Early Movie Concept Art: See What Your Favorite Characters Could’ve Looked Like

Just as with scripts, movie concept artists go through many a draft until they get the final approval for their character portrayals. Take Shrek for example. A recent photo posted to Reddit revealed that our favorite green ogre with a hero's heart started out looking more like the star of 'Coneheads.' And Yoda, 'Star Wars'' supreme Jedi master, was originally depicted as a combination of hobbit and elf from the upcoming 'Hobbit' trilogy.

It's safe to say that if things had gone differently -- maybe if one day Pixar studio reps had drank too much coffee than usual and approved the wrong sketches -- all these classic characters, from 'X-Men' mutants to Woody and Buzz in 'Toy Story,' wouldn't have looked the way they do today.

So, just for fun, we've tracked down some early (and we mean early) movie concept art and sketches to see what was going on in these artists' heads when they first started imagining characters into existence.

Shrek, 'Shrek'

Yoda, 'Star Wars'

Chewbacca, 'Star Wars'

Jabba the Hutt, 'Star Wars'

Thor, 'Thor'

Silver Surfer, 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer'

Whiplash, 'Iron Man 2'

Beast, 'X-Men: First Class'

Azazel, 'X-Men: First Class'

Emma Frost, 'X-Men: First Class'

Spider-Man, 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

Neytiri, 'Avatar'

The Kraken, 'Clash of the Titans'

Ravenna, 'Snow White and the Huntsman'

Hagrid, 'Harry Potter'

The Caterpillar, 'Alice in Wonderland'

The Mad Hatter, 'Alice in Wonderland'

Hopper, 'A Bug's Life'

Buzz Lightyear, 'Toy Story'