Lloyd Chidgzey’s Concept Art
An artist who worked on both “Nicktoons Unite!” and “Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island”—Lloyd Chidgzey—has an ArtStation account which contains some art related to both games. Unlike some of the art found on Tom Zuber’s blog, none of the art on Chidgzey’s ArtStation can be found in the concept art gallery (Squidward’s Art Gallery) available in “Battle for Volcano Island”.
The names assigned to the concept art come from their file names.
Plankton Crab
This piece of concept art shows Plankton as he pilots a robotic crab, which he does during his boss fight in “Nicktoons Unite!” However, the robot that he controls in the final game is different (see that model on The Models Resource): it takes on a lot of Plankton’s features, evident with the antennae and green coloring. The final iteration is also way bigger—Plankton is very tiny on it.
This concept art robot instead takes on a lot more of Mr. Krabs’ features and is much smaller, given Plankton’s size in comparison to it. Still, the main idea of the boss is still here.
Ruinforest
We have SpongeBob SquarePants overlooking a peculiar forest here. There are some sections of the game where you traverse through a woody area, but I don’t recall any with the floating dirt paths (path?) that we see here. I am reminded of SpongeBob’s bonus level, which consists solely of floating horizontal paths.
This concept art (along with some others we’ll look at shortly) leads me to believe that Chidgzey does actually have some illustrations in Squidward’s Art Gallery, given the similarities it has to others found in the Gallery; they just aren’t uploaded on the ArtStation account.
Sea Characters
We have some character designs for seemingly the same crustacean species as the Wise Old Crab. In the game, the crab species isn’t very varied in design, and the only notable characters we have from it are the Wise Old Crab and technically Little Crab (this video shows both Little Crab and other crabs at the beginning and at around 2:00 for reference).
This art does make me wonder if the Myrmec—the bug-like species in the game—were actually planned to be crabs at first, since the crab queen we see here reminds me of the Myrmec Queen. The bulky crab to the right also makes me think of the sergeant of King Gorge, who you can see in this video.
Jimmy
In the story of the game, Jimmy Neutron is never actually transported to Volcano Island. However, given concept art such as this, it seems like he was intended to be on the island, and the assumption is that he was initially meant to be playable given his playable role in “Unite!”
It really makes me wonder why Jimmy was chosen to be a non-playable character for this title specifically, especially since he is available to play as in every other Nicktoons Unite game. When it comes to Timmy’s complete exclusion in the final Nicktoons Unite game, we at least have the potential explanation of a licensing rights mess (which also explains why the series uses Nicktoons in the United States but SpongeBob and Friends elsewhere). With Jimmy, though, it seems more so like an intentional decision by the developers. Maybe they thought it benefited the story more?
Insectpeople & Insect Characters
I am combining these two into one entry given their similar nature. Anyway, with Insect Characters, we actually have models. I can tell you that the big orange bug does exist in the game, specifically in a cutscene where several of the Chosen Ones ride in its basket, and the bug to the right also looks familiar. However, the bipedal bug and the centipede-esque bug don’t look familiar to me at all. I’m not sure if they’re cut content or solely background characters that I have never really noticed. The bug shown in Insectpeople similarly doesn’t look familiar to me.
Harvest Revised & Portal Revised
After a string of concept art for “Battle for Volcano Island”, we finally have two for “Unite!” Harvest Revised depicts an enemy vehicle that harvests jellyfish. Of course, you only encounter these in the Bikini Bottom stages. This concept art is basically what you see in the final game (here is the model for reference). This appears to be a similar case with the portal (which you can see in this video).
There isn’t much to note here other than how the “revised” means that there are earlier pieces of concept art not publicly available, but that’s kind of a given with any concept art.