Friday, January 15th, 2021 at 7:48am by Andrew, BZPower News Manager
Among the assets LEGO sent BZPower as part of their ten year anniversary celebration of Ninjago was a whole bunch of concept art, prototype set pictures, and product images from the theme over the years. So much, in fact, that to do it justice we're spreading it over several stories so you can really dig in. This first installment covers 2009 and 2010, from before the theme was even released! Let's check it out!
Two important things to note about all of these Ninjago History stories. First, LEGO provided no additional information about any of the images except for the file names, so apologies for any incorrect assumptions based on those. Second, some of the thumbnails may look very dark, but the full-size images look much nicer. Apparently TIFF files don't like being scaled down and converted to JPGs.
2009
Two years before the sets were released, LEGO was already hard at work developing the theme. The first image is the first drawing of the Ninjas doing their signature Ninjitzu moves. Next up we have some character development art for the first batch of bad guys - the Skulkin - as well as a really early look at Garmadon! Finally, we have the first painting of the Ninja and Sensei Wu, completed by Craig Sellars over the weekend after the team came up with the concept for Ninjago on a Friday.
2010
Moving on to 2010, we have the first ever drawing of Lloyd - I had almost forgotten that he started out as a spoiled, evil kid at a prep school until this! The next drawing was done in 2010 to summarize the concept of the first two seasons of the Ninjago TV show. The next two 'Control the Mind' drawings were created for an internal presentation pitching the Rise of the Snakes season of the TV show. Tim Ainley did some great concept art of Samurai X, who of course would turn out to be Nya, Kai's sister, in disguise. Last up, we have some prototypes of the new elements created for Ninjago, including Sensei Wu's hat, the Ninja's hoods, and some armor.
That's it for our first look at the History of Ninjago - we hope you enjoyed it! Keep checking back over the upcoming days as we continue to share the awesome behind-the-scenes look LEGO has passed on to us!
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