This article has a talk page!This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Alice: Madness Returns/Concept Art.
Alice Liddell#
In the early stages of the game's development cycle, American Mcgee and his team found it very challenging bringing Alice into high resolution for the modern graphical era. Alice's in-game model from the first game differed greatly from its promotional material, making it diverse in design. Because of that, artists had to make multiple versions of her in order to find a design that would be cohesive with the game's art style, an aspect that also being debated at the time. Mcgee also mentioned that he wanted to retain the downplaying personality of Alice for her new look and not making her sexualised. Eventually, after three major revisions, frustrations and a lot of hard work, the team found a design that everyone could partially agree on.1
Humans#
Concept artwork of London's residents. The second row of the big picture below served as a base study for the game's art style. The goal for the human characters was to make them look exaggerated like caricatures, according to art director Ken Wong.2
Rat#
Concept artwork of a rat. Some sketches in the art book show Alice picking one up and throwing it at a cop's face. It's possible that this could serve as a mechanic to distract the cops when they were chasing Alice as seen in an early trailer of the game.
Chesire Cat & White Rabbit#
Concept artwork of the Chesire Cat and the White Rabbit.
Mock Sparrow#
Concept artwork of the Mock Sparrows that reside in Vale of Tears.
Snails#
Concept artwork of the snails that reside in Vale of Tears/Doom.
Ruins#
Concept artwork of the Ruin enemies. The Ruins originally were going to have a lot of different variations and each one would act as foil to one of Alice's weapons.
Eyepot#
Concept artwork of the Eyepot enemy.
Automatons#
Concept artwork of the Automatons. Note: The eye of the second Automaton looks closer to the model in the Extra Content/Characters section compared to its in-game model which has a humanoid eye instead.
Dodo#
Concept artwork of the Dodo.
Mad Hatter#
Concept artwork of the Mad Hatter.
March Hare & Dormouse#
The first sketches of both characters depict them being awfully tame but as development progressed, their appearances gradually changed into more maniacal, blood-thirsty beasts. The initial idea for their designs was to have various pieces of junk attached to their bodies, acting as life support. For example, March Hare having a big teapot tank connected to him with tea serving as fuel.
According to artist Fellipe Martins, both characters were originally going to be fought as separate bosses and would later "merge" into one giant superboss.3
Deluded Depths#
Concept artwork of Deluded Depths's seafolk. Npcs and enemies alike.
Carpenter & Walrus#
Concept artwork of the Carpenter and his partner Walrus.
Daimyo Wasp#
Concept artwork of the Daimyo Wasp enemy.
Caterpillar#
Concept artwork of the Caterpillar.
Queensland#
Concept artwork of Queensland's creatures.
Queen of Hearts#
Concept artwork of the Queen of Hearts. The designers at first wanted the queen to be a dying old woman but Mcgee rejected the idea. Instead, it was decided that she would take the appearance of a young girl.4
Rutledge Asylum#
Concept artwork of the asylum's staff and its patients. Note: The faceless ones are the person's "mad" counterparts.
Doll Girl#
Concept artwork of the Doll Girl enemy.
Dollmaker/Angus Bumby#
The Dollmaker's design went through numerous changes it seems. His face would bear a resemblance closer to his human counterpart and he would attack with four arms, two of which would be prosthetics with various sharp tools attached to it. One sketch depicts him having spider-like legs to move around and a big sewing machine strapped to his back that would rapidly shoot needles at the enemy.
His final design came very late during development and it was "very challenging to satisfy all the requirements", according to Ken Wong.5
