Dan Norton just posted these up on his Deviantart page.

ThunderCats Concept art 2 by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

ThunderCats Concept art by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

Though I do hope this doesn't mean bad news for an Art book.

thanks for posting this! badass concepts. Its also good to see someone related to the show actually trying to hype up the new episodes unlike cartoon network and Bandai. Personally i like this Slythe better then the one that is on the show. This one looks a lot more ruthless. Ill never get used to sayin Addicus, with that being said Monkian, looks awesome!

Very cool stuff! Cant wait to see Addicus in the new episodes.

Wow. That's cool. I was wondering who Addicus was.

Yeah it's Monkian's new name. And Jackalman is going to be known as Kaynar.

I love the Addicus design, and appreciate that the only major difference between this concept art, and the in-show design, is that he's bulked up a bit for the show. I REALLY hope he gets a toy at some point.

Slithe doesn't look much different from his in-show design either. Though the serious amount of shadowing on him here does help make him look a lot more sinister.

Why would they change Monkian's name?

Could be a trademark issue, which is usually the culprit in these cases. anything from having the trademark denied to the legal team seeing a potential issue due to being used elsewhere or being to close to another trademark.

When you don't use the name for 25+ years, that's bound to happen.

That's most likely why they decided to change their names, but I do remember reading last year that they were renaming characters like Jackalman because they felt that their original names were more for their species, rather than an individual name (something along those lines anyways). Which makes sense to me, but it could just be a cover story for the lack of legally being able to use the old names.

I'm pretty sure it's because their old names were the names of the species and not actual name names. Slythe was the only one that actually had a true name. I doubt it's legalities because well doesn't WB own all the rights? And they didn't rename anyone else. Plus the Wildstorm comics were able to use the old names with no issues.

While they own the rights to the characters, likenesses, etc., the names could still cause trouble when referencing specific physical products. That is when these issues arise.

Not renaming all the characters is only an indication that no problems arose when new trademarks were applied for those characters.

Use in media is different than use in physical products. See the cases when modern Transformers comics got away with the name Hot Rod, yet Hasbro was not allowed to use the name for physical products. Same with Shockwave, which until recently, had to be called Shockblast for toys, but in media could still be called Shockwave.

I'm not saying that trademark concerns were what caused this, only that it was a possibility.

Here's a few more.

The Storm Charger The Mumm-Ride by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

Konqedor ThunderCats Concept art Konqedor by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

And an unused character named Otto ThunderCats Concept art Otto by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

P.S. apparently this really doesn't mean bad news for the Art Book. Dan said he has Thousands of drawings from the show and that's not even including work from all the other artists involved. He just wanted to get some hype up because he know people are becoming discouraged about no news about the show.

While it sucks they weren't able to work him in as an actual character, it's nice to know they were still able to work int he design as background characters (I knew I saw an otter at least once in that episode).

Good to know. This is one show I would definitely buy an art book for. Also, it's nice to know that at least one person involved with the show knows of the current mood of the fandom.

Dan just started a Tumblr blog. Got a few new concepts up on it now.

The science of Artmath by Dan Norton

I'm glad that the uhhh....horses ended up a bit more horse-like than the concept art. That looks like a giant squirrel to me.

I like the size-chart of some of the different towns-people. They all look like they could have existed in the original show.

The early concept for the original pitch poster is good. It's nice to see where they were starting from.

The uhhh...Mumm-Ra logo is....interesting. I'm glad they went with his twin-snake logo instead. Though I do like how this one incorporated a little tech into it. This reminds me, I'm still hoping they delve a bit into his past. We now how the cats, Mumm-Ra, and all the other animals got onto Third Earth, but it would be interesting to find out where he's from, and what motivates him to do what he does. The original's ancient devil priest title doesn't quite fit anymore.

if you mean the skull with wings that wasn't a Mumm-Ra logo. That was a T-shirt design Dan made a few months back.

Ok...that explains it, lol...my bad. I do like the design of it...

Dan just uploaded quite a few more including concepts of Lynxo and Grune.

Lynxo concept by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

Grune the Destroyer Concept by ~Dingo107 on deviantART

check the gallery for a ton more

He's never been one of my favorite characters, but there's something about Lynx-O's new design that I absolutely love. I'd love to see him become an important enough character to convince Bandai to make a 6" scaled figure of him.

http://dingo107.deviantart.com/art/L...2F4884246&qo=8
This "lizard slave" sort of reminds me of the mutant cook that was in one episode of the original show. Skinny and pale...

http://dingo107.deviantart.com/art/S...F4884246&qo=10
Very interesting idea for Slithe...I'm glad this wasn't what they went with when they got around to working on the show, lol...(assuming it was brought up as an option for it to begin with).

yeah I'm absolutely in love with that Lynxo design. It's one of the best updates IMO, if not THE best.

Agreed. I really like the new designs for Grune and Lynxo!