Early Concepts

This page is a list or collection "Let’s do everything!" — Ten This page is a list of stuff.

There are many early old concepts of the Learningblocks design, as in the characters look, episode storyboards and more.

Alphablocks Character Designs

The First Illustrated Designs

These designs of the twenty-six Alphablocks and Magic E were uploaded on Flickr on the 23rd of March, 2010, around two months after Alphablocks came out. It shows what the Alphablocks would have looked like before they were changed at the last minute. This also might indicate that a pilot episode was made for the show (Most likely in 2007), but this is unconfirmed as of 2024.

The Alphablocks that didn't change between this illustration and the show will be ignored. (B, L, M, R, T, V, W, X and Z)

• The vowel Alphablocks (A, E, I, O and U), originally lacked stripes until they were given them to make them more distinct to the consonants.
• Some of the consonants underwent changes as well.
  • D originally was dark blue with an even darker blue star, and has shades. It was possible that this version of D was originally "dark" and "depressed", until he was made more brighter to make him more authentic and happier.
  • F originally had a pink ribbon around her, until it was replaced by a spacesuit. It is unknown what purpose F would have had before she underwent changes, but it’s likely she would’ve been a ballet dancer.
  • G and H originally had each other's designs at first before they were swapped.
    • H's old design was what later became of G, since it contrasts with her exercises. However, this trait was later given to G since she made more sense with growing plants with water than H did. H then became more relevant to exercising.
    • Speaking of G, she was originally going to represent "green", until they decided that G was better off with H's old personality.
  • J was originally going to be a teal colour, and had a rounded trapezium shape. It was possible that J was going to mean "jolly". It is possible that J looked too weird compared to the other Alphablocks and was too "basic-looking", so she was taken back to the drawing board, and became the jaybird we all know today.
  • K, S and C all went through simultaneous redesigns.
    • K was originally orange with black glasses. This meant that he was going to be a "know-it-all" character. However, this was changed, possibly since the K in "know" is silent. This old design of K is coincidental with the designs of Two and his magnitude counterparts from Numberblocks, who are all orange and have glasses eyes.
    • S was originally purple, with a huge smile on her face. It was possible that she went back to the drawing board as people thought that S would look very scary and weird with that big mouth. If S wasn't changed for being unsettling, an alternate theory was that she looked too generic and they wanted S to stand out more. It was possible S was going to be male in this design.
    • C was originally half-purple, half-orange as she was meant to show that she can make both K and S's sounds.
    • It is theorised that when the designs of K and S were changed, C needed to be changed as well to counteract K because her design seemed too pointless now that K and S were both revised.
  • N was originally a greyish purple colour with round eyes and thick eyebrows. He also made a weird face in the picture. He was changed to be blue with oval-shaped eyes and thinner eyebrows for unknown reasons, but it was possible that he would appear too weird or his colour looked a bit unappealing.
  • P was originally grey with freckles on her face, pigtails with green bows, and her personality was originally going to be "going to the bathroom", or simply "potty/pee".  went through an extreme overhaul in her appearance and personality because she seemed too inappropriate for children, as since she wore no clothes, if she had an accident, she would pee all over the floor. This was a huge problem, so they went back to the drawing board and made her seafoam with stars on her face, more girly eyes and green shoes to make her fairy-like.
  • Q was originally going to be bald, and appeared quite young. It was possible that Q was originally a male character. This has some issues (Q was too basic, and there were more males than females at the time.) He had to be aged up, and had to be changed to a female so that the gender ratio will be balanced.
  • Y was originally going to be purple with thick legs, and girl-like eyes, hinting that Y was possibly going to be female, like how Q was originally a male. They changed his colour from purple to blue and make him a toddler-like figure.

Later Changes

While some of the Alphablocks designs were kept and others changed, This didn't stop the Alphablocks from having last-minute second changes.

• B was originally white with a red star until it was changed to light blue with an orange star. The reason for this is unknown. This colouration is heavily coincidental with Ten and her giant counterparts from Numberblocks, who are also red and white.
• G's flower was split into 2 flowers that appear on the sides of G's body, and was given grass hair.
• K originally was blue with white ribbons that have pink stars on it, and white gloves, making him and C parallel with each other. This was before he changed to being yellow with a green football kit, and black shoes, making him into the K we all know and love. It is highly likely that in this design, C and K would originally be an even closer duo similar to B and D than in the current show.
• L was given her green boots.
• M's legs and feet were changed from grey to blue. The reason for this is unknown, probably to make him slightly more colourful.
• N was changed from blue to red for unknown reasons. Possibly because there were too many blue Alphablocks at the time.
• O's eyes were differently sized until they were changed so both of them are the same size. This technique was later used in Numberblocks with Eleven and Twenty-Two's eyes being differently-sized.
• P gained the green and purple colours, forming a gradient of green, blue and purple. You can still see "seafoam" as a colour on P.
• Q was given her blue, curly hair.
• X was given a black superhero mask, probably because in the original draft, it was missing, and they decided that X needed the mask.
• U also seems to be lacking his cap and shoes until he was given them, possibly to make him look less bland.
• Y's body shape changed a bit, and his legs became less thick. He also went another colour change from blue to yellow, since "yellow" begins with Y.

