Cooked" when it came to artistic talent

[@GarlicConnoisseur]

​@@sesukun2064 ok thats it im taking your meme privilege away

[@SamProcrastinates]

This is such an incredible find!

[@spongebobmaster]

holy samual

[@PigDan]

*IT'S 8 IN THE EVENING!!*

[@CollisionChaos]

That's so based, i love how the christmas trees seems to be inspired in early CGI. I'm so happy to finally have a high quality picture of the desert level! And with the colors more accurate than we could see before, there are so many details that i could not see in the magazine pictures. I love this art. Also, i always wondered if the sand we saw on the magazine picture was moving sand or no, so it's great to finally have confirmation for that! And the cave level looks so cool omg, such a shame it was not in the final version of the game. Thank you so much Frank for providing a capture of it with such a high quality!

[@gospyro]

Brings back memories!!! This is the first time I’ve seen Jester animations in a very long time, if not since when the game was cancelled back around 1992 or 93! So glad to see all this work finally get out for people to see!!!

[@sawyerjohnston2544]

It makes me think. did you ever do any other mockups on other cut sonic 2 levels? Like Rock World zone or Cyber City zone for example.

[@theshadowkingreign7885]

What tips would you give for level design for a sonic game? The lost hidden palace has always been a peak interest for me

[@sonikku1011]

Brenda Cook did such a good job! It's a shame her work didn't make it into the final build of Sonic 2, but at least we can all see her work in action. Sure we've had prototypes that shown off Wood Zone, but it's cool to see her concept of the zone.

[@ChilliusVGM]

What a great team effort acquiring this tape was. Shoutouts to Frank and Collision Chaos for the amounts of effort they put into the tape (shoutouts to Chris Person too!), as well as null and Infomaniac for helping this journey get its footing; and maybe I'll give myself a pat on the back for spreading CCR's word of the tape heh. It was a fun story to watch and put my voice into as well and I hope others are happy with what's finally been unveiled today, it was definitely a shock when Frank sent the first screenshots of the tape to us! :)

[@lollycarola]

I can't imagine how everyone must have reacted when they first saw Winter Zone!

[@2004DMP]

i guess since you find to hard to give urself credit i supposed you’ll have to take the pat on the back from me. setting our differences aside i’ll always appreciate the passion and research you’ve done for these lost works

[@kaspertheshepherd3010]

You have no idea how important this is

[@3mar00ss6]

Brenda cook, and she cooked she cooked good indeed

[@Mana_412]

The fact that Brenda ma'am actually preserved this vhs or smth with all of these is actually insane, love you, Ma'am

[@Maxi_P.]

I just wonder, after 31 years, if Brenda Ross ever saw what impact had her Sonic 2 Dust Hill zone mockup on the internet and went "Oh hey, i did that." History is just so important and awesome, and we are being part of it right now, thanks to Brenda Ross.

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

No it is sand shower zone, Dust Hill Zone is mystic cave zone.

[@SpeedyBlur2000]

@@JaxCoolKartunes I had to see the concept art of the island to double check and, yeah, it checks out. I'm just wondering how they went from calling it Dust Hill Zone to Mystic Cave Zone. The names don't even sound remotely similar. They are literal in their meaning, but both sound nothing alike and are the complete opposite...not even opposite, just a completely different theme.

[@jadonherr6469]

@@JaxCoolKartunes Correction, Dust Hill Zone is actually Green Hill Zone overtaken by heat, and turned into a desert. This was used in Forces.

[@MagoTheCat]

@@SpeedyBlur2000 The word "Dust" does not always mean sand, but can also mean "ashes". "Dust Hill" is the version of the emerald hill completely destroyed leaving only its ashes or in this case its Dust.

[@kargaroc386]

I mean one of the levels here is called "genocide city zone", so don't expect the level names to make *too* much sense.

[@varoken_gamer2235]

Really loved the vibes of Kid Chameleon. That beach specially. Super cool work from the time.

[@nullpointer.]

