Bonus Content Disc/Creatures: Asari

The following are transcriptions of the artists' comments for the design gallery "The Creatures of Mass Effect: Asari" found on the bonus content disc of Mass Effect released in 2007.

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Matt Rhodes: So, as a new concept artist, first job ever, showing up at this company and getting onto a new project that's just beginning... Hearing that I get to design a race of alien space babes was just about the best news I had ever heard. I was pinching myself for about a week, thinking like, "no, no, no, no, no, I'm not getting paid for this, seriously. They can't be actually paying me to draw this." So this was the beginning of the development, just going through just a lot of references and just trying to come up with ways of making chicks that are obviously aliens but still attractive and... just seeing where that line is, what you can get away with, how much you can change on a woman's face before she's no longer as appealing.

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Matt Rhodes: So again, more asari exploration. Just trying to see how much to preserve, how much to move apart. Some of the girl on the top right here is just way too far. She's lost most of her skull and her eyes are too wide apart and everything. So it's definitely not someone you can develop an interest in. Girl on the bottom left, again, too alien, just the big dark eyes and the alien-shaped head. It's... There's a certain level of familiarity that you need in order to preserve that. The girl with this line down her face, pretty much just a girl with a line down her face, but then at the same time, yeah, she's not that alien. Again, you know, experimenting with patterns on the face, with changing the physiology, all of that sort of thing. It was definitely a fun exploration.

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Matt Rhodes: Here, just playing again with what we can change, what we can move around, what is alien. When we're going to describe this, this is one of the beginning stages where we're creating a whole other alien race... Alien races. And this was one of the beginning steps.

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Matt Rhodes: This is where we really started to figure out what we were trying to say with the asari. We realized that we couldn't touch the face. The face had to remain completely feminine. That, we finally had sorted it out and everyone was okay with that. So we started playing with the areas around the hair and started to turn the hair into something that was a bit more alien. So the idea of some of the lines cut, like a sea creature in some ways; give the idea of gills, introducing gills to the... You know, if you're going to have gills, do you still have hair? Some of it here, we were playing with the idea of tentacles and spikes. There's the danger of getting too "Star Wars." But I think in the end, we sorted on the girl in the bottom left and that just sort of seemed to really appeal to everyone. It was something that was alien. The silhouette was distinct and actually, you know, pretty cool in a way. You've got that flare in the back of the head. So it creates a nice shape, and there's actually some appeal there.

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Matt Rhodes: This was the first drawing that everyone really saw of the asari that told us like, "okay, I think we might actually do this. We might actually design this and she might work." This is still a little bit overly based on some of the underwater elements. Sort of the idea of gills and slits of the neck, kind of the tentacle idea. How shiny is she? Even the fact that she's blue, kind of a nod to the old Star Trek, you know, Captain Kirk blue space babes or green space babes, that kind of thing. But it definitely, once we switched to blue, it really helped explain more about where she came from, where she's associated with.

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Matt Rhodes: This was further development once we had agreed on a direction. It was just a matter of refinement. So we took one of the actresses that we had settled on and decided to paint some of the asari features over her. So if she can recognize herself in this, then bravo! And I'm sorry for putting gills on you. So it's a little overly shiny in some places, but it was fun trying to sort of figure out the backstory behind the physiology of this. How would this evolve? How would this have come about? And again, going to sort of-- we kept almost like a sort of aquatic... As though they came from a world that was very wet, and they spent maybe most of their time in fluid, in liquid, and then eventually decided to get out and move in space, but probably still enjoy a good swim every now and then.

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Matt Rhodes: Now this costume is painted on a human female, but was designed originally as an asari costume. It was something that was supposed to be-- this is actually the sexy space nun costume. Trying to do something that was appealing, but without being overly... overly cheesy in a way, I guess. There's just a tendency with video game costume designs to just show as much cleavage as possible, to just, you know, "oh hey, thigh high boots, instant sexy." "Okay, great. Yeah." "And show as much midriff as you can." So, this is kind of an attempt to create something that was a little different, that's still obviously, you know, fairly sexualized, but in a way that, I don't know, that's different, that hopefully people haven't seen too much of in games before.

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Matt Rhodes: This is just some asari costume variation, just trying to figure out what are these girls going to wear, what are they going to walk around in; and this costume is sort of meant to tie into their sort of sea or ocean, underwater kind of roots, just to give you the impression that these girls are very delicate and beautiful in a way, but in a way that is like, you know, they remember the water.

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Matt Rhodes: What space babe is complete without straps? Trying to design a dress with as much straps as possible. Again, just trying to come up with something a little elegant, maybe even a little like a priestess kind of thing.

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Matt Rhodes: Designing the asari military costume, this wasn't something that ever ended up making it into the game. But the development of it was fun and it helped us really understand a little bit more about who these girls are and what they're trying to do. So, in painting this, we tried to make them very live, very elegant. And the idea that as the ranks increase, as we go from the left to the middle to the right, certain aspects of them are emphasized. The idea that once a girl-- once one of them reaches an upper rank, you know, they flare out at the shoulders, she's got those thigh and shin flares as well. And it was just a desire to try to create something that changed the silhouette in ways that maybe we haven't seen quite as much. So, whereas with human military stuff, you know, you just get a taller hat, here we were trying to give it a bit more shoulder, and even give her heels, just to say like, what are these girls trying to emphasize. So, this was based on partially wetsuits, partially climbing gear, and little touches of military flair here and there.

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Matt Rhodes: Once we'd-- I had sort of figured out a direction to explore with this asari military costume, I just wanted to see it a little bit more in context, so it kind of helps to see her doing something a little more interesting. So, we've got again more of the wetsuit ideas, trying to maybe cut holes in the suit, reveal some of the blue asari skin in areas that maybe you wouldn't expect. So, there you have it. My favorite element of this actually is her thigh and knee flares. That one piece I was actually very proud of, and I think, yeah, if it didn't end up getting used in Mass Effect, I think I might try to use that later on.

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Matt Rhodes: This is our asari commando. These are the really dangerous asaris [sic]. We were trying to come up with something that was intimidating, but still made sure that you knew this is still a sexy space babe. So, a lot of copper sort of looking elements to it. Again, lots of buckles and straps and all of that. It's kind of become a cheesy expected game language, but it's just so effective that you almost can't avoid it sometimes.

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Matt Rhodes: