Professional freelance artist Emilio Lopez has revealed some concept art for a proposed animated series of Banjo-Kazooie that never came to be.

Lopez, who worked on Venture Bros, Metalocalyps and Black Dynamite, revealed a few pieces of artwork for the Banjo-Kazooie cartoon via Twitter. According to Lopez, development on animating the beloved N64 platforming series began in 2007. The cartoon was going to coincide with the release of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. However, the whole project ended up falling apart.



Below are Lopez’s sketches of Banjo, Kazooie and Mumbo Jumbo.

“Our whole art department submitted ideas. Microsoft and Rare were really cool with letting us experiment with style,” Lopez tweeted. “It did not necessarily have to look exactly like the game.”

Below is development art by Adrian Barrios.

Final concept art for the canceled Banjo-Kazooie cartoon was drawn by Keith Conroy, colored by Lopez.

Apparently, Conroy’s design was actually approved for the show. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the project ended up getting the ax.

If the Banjo-Kazooie cartoon had gone through, it would have presumably aired on the 4kids Saturday Morning Block which showed the 2006 CGI Viva Piñata series.

A spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie games called Yooka-Laylee has earned over $2 million in donations at Kickstarter. There are also rumors of a new Banjo-Kazooie game being announced at Microsoft’s E3 conference this year.