Life in the Sky

Who's that, look, flying higher than a bird? Sailor! Sailor Moon!
She's got a life in the sky and another here on Earth... Sailor! Sailor Moon!

Sure many of you are aware of the Toon Makers pitch to bring Sailor Moon to the US (sometimes incorrectly called 'Saban Moon' - Saban is the company Toon Makers was pitching to). If you're not, Toon Makers was competing with DiC to get the rights to adapt Sailor Moon. DiC was planning to just dub over the existing anime in English, and make a few edits. Toon Makers planned to completely rehaul it, combining Western superhero-style animation for the transformed fight scenes with live action footage of real people for the everyday moments. Aside from the name, some outfit design elements, and a very literal interpretation of the title "Sailor", there was little in common between the proposed new series and the Sailor Moon we know. Ultimately, DiC was chosen over Toon Makers because it was cheaper to dub it than remake it (I'm sure that was the only reason), and the only information any of us had about its potential was through a poorly-recorded video of the original pitch that was aired at a convention so many years ago.
Until now!
A few days ago, someone with a source who worked for Toon Makers has been putting old cels and production notes for sale on eBay. It gave us a better look at the designs for the Sailor Soldiers and the art style of the hypothetical series, which was interesting, though rather generic. While many aspects of the Westernized Sailor Moon concept were, frankly, awful, I thought others were really unique and interesting and wanted to draw them.

I changed their outfits because the ones they were going to use were hideous. It's like they wanted to change them to look less like Japanese school uniforms but gave up half way through, resulting in this odd, poorly-designed aesthetic that was just unappealing. So I gave it a facelift; since Toon Makers was taking the idea of "Sailor" Moon very literally, I incorporated more design elements of the traditional US sailor uniform, like the little shorts and shirts.

As for names, as some people have asked; I think it's only fitting that they get the names DiC gave in their own pitch video.

Sailor Moon (middle): Victoria
Sailor Mercury (bottom right): Blue
Sailor Mars (bottom left): Dana
Sailor Jupiter (top right): Sara(h)
Sailor Venus (top left): Carrie

If you haven't read enough already, you can see the cels that are for sale and read what I thought was interesting here.