I'm so glad that we're finally able to release this after meticulous work done in general by CollisionChaos and you to make sure this looks as great as it's ever going to be! Thanks so much Frank, you absolutely made sure this was presentable in the best way possible! Shoutouts to CollisionChaos, Infomaniac, Chillius, Chris Person, and you of course. It was great working with you guys to get this out there :)

[@Zobbster]

Brenda has such range, it's seriously impressive considering how many limitations she was under at the time.

[@The_SDG]

2:45 my beloved

[@HighlightReel]

I really had a good time transferring this tape, great work everyone, CollisionChaos and Frank :)

[@ChromeColossus]

She was/is really versatile in her art skills! This was fun to watch.

[@GigaChad_169]

Wow, Im glad some of her work saw the light of day in Sonic Mania

[@USandwich64]

It's almost hard to believe this was sourced from VHS originally. Great effort on archiving/restoring this and some genuinely amazing artwork too!

[@HiImSanic4040]

Makes sense her last name is cook SHE WAS COOKING

[@SonicTheDutchHedgehog]

Really interesting vhs! I love the non sonic stuff aswell, seeing cancelled projects is always enjoyable! Also one thing i noticed about the dessert mockup is that the ring sparkle is seemingly gone, same with the hud tough i could see that just being an magazine thing, and oh hey 0:32 new B-Bomb stuff

[@inendlesspain4724]

Found another B-Bomb enthusiast.

[@Ohverture]

Amazing. :) It's surreal and slightly eerie as a 44 year old looking back on the development work of my formative gaming years. I love it - and Brenda has some serious artistic chops.

[@CastellANM]

This is surreal

[@fransiscayulianita68]

Brenda Cooked!

[@Banjeoin]

These are gorgeous, I love all the animations and pixel backgrounds! I'm so charmed by those 3D quadruped animations - there's real weight and fantastic animation principles in them, probably all done fighting against an early-90s forward-kinematic-only character rig too!

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

Games that are shown in the video: Dick Tracy Kid Chameleon Sonic Spinball Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Jester (Cancelled) Fat Daddy Starring Doop & ??? (Cancelled) (Also I'm bad at reading cursive so anyone in the replies tell me what it says) Dogz (Maybe?) Unknown

[@TheRealHarrypm]

The power of FM RF capture and software decoding VHS-Decode magic and a little work!

[@spimbles]

Such beautiful pixel art. Amazing stuff

[@Oceane1803]

As a pixel artist, this looks crazy good. I'm only good enough for 8-bit pixel art.

[@MacUser2-il2cx]

Looks like some early animations for Dogz for Mac and Windows.

[@GoldenGuy444]

Double checked the credits for the first Dogz game and you're right! She was credited as an Assistant Animator. Nice catch!

[@MacUser2-il2cx]

@@GoldenGuy444 i played it a lot as a kid. :D

[@GoldenGuy444]

@@MacUser2-il2cxI did too! had one of the later entries but once I saw your comment I went "oh duh of course!"

[@inendlesspain4724]

Any new B-Bomb material (the real Holy Grail of lost video game content🗿) is always appreciated.

[@starmaster65]

Daaaaaamn Brenda's work is awesome

[@kyaban5192]

That's wood zone. Holy shit.

[@CyberFunk64]

I'm happy to see that Brenda's portfolio is getting the recognition it deserves 👏🏽

[@michaelbullen3104]

Those Spinball concepts are oddly the most fascinating to me

[@Coolremac]

It would've been great if Brenda Cook could've completed all of her unfinished zones for Sonic 2.

[@sirsinnes]

Her sprite animation was excellent.

[@supermarioworldE]

Her artwork was so detailed and incredible. Its a shame most of the american artists had their work scrapped from Sonic 2, but so crazy that this long after we're still discovering new things about it. Thank you to those who found this footage, and of course to Brenda Cook for all her hard work in the industry. Im glad she's getting even more recognition for her great art.

[@TNWNC90]

Brenda Ross, what a legend!!

[@BOABModels]

Dust Hill definitely inspired Mirage Saloon, right? Amazing to see these designs after over 30 years.

