Prerelease:Undertale/Concept Art/New Home

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Undertale/Concept Art.

Areas

Toby's sketch of the iconic Last Corridor, before Gigi made it look presentable.

Characters

Asgore

Toby's first sketches of Asgore, before his personality was figured out.

Very early art of Asgore by Toby, once again before his personality was figured out. The top-right sprite was actually used in the original Kickstarter trailer, and the sprite on the bottom-right was inspired by Sinistral and King Berebus from Brandish, yet another one of Toby's main inspirations.

Temmie's version of the early Asgore, with one notably lacking his facial hair.

The progression of Asgore's overworld sprites. Asgore's hair was black/brown for most of development, and was changed near the end to make his sprite more readable. Apparently Toby hardly remembers his new hair color.

Many early and unused Asgore faces, one of which is an absolutely cursed shaven sprite. The sprites on the bottom were meant for his special attack, explained in Toby's own words: "His eyes were going to flash six times in a row alternately, followed by six spear swipes. Then both eyes would flash white and he would lift his spear above his head, roar, and slam his trident into the box, creating giant shockwaves." This was removed because it would've been too difficult, and his spear wouldn't have fit completely on-screen.

According to Toby, Asgore originally had functionality where he could hold his spear at any angle, and even spin it. Toby didn't like the results, however, so in the final game his spear is at a set point.

Toby's concept of Asgore's spear attack, which he sent to Temmie and 3 or 4 other unnamed artists for them to draw. In the end, Toby had to draw the final sprites himself instead.

Photoshop Flowey

Early concept art by Toby of Photoshop Flowey. The left side is actually in the files of the final game still, however the right was cut out. This was redesigned a couple times until Everdraed had something comprehensible to work with, the concepts of which are shown next.

Various other designs for PF, in order of completion. By the first image Toby had actually already programmed all the moving parts of him, and by the second image he finally realized the souls could fit inside the 6 big petals at the top. The final image was the concept Toby gave to Everdraed to work off of.

Many unused faces originally intended for the ending of PF's fight, one of which interestingly looks like a psychotic Asriel. These were cut as they were too comedic for the tone of the scene.

Sheet of the weird faces that show up on PF's TV screen, including some unused variants. By the wording in the art book, it seems Toby made these faces and heavily edited them to make them look creepy.

PF's "normal" faces, including many unused ones, some of which are taken almost directly from the sketches earlier. Toby scrapped most of these as he hated how they looked.

Everdraed's in-progress screenshot of PF's final design. Everdraed explains that he shot Toby an email after the demo came out asking if he could work on the game, not knowing Toby already had him in mind for this boss fight.

The messed up teeth were intended to be used after the SOULs dropped his defense to 0, specifically after he gets hit. The Giant Side Vines (as Draed puts it) were originally going to creepily undulate, but were most likely removed as it would've been too visually distracting and confusing to layer sprites behind it for Toby.

This background element was meant to give the boss an "animal, vegetable, mineral" vibe, and would've been animated as struggling against each other.

Yes, that's a worm.

More moving vines for the background, which Toby once again removed as it made it too visually busy.

According to Draed, he was intending on suggesting a mechanic where PF's screen would display various bitcrushed atrocities depending on what was happening in the fight, such as attacks. These are only two of them, the first being of unknown origin and the second being of a house breaking down. These were scrapped over concerns over rights issues and content issues, which given something listed below, must've been pretty bad...

A gag meant for the Venus Flytrap, where it would've had a "vacancy" sign that would change to "no vacancy" when full of flies. Toby removed this as he felt it was too lighthearted of a gag to be in this tense fight.

Everdraed imagined this less as a random lighthearted joke, and more-so "sort of a roach motel concept that at first seems playful but is actually kinda sinister and gross when you think about it." He also felt as though the flies could change direction when the plant is full and attack the player, but conceded that programming the fight was probably already hard enough for Toby without this rather unpleasant attack pattern change.

Apparently not even Draed knows what this was supposed to be used for. This is also part of a gif where the nostrils would sniff very weirdly. Let us not think about this further.

All of these are the original, high definition Photoshopped images that would later be downsized to fit in the final game, along with some differences.

The Venus Flytrap was originally going to walk around on the bottom with cactus arms and swat flies away, but these arms were removed and the trap was reworked into the final version as the arms weren't menacing.

The arms were going to be much beefier, and have retractable petals and swing around, the whole shebang.

Most interestingly are the bombs, which are photoshopped versions of the Little Boy and the Fat Man, the nukes that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively to end World War II, only with Flowey's grin on them. (No, this is not a joke.) This is a concept Everdraed loves to visit time and time again, as it brings to mind a child trying to come to grips with terrifying and traumatic experiences in life, something which ends up fitting this fight rather well. The Little Boy would end up being scrapped, presumably out of redundancy.

Asriel

According to Toby, Asriel's adult God of Hyperdeath form was inspired by a program he made to test visual effects in-game (shown to the right), which for some reason he put Toriel with evil eyes into. Toby liked the idea so much that he made an entirely new character design based on this.

Toby's first concept of Asriel as a child, which was changed as he wasn't cute enough and he had horns for some reason. Toby originally also envisioned the player fighting him as a child as well, however he was aged up for the fight proper.

Toby originally flirted with the idea of Asriel having "boyband hair" for about 5 seconds, according to him. Apparently the intention behind the God of Hyperdeath design was to evoke this feeling, and Toby's glad that fanart of him with this kind of hair exists.

Toby originally wanted to give Asriel bigger horns, but shortened them as he thought they looked too stupid.

Progression of Asriel's battle sprite. Toby made him float as he thought he looked stupid just standing.

Various early sprites of Asriel's battle animations, including weaponry and many of which notably lack his tuft of hair. The weird eyeball was meant to be part of an unused (but programmed) attack where his head would spin so fast that it would turn into an eyeball that shoots out tons of beams. This was scrapped as the attack was too difficult to dodge.

Two unused attacks: the first would have eyes appear randomly and fire lasers, and the second would have Asriel fire blue and orange thunder from his hands that would spin around.

Very early, very rough sketches of Asriel's final form, complete with some creepy faces! Toby apparently designed these before he had even finished his first form.

Early-to-final versions of the Hypergoner attack, which Toby is pleased ended up looking "happier".

Many early or unused final form and child Asriel assets, including some unused faces and an absolutely massive Delta Rune. Toby wanted the boss to take up the whole screen as he felt final bosses always do that.