So many blue characters have had their colours changed, since there were too many blues, and the colours had to be diverse.

Alternate Z Designs

The four draft designs for Z.

Alphablock Z had four different designs to choose from, until they went with combining the first three designs into the Z we all know today.

• The first Z looks like the final Z, but with different facial hair such as grey eyebrows and a long moustache.
• The second Z was purple with an orange robe, and has the same facial hair as the final Z. His outfit resembles Zeus.
• The third Z is much younger. He has white and blue pyjamas, white slippers and a shaved beard.
• The fourth Z is much, much different to the other three Z's. They looked like a superhero like X, were pink with a yellow lightning bolt on their face and has what looks like tight sleeves and leggings. It looks like they had five fingers on one hand, and four on the other. It is unknown if this Z is male like all the other Z's, or is female.
• The final design of Z is essentially the second, purple Z but without the orange robe and is coloured like the other two Z's that aren't the superhero one.

D's colours

This is D if he lived in the desert.

Alphablock D has had his colours changed a grand total of 6 times, with three of them being major, and the other two being minor.

• The aforementioned colour change on D is that he originally was dark blue with an even darker blue star on his right eye, and wore shades. He was changed to purple with a light green star on the same eye, with his shades removed.
• D was then changed to a dark yellow with a darker yellow star on the right eye. It was changed back to purple with a light green star, as the colours there seemed too unappealing. This time, the purple is much darker.
• In 2020, D's dark purple colour was changed back to the lighter purple he was before the show.
• In 2021, D's purple was once again changed, this time much darker.

N's colours

Nothing wrong to see here!

Alphablock N has had his colours changed 3 times. All of them are major.

• N started off as a greyish purple colour with round eyes and thick eyebrows. Like above, he was changed to be blue with oval-shaped eyes and thinner eyebrows for possibly being too weird and rude for TV.
• Later on, as a last-minute change, N was changed from blue back to greyish purple for unknown reasons, and gained pigtails similar to the first P design, signifying that N was changed to female.
• N was then changed back to male, had his pigtails removed as it was unnecessary, and was changed from purple to red.

C's stars

In the original 4 series of Alphablocks, C has blue stars on her ribbons. However, starting with Band Together, those stars have been changed to circles or dots for currently unknown reasons.

Numberblocks Character Designs

Prototype One and Two designs

Numberblocks One and Two have had previous designs before they were revised into the current designs. Plus, they were 2D.

• One was originally white with two eyes similar to a female Alphablock's eyes. Her limbs were also black.
• Two was originally yellow with his face positioned in between his blocks. He had eyebrows, round eyes, as well as his limbs being yellow like his blocks.

  

Prototype Three design

There's also a prototype design for Three, but it was for the actual show and not a comic. Her eyelids and the pom-poms on her hat are red, but in the actual show, they are tangerine and lemon coloured, respectively. It causes Three to have completely red features. It's unknown if this is truly a prototype design or if this is done to make her eyes easier to animate.

Prototype Eight design

An image with eight

There was a possible prototype design of Eight where his face fits on the top two blocks of his 2x4 arrangement and not the top four, and he also had 4 limbs instead of 8.

Viewport Friendly Colour Setting Nine

When Nine was being worked on in 2016 (1 year before Numberblocks was released), his colour scheme was different. In this design, his grey blocks are the other way round, the gradient is less noticeable, his eyebrows are also grey, his lips are a greyish green, and his eyes and limbs are red. This alternately-coloured Nine is the result of the animator making Nine's features different colours to make him easier to animate.

This colouration of Nine was to make him easier to animate since Nine is all grey.

Episodes

There were storyboards for all the Numberblocks episodes. However, these were the only ones seen.

We're Going on a Square Hunt

• Twenty-One's face is low, rather than above. It's possible that it was changed so that she can carry her giant backpack.
• The magic mirror that Twenty-One uses was originally going to be on the wall, covered in moss. This was changed so that the Ones in the mirror can get out.
• Sixteen's face fills her whole body, and she has eyebrows.
• In the Spanish dub, when the ones were adding up, the compound Twenty-One’s voice only had Twenty’s voice heard.

Thirty's Big Top

• There were originally bushes outside the Big Top before they were removed.
• Two of the fours from Forty are next to each other in the storyboard when they lift the tent up, although they aren't in the final product.
• In the storyboard, when the ten fours make Forty again, the first Four as a square is already on land, and turns wide when all the other nine fours, also wide, stack onto him. In the actual episode, all ten fours fall from above and stack up to make Forty.

Land of the Giants

• The controls are different in the storyboard compared to in the actual episode.
• The vocals aren't present, resulting in a near instrumental to the Numberblocks Theme Song.

Ten's Place

• The music that plays during the ‘Jump and Bump’ in the storyboard video only consists of small percussion, kind of like a metronome. It's likely that the song wasn't finalized.

More to Explore

• Forty originally had rectangles all over his body instead of him holding his oblong book.
• Blockzilla has her eyes on the sides of her head and lacks eyebrows.
• Seventy's rainbow comes out of his hair rather than his blocks.
• Zero is absent in the sketch.
• The patterns that One Hundred does are beyond impossible to do in the sketch, although it was a rough sketch.
• It is unknown what the number being drawn in the storyboard version is, but it's possible that it was Forty-Two, before their design was created for that moment.
• In the last shot of all the Numberblocks, in the storyboard version, Seventy's hair is gone.
• One doesn't face the viewers when she says, "your turn", in the storyboard version.

One Hundred's Song

• One Hundred isn't a whole hundred in the storyboard, as she is ten tens instead.
• The other Numberblocks are holding torches in the storyboard. 
• One Hundred's long note at the end of the song was unedited in the storyboard, making it sound a little out of tune with the song. It was thankfully edited.

Sixty's High Score

• Seventy leaps to the scoreboard rather than hopping to it in the actual episode.
• The scoreboard in the storyboard goes from 60, scrolls through from 61-69 and stops at 70 rather than going straight from 60 to 70 in the final cut.
• A number of Ten faces appear underneath the current biggest number in the storyboard version.
• 7 Sevens are present when Seventy splits into Sevens, instead of the acceptable 10. The Sevens' colours are also upside down.
• When Six, Seven, Eight and Nine are looking at the rainbow, the order from left to right is (9, 8, 7, 6) in the storyboard rather than (6, 7, 8, 9) in the actual episode.

One Thousand and One

• Several hundreds are seen next to One Thousand. It is possible that they become One Thousands too.
• One Thousand, Ten Thousand, One Hundred Thousand and One Million all originally had limbs.
• Ten Thousand was originally arranged as 20x50x10 instead of 10x100x10.
• Ten Thousand's eyes are round rather than square in the storyboard, despite being a square number. Same thing with One Million.
• One Hundred Thousand's eye is square in the storyboard, despite not being a square number.
• One Hundred Thousand's voice in the storyboard video is basically the same as One Hundred's.
  • Both her's and One Million's voices were pitched down in the actual episode.
    • Their voices aren't clustered in the Portuguese dub.

About Time

It was originally going to be a fifteen-minute episode of time but was shortened to ten minutes.

Numberblocks Blocking Shots

In a video published by a former Numberblocks animator on the 14th January 2021, which is the same video featuring the "beta" Nine colouration (see here), he included some blocking shots of the "Stampolines" and "The Whole of Me" episodes of Season 1, and the Nine episode of Season 2.

The names for the episodes are coded so that there is the first 3 letters of the show name, then an underscore, then a 3-digit number with the first digit being the season number and the other two digits being the episode number, then a second underscore, then 3 letters representing the name of the episode. For example, NUM_111_STP translates to "Numberblocks, Season 1 Episode 11, Stampolines".

General

• The animation and lighting look pretty unfinished, and the eyes are pretty dim.

The Whole of Me (NUM_114_WOM)

• Originally, the episode was going to take place at daytime instead of at the sunset like in the final version.
• The music playing is slightly less detailed than in the final version.
• This episode was listed as episode 14, when it is actually episode 12, and that the actual episode 14 is "Holes".

Stampolines (NUM_111_STP)

• The prints that the Numberblocks produce were originally going to be block frames. It's likely that these were placeholders.

Nine (NUM_120_NIN)

• Like above, Nine's colours are different but it was to make him easier to animate since he is completely made of greys.
• Eight looked much brighter than he is in the show, he only has 4 limbs, and his face was smaller. His square with a hole shape was not implemented to the episode yet, which is why he appears in his 2x4 rectangle shape when Nine sneezes.
• This episode was listed as episode 20, when it is actually episode 19, and that the actual episode 20 is "Ten". This was before the event which split Season 1 (containing both "High Five" and "Ten out of Ten") into their own separate seasons. If this was always the case, the episode would be coded as "NUM_204_NIN" instead.

Colourblocks Early Designs

Yellow already had a happy personality, but the second and third shown him as a female.

Red’s first and second designs were male, and the first design depicted Red with an angry expression, as a reference to red representing anger.

The early designs of Blue and the rest of the Colourblocks are currently unknown.