[@eliaskwola]

It's a shame none of her work made it in the sonic games!

[@tailslaboratorychannel4444]

Simply impressive! Will we one day have some R2 assets? lolz

[@Kragglover2003]

Thank you Brenda cook for creating this work !!

[@eastbeast1379]

That's interesting that VHS was used as portfolios in the 90s. I know that portfolios are made as websites to show off your talent for art, 3D sculptures, 2D or/and 3D animation, films, UI, and photography. Makes me wonder if DVDs were portfolios in the 2000s? Or would that of been just website or MySpace and such? Amazed to see Sonic 2 spirits for the cancelled stages as well as other pixel GIFs and 3D ones. Really different to how 3D is with Blender. The art neat too. It's cool to look at someone's work from the 90s, as well as an archive of the past.

[@hyperreal]

Back then animators used VHS for their demo reels so they could be shared or mailed out. We used CD-R and dvds in the mid 2000s along with personal websites. Nowadays artists only need online portfolios.

[@AltimaNEO]

That primitive 3D dog is pretty interesting. It looks like she was mostly focused on producing animations for the character, rather than the character itself. Its giving me Vectorman vibes. I wonder what year this was from? 3D artwork always fascinated me as a kid, to the point that its what I studied in college. But I cant imagine trying to learn it all on your own. I wonder how they went about learning how to use their 3D software?

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

If I'm sure it was a interactive game for the genesis where you control that dog.

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

Oh wait it was used for a pc game known as "Dogz"

[@AltimaNEO]

@@JaxCoolKartunes Thats interesting. The game looks to use 2D circles to recreate the 3D spheres of the dog. That explains the design choice!

[@JuanSanchez-rb4qu]

@@AltimaNEO I recall other games like ballz doing the same, it was 3D before actual 3D hardware made it to the consumer market.

[@StaxieSynth]

brenda looks very hireable

[@ChrisTheChocobo]

The Winter Zone sky reminds me to Crystal Egg Zone from Sonic 2 8-Bit version. I can hear his melody on my head watching this image.

[@alieneer4044]

The actual track for the winter level is sky chase. Listen to the masa demo for it.

[@GlerpidyGlarson]

Thank you Brenda for all of the wonderful art you did

[@Cards.vs.Dungeons]

I love Kid Chameleon! :)

[@mrweatherby]

That is incredible. Her work is fantastic and it's amazing that something like this has been found, digitized, and preserved. Thank you all for your efforts and a huge thanks to Brenda Cook for discovering and sharing this.

[@SolidWander]

This is awesome! So glad yall got a hold of this. Really looking forward to what she'll have to say!

[@paigevanelle]

I feel so alive just looking at those two particular images.

[@MatthewCallis]

Love the 3D dog showing the UI!

[@mr.sandman3619]

Kid chameleon backgrounds reminded me of childhood

[@arnmrs1660]

This motorcycle helmet would have been an incredible addition to the already fantastic game Kid Chamaleon. I hope someone can add these sprites to a new version of the game (Sega should do this).

[@MarcosValverde_mcs]

2:29 - Look the Sonic 2 Beta´s lost stage, Dust Hill Zone! EDIT: the true name is "Sand Shower". The name "Dust Hill" was a mistake from some hacks.

[@JaxCoolKartunes]

No it is called "Sand Shower"

[@MarcosValverde_mcs]

@@JaxCoolKartunes Yes, the original true name for this stage is "Sand Shower". Thanks for the info!

[@billyssoundtest7430]

Her work is spectacular

[@jonathanhersey8313]

That Sonic Spinball level was incredible.

[@Gold_Bug]

Brenda you are awesome for digging this up!

[@hellomiguel_]

Your work is beautiful, Brenda Ross!

[@teaoftraffic]

sonic stuff 1:10 - Winter Zone 2:30 - Sand Shower Zone 2:45 - Wood Zone

[@RatchetAndClank14]

1:12 Sonic Spinball cut level

[@novelezra]

6:19 anyone know ehat tjis art is for? Goes hard as hell. Reminds me of 90s band shirts

[@AndresMartinez-by8eu]

Gracias por mostrar esta historia perdida de los videojuegos

[@twospaces]

Brenda has the best art and the best hair.

[@HyggeState]

Video games rule.

[@Saphrex.ExeLol]

Sonic Zones Appeared: Dust Hill Zone ( Winter theme | Sonic The Hedgehog 2 ) Dust Hill Zone ( Normal Theme | Sonic The Hedgehog 2 ) Underground Cave Zone ( Sonic Spinball ) Wood Zone ( Sonic The Hedgehog 2 )

[@PigDan]

Wooooow...

[@FatDragonHats]

Unused Kid Chameleon animations in here

[@KeltkeGH]

1:12 - 1:26 Are these from Sonic Spinball? Perhaps, Cyber City Zone's lost art?

[@rassilontdavros3004]

Cyber City's art was done by Tom Payne IIRC, not by Brenda Cook.

[@Cap1001kyle]

Finally we found the sonic 2 winter zone lol

[@kargaroc386]

head explosion gif

[@ThatOneSwissGuy]

SONIC AAAAAA

[@chrissaldivar2693]

This is amazing

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

Man this is so surreal seeing the artwork that went into Dick Tracy! So at one point Kid Chameleon may have had a power-up where I'm guessing he transformed into the Hang-On rider? I noticed he had a swimming animation too meaning that could have been a swimming mechanic in the game too? Thank goodness she preserved and compiled all of this to be able to share with the world 30+ years later. I would love to know what was the Sega Genesis game development like back then at STI? What kind of computers did they develop on? What was the development pipeline like in terms of what software were the graphics created with and on what kind of computer system? Then with the computer programming was it pure 68000 assembly or was some of it done in more common languages back then like C or Pascal? I know a lot of the western development studios used G.E.M.S. for music and sound effects but I'm wondering since some of Sega Of Japan was involved what software they used as well. Thanks for sharing this! 😇

[@rorychivers8769]

I find it hard to imagine them using anything other than assembly, given just how limited the processing power was

[@KingNugget188]

They needed to let Brenda Cook(terrible pun detected)

[@MoonSarito]

She has an incredible talent with pixel art, I think it's a shame that her work wasn't used in Sonic 2 because it looks incredible.

[@lucasmatos6201]

Brenda Cook, Craig Stitt and of course, their amazing art, are the resons for me to be a game artist so I'm very grateful to them for their inspiration🙏 -~- This was a great and priceless finding! Congratulations to everyone that made this possible! 👏👏👏👏👏

[@edgardeitz5746]

I wonder if "Jester" ended up becoming "Knights" in "Knights into Dreams"...

[@turbinegraphics16]

Very good 2d artwork.

[@calvinthedestroyer]

The trees at 1:23 are my favorite

[@superbodoque7860]

More like Brenda Cooked (seriously why didn't they use any of her work in Sonic 2? 😭)

[@rassilontdavros3004]

The simple answer is that the levels she did art for weren't very far along in development- so when it became clear that there wasn't enough time to finish all the levels that were originally intended, hers were unfortunately among the first on the chopping block.

[@JuanSanchez-rb4qu]

Can't find anything about that "fatdaddy" game at the end, guess its been completely forgotten

[@indiefrands6467]

Damn this is awesome

[@protasov-by]

Does those jumping tiger is used in some game? 😅

[@vexion369]

true to her name she really cooked

[@Vectormantudeoz]

Simplemente increíble

[@veg411]

Is it just me, or do the top left two sprites at 2:13 look like Sonic 3’s and Sonic 2’s walk cycles, respectively?

[@Strangeisntit_real]

probably was used as a reference base

[@thiago-sd90]

Isn't the animation of Kid Chameleon taking off his jacket cuted from the final game?

[@2004DMP]

i really hate to be that guy since i know it probably isn’t for a sonic game but olympus? 0:44?

[@rassilontdavros3004]

I wonder if you might be right. It does look kinda Sonic-y!

