Star Fox may not be one of Nintendo’s best-selling franchises, but it certainly has a passionate fan base; the first SNES game was revolutionary, utilizing the Super FX chip to create a compelling 3D world, while subsequent titles both refined the format and took it in new directions. However, since 2016 Star Fox Zerothe franchise has unfortunately remained dormant.
Still, any object related to the creation of Star Fox is likely to attract attention, and we were recently informed that one of the first pieces of development artwork related to the game was almost thrown away.
We received an email from someone named Chris Stokes, who claimed to have the first concept drawing ever of the Star Fox cast. “It was a gift from Shigeru Miyamoto to Jez San from Argonaut,” the email continued. “I’m not sure if it’s by Miyamoto or Takaya Imamura as it’s not signed.”
We duly passed on the contact email to San, who founded Argonaut, the British developer that helped Nintendo create the original Star Fox – the company also designed the aforementioned Super FX chip. San confirmed to Stokes that it was in fact a legitimate piece of concept art and that it was gifted to him many years ago.
Stokes explains how art came to be in his possession:
I’m a Linux systems engineer and I was once employed by PKR, a gambling company owned by Jez San. When I joined the company, my boss was Jeremy Longley, who founded Lost Toys and previously worked with Peter Molyneux at Bullfrog. When he showed me around on my first day, there was a load of boxes in the corner, and in the boxes was the picture. I knew it was by Star Fox, and of course I knew about Jez and Argonaut’s involvement in the game, and with the Super FX chip in the cart. Jeremy told me that the boxes were all Jez’s stuff, and that the drawing was given to Jez by Miyamoto, and as far as he knew, it was the first concept art for Star Fox.
Fast forward about six years and PKR was in trouble. Stokes continues:
The business was being wound up. We received a message that everything on the 5th floor (now largely empty) should be thrown in the trash, and that if anyone wanted anything, they should go and get it. I knew what was there and then I hurried up and stole it essentially or saved it no matter how you want to look at it. I kept my ownership of this picture a secret until I could no longer hold it out and would definitely know where it had come from and what it was. That was when I sent you an email and I still would not talk to Jez about it for fear he would have it back. So I asked for it and sent an email to Jez about it.
I did not get too much info out of him other than that he is not bothered that I have it. He added that “It’s highly likely that it’s Eguchi who drew it. Check out the Star Fox credits and it’s going to be the lead designer.” Takaya Imamura was the main GFX designer on the game, Eguchi was the director, and Miyamoto was the producer, so it’s unclear who drew.
The only other bit of information I got out of Jez was this: “I think Dylan took it with him from one of his trips to Japan for me. They also gave me a cartoon sketch of me. I do not know , where the one is either. “
‘Dylan’ is, of course, Dylan Cuthbert, an Argonaut employee who moved to Nintendo’s Japanese headquarters to work on Star Fox and eventually became a full-time Nintendo employee – he later founded Q-Games, which was to work on Star Fox 64 3D.
We talked to Dylan about the art, and he said it was actually Imamura’s work, and even went so far as to show the artist the picture to confirm this:
Imamura said it was one of the first images he drew – he drew a lot back then, of course, and Nintendo probably archived them. I think it’s the one I was looking at when I named Fox, Slippy and Peppy (Imamura had already named Falco – he wanted an F-Zero style name).
Maybe that picture is originally mine, that’s what I’m thinking. It would have been in a box with the other disks and the source code. I’m looking for someone who might have found a box of things like this at Argonaut after I left, who had my old disks in – I’m looking for the source code for x.
Unfortunately, when we forwarded this information to Stokes, he confirmed that he only took the artwork from the box at PKR, and the rest was, as far as he knows, destroyed – meaning that the source code for X, a hugely important game in Nintendo’s history, is unfortunately lost forever.
Still, Stokes was at least able to save the Star Fox artwork from destruction – the first drawing ever by the team of famous Arwing pilots. Cuthbert has even kindly offered to have the artwork signed by Imamura – which means that the question of who created it should never be asked again.