Rick And Morty Season 3 Concept Art Featuring Phoenix Person

Up until this month, the last time a new episode of Rick and Morty aired was in October 2015. And since Adult Swim hadn’t officially announced when the third season would air, the network caught everyone by surprise when it release the season premiere on April Fools’ Day. Once again, it was another great episode, being hilarious and zany as ever. Plus, it answered a lot of the questions that were left unanswered in the Season 2 finale.

In that episode, titled “The Wedding Squanchers,” Rick receives an invitation to Bird Person, his best friend, and Tammy’s, Summer’s friend, wedding. Because of a mishap involving Jerry and the intergalactic parcel delivery service, Rick is forced to attend the wedding and brings the rest of his family along with him. Aside from Rick, everyone is having a marvelous time, but then all hell breaks loose when Tammy reveals that she is an undercover Galactic Federation agent and kills Bird Person. Rick is able to get he and his family to safety, but they can no longer return to their Earth. So, after checking a few alternatives, Rick decides upon a tiny earth-like planet. Rick makes the best of it, but the rest of the family is miserable. When Rick overhears Jerry trying to convince his family to turn Rick into the Galactic Federation so they can return to their home, Rick decides to spare his family a life on the run so he turns himself in. His sacrifice allows Jerry, Morty, Beth, and Summer to return home; however,they find their Earth is now part of the Federation and overrun with aliens.

In the Season 3 premiere, we get to see how Rick used his ingenuity and fearlessness to escape the mental and physical prison the Galactic Federation had him in. We also learn that he has an unquenchable drive to once again consume the Szechuan teriyaki dipping sauce that McDonald’s offered back in 1998 as a promotional tie-in for Disney’s animated film Mulan.

Now check out some awesome designs for characters that appeared in the Season 3 premiere. They were illustrated by Elisa Phillips and include alternate designs for Phoenix Person, C-137 Beth, the military crew at the Citadel of Ricks, and Dianne, the wife of Rick/mother of Beth.

Rick and Morty is Adult Swim‘s most scientifically accurate animated comedy. Created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, it catalogues the bizarre misadventures of a bored scientific genius/drunkard and his socially awkward grandson, Morty. Their exploits tend to have unintended consequences for Morty’s dysfunctional family, especially his unfailingly mediocre father, Jerry. Watch Rick and Morty battle everything from interdimensional customs agents to Cronenberg monsters.

The cast features Justin Roiland as both Rick Sanchez and his grandson, Morty; Sarah Chalke as Rick’s daughter, Beth; Chris Parnell as Rick’s son-in-law and Beth’s husband, Jerry; and Spencer Grammer as Rick’s granddaughter and Beth and Jerry’s daughter, Summer.

Phoenix Person (a.k.a. Cyber Bird)

“Phoenix Person! This ended up being a group effort. We all came up with multiple concepts, here are just a few of mine. His final design took ideas from all of our concepts, and if you remember the result it was pretty badass.” – Elisa Phillips

Rick’s Wife And Beth’s Mother, Dianne

“Dianne went through a lot of concept since we didn’t quite know how she should look. I began by loosely referencing Yvonne Craig and trying to maintain a resemblance to Beth, but Justin didn’t want her to resemble Beth at all. The right side has some of the heads I designed as options. There were 12 total but these were my favorites. And finally, we sandwiched the choice body with the choice face. 

“Final color by Reza Iman and Philip Vose Cleaned and turned by Sabrina Mati” – Elisa Phillips

Citadel Of Ricks’ Military Crew

Phillips wrote: “This was supposed to be a crew of Ricks that work in the Citadel military base. There were specific titles called out in the script so I made some alterations for each one. Security rick was scrapped for the original citadel security rick.”

“Since we had so much time at first I threw on some color to sell my designs a little more,” Phillips added. “I had done about 8 commander rick concepts, and I was pushed to keep going more scifi. I made some alterations on the second pass for the ones Justin preferred.”   

C-137 Beth

“Cronenberg world Beth could have gone a lot of directions,” Phillips shared on her Facebook page, “but it was decided that she remain closer to her original design.”

Rick’s Fighter Ship

“I got to design a fighter ship for the Citadel,” Phillips said of the first image below. “I added a dumb R2D2 dome for Morty as a joke and they loved it, so it stayed.”

As for the second image, she wrote: “Final color/design for the space ship! One of the real prop designers fixed my terrible drawings and added a cool shot.  Final color by Corey Booth!”