[@2004DMP]

@@rassilontdavros3004the recycling of assets from green hill’s clouds to other stuff was always very clever to me even if it was placeholder! though maybe they used to because the island was still south island at the time? who knows but the use of sonic 1 sprites more likely suggests those clouds being placeholder too so who knows

[@jadonherr6469]

Holy crap, that might actually be Olympus. I didn't notice that until you pointed it out.

[@ZeGlitchy]

I was here

[@CrownRock1]

I already mentioned it on the other video, but the scene at 0:43 looks a lot like a 16-bit version of a level from Little Samson for the NES.

[@JV6005]

I don't know why but something about this is so liminal and creepy

[@edgardeitz5746]

0:34 - What game was *this* made for? Would I be able to download it somewhere (for emulation)? EDIT - And what's with the cartoonish look? Also, the pig is in just his underwear. Hilarious... ;)

[@Spewa-em8cm]

I'm super interested in this Jester game now, what was this supposed to be? I skimmed through Sega Retro and they have next to no info, and in fact it seems NOBODY on the internet knows anything about this game. I love the animation shown here, I wonder if Brenda would be willing to talk about the game in the future.

[@RabbitEarsCh]

Huh, the dog is made up of quads, not triangles, as you can see around 3:30, so that's definitely some Saturn work. I wonder what program this is, that allowed her to work on these, since quads as the fundamental unit was not the popular choice (and tris did win out eventually).

[@GameHistoryOrg]

it's from Dogz on Mac and PC

[@Royameadow]

At 00:43, we witness the Violet and Purple Palace at Night that is vividly repurposing a massive lot of Sand Shower and Winter Hill's Foreground assets for the platforms and ceilings, while the rest of it is virtually new to us: In the event that Brenda made this particular piece for Sonic the Hedgehog 02 (MD), this may very well be what had come of Olympus, the clouds and mountains of Blue Lake being visible behind the palace is believable when going off of the Concept Art Map for the Past Zones and the Construction~style Checkerboard seen for the platforms in Sand Shower and Winter Hill having a Golden Yellow and Black pattern in this particular area may have been a measure by Brenda to keep the Foreground from looking too Monochromatic, something that we notice was consistently avoided with literally every zone throughout all stages of development. Considering how much has already been preserved, I probably wouldn't be surprised if we eventually get some relevant information about many of the zones that we have yet to see: So far, Rock World, Olympus, and Warp Point are the only zones that we do not have any known publicized form of Zone Art for on Paper (though Rock World does have Banper as one possible Badnik) and thus I wouldn't be surprised if these take priority to analyze more about because they continue to remain the most mysterious, there are still more pieces of the puzzle to fill in but I feel that what we have so far will suffice until the time comes to return to this title's major secrets once again; for now though, it is genuinely welcoming to finally witness this sampler from Brenda make it to the general populace, it delivers a genuine insight into how Video Portfolios were produced before the era of Online Media took over this practice in the Fifteen+ Years to follow this tape and it is pleasant to also witness material from Dick Tracy, Chameleon Kid, and even what many of us will believe to be Pre~Beta Toxic Caves from Spinball '93 show up alongside the rest of the set in assets that were produced during that era of Sega Technical Institute, the amount of history that is on display here will further evolve the level of clarity into understanding core elements of what made up these titles during their development and this is information that some of us have waited nearly Two to Three decades for to witness come to light that the many years of research and communication put into it by everybody will forever be commended for all the correct reasons. (:

[@ryuhighabusa430]

Is that beta Bob's Burgers at 6:00?

[@sacriptex5870]

are She still alive? i cant find anything about her on net, not even new pictures.

[@rassilontdavros3004]

She's still alive as of 2023, she donated the tape.

[@edgardeitz5746]

2:12 - Who's _this_ guy? Was he an earlier character than Sonic, or was her for a different game entirely?

[@edgardeitz5746]

What's with all the stuff allegedly for a game called "Fat Daddy"?

[@JackSardonic]

SOVL