Brenda Cook

From Sega Retro

BrendaRoss.png
Brenda Dee Cook
Place of birth: Northern California, United States
Employment history:
Divisions:
Role(s): Artist, Animator[1]

Brenda Dee Cook[2] (née Ross) is an American painter, illustrator, and former Sega Technical Institute member. Having been drawn to the creative arts since a young age, Cook was hired by Sega of America around 1990 as an artist and animator for a number of high-profile Sega games, and is known for her artistic contributions to titles like Sonic the Hedgehog 2[3] and Sonic Spinball.[4] After about four or five years with the company, she departed Sega for a job at PF Magic, where she would prove instrumental in establishing the unique animated movement in the company's very first Petz title.[5] Following a brief stint with Neversoft, she migrated out of the game industry and returned to being a full-time career artist. She currently operates Lemon Tree Workshop,[2] established sometime around mid 2014[6] as the official outlet for Cook's decorative painting work.

Career

Background

Born and raised around the San Francisco Bay Area, Brenda Ross recalls being passionate for art from at least three years old, involving herself creatively in a number of crafts projects and art contests throughout her childhood. After exiting high school, she received two scholarships for art, proceeding to attend university in both Illinois and San Francisco for fine art and design. This eventually led to her scoring her first job as a graphic designer and illustrator at the age of 17; according to her, "[since then] my entire career has revolved around fine and commercial art." Around this time, she also began a fruitful and constant career as a creative freelancer - a role she remains in to this day.[1]

Sega Technical Institute

Concept art for Brenda Cook's cancelled Fat Daddy

Ross was hired as a video game artist and animator[1] at the newly-founded Sega Technical Institute in 1990 or early 1991. Her first games would be Dick Tracy, where she drew much of the title's larger character artwork (including the comic book-style cutscenes), and Kid Chameleon, where she was also tasked with animation duties. Ross also ended up providing artwork and animation for a number of STI's unreleased titles as well, including B-Bomb, Jester, and Fat Daddy.[5]

Famously, Ross was one of three American STI staff providing artwork for both Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. While most of her contributions for the latter were unfortunately left on the cutting room floor, a magazine-published prerelease screenshot of a desert zone (rumored to be named "Dust Hill Zone") captivated the early Sonic community for years. It was eventually discovered to be a mockup created during her time with Sega, something which created an association between Ross and Dust Hill for decades to come.

Later career

Like a number of other Sega artists, Brenda Ross left Sega Technical Institute around 1994, reportedly leaving most of her Sega work at STI's offices before departing.[7] She appears to have migrated to nearby developer PF Magic (also headquartered in San Francisco) for a time, working on seminal titles like the very first Dogz: Your Computer Pet - creating the Petz' iconic 3D animations.[5] She was also briefly employed for Neversoft, contributing art to the 1997 PlayStation release of MDK. Sometime following her exit from the video game industry, she married and assumed the surname Cook.

Cook also founded and operated an independent graphic design and illustration business selling commissioned watercolor portraits, and has created a number of official logos for both corporations and websites. Of all her creative endeavors, perhaps the most significant was her study decorative painting from noted Southern Californian artist April Numamoto. Having been accustomed to creating and selling artistic work since she was a small girl, she recalls gaining a sense of entrepreneurial experience from working in such a varied number of creative fields for essentially her entire life - from writing to marketing, social media management to website production, and countless manner of design roles, among many others.[1] Most prominent of her creative fronts is Lemon Tree Workshop,[2] established sometime around mid 2014[6] as the official outlet for Cook's decorative painting work.[8]

“ I really love what I do. I think that's the key to living a good life. „

— Brenda Cook[1]

Outside of work, she also sings and performs[1] in a Hawaiian ukulele band,[2] enjoys casual painting and gardening (particularly under the gaze of her backyard Meyer Lemon tree), and likes watching scary movies with her husband.[1]

Legacy

At the dawn of the 2000s, Brenda Cook (through her association with the fabled "Dust Hill Zone" mockup) eventually drew the attention of the Sonic fanbase, resulting in at least two published instances of members of the community reaching out to her for questions. Unfortunately, Sonic scene member ICEknight had discovered Cook's personal email address for use in a potential interview, but had publicly posted her email on a popular Sonic forum before doing so; reportedly, this caused Cook to be "flooded" with repeated Dust Hill questions "over and over." As a result, she would end up replying to only a single email from the community - speaking very briefly with a scene member named Deviance in February 2001.[7]

In this first interview, she reveals that even the American side of Sega Technical Institute was forced to use the Japanese-preferred Digitizer during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - as opposed to her preferred Amiga-based Deluxe Paint. She also claims twice that the game's famous desert zone was mapped-out and perhaps even playable, with the zone being half above ground, half below ground, and featuring no boss at the time of its cancellation. Further, she recalls that management wouldn't have allowed her to move onto Wood Zone if she hadn't "finished" the desert zone first. To this end, the desert zone was apparently "complete", with Wood Zone being left "50%" to "mostly" complete. She cites a lack of time for the development team to properly integrate these zones into the game as the primarily reason for their absence from the final product. In this interview, she also confirms that the former zone never had a proper name outside "desert zone". However, as Deviance frequently uses the name Dust Hill, Cook occasionally refers to the stage under this name too; as one of the goals of said interview was to confirm the stage's name, ICEknight was forced to provide a clarification when first publishing the interview.[7]

Brenda Cook's master VHS video resume

Following this, another member of the Sonic scene by the name of WetflameG tracked down Cook, locating her instant messaging username and reaching out to ask further Dust Hill questions.[9] Cook took the time to confirm that the name "desert zone" was simply a descriptive working title (like Wood Zone), and would have been likely changed for the final product. She also reconfirmed that the zone never made it to the final game, limited to development hardware and never having left Sega Technical Institute's offices. She recalls the game's designer, Hirokazu Yasuhara, was particularly fond of said stage, and was reportedly just as upset as Cook when the two learned it would not be included in the final game. She reveals that, as she was the last artist added to the project, the development team was already in crunch by the time she arrived, resulting in a curious production schedule for her late Sonic 2 contributions. Following this, Cook was forced to excuse herself to return to her work, and requested that her username be kept private.[9]

In December 2023, a VHS tape containing a video resume made by Cook around the mid 1990s - containing her artwork from a number of cancelled Sega Technical Institute projects, and PF Magic's Dogz - was preserved and uploaded to YouTube by The Video Game History Foundation in December 2023.[10] In it, animations and artwork from largely undocumented titles such as Jester and Fat Daddy were seen by the public for the first time, serving as a fascinating time capsule into Cook's work on the 16-bit Sega Genesis.[5]

Production history (Ross)

Interviews

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Brenda Cook

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Interview: Brenda Cook (2015-11-25) by Cindy deRosier
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 http://lemontreeworkshop.com/about.htm (Wayback Machine: 2015-02-16 05:54)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 File:Sonic the Hedgehog 2 MD credits.pdf
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 File:Sonic Spinball MD credits.pdf
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 File:BrendaCook GameAnimationArt videoportfolio VHS.mp4
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://www.facebook.com/lemontreeworkshop/about_profile_transparency
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 https://www.sonicdatabase.com/interviews/brenda.htm (Wayback Machine: 2012-07-07 00:06)
  8. ↑ https://www.etsy.com/shop/LemonTreeWorkshop
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 https://randomsonicnet.org/srz/index.php?page=interviews/br2.htm (Wayback Machine: 2024-02-25 12:50)
  10. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A994ZMfpP_Y
  11. ↑ File:Kid Chameleon MD credits.pdf
  12. ↑ File:Ballz MD US manual.pdf, page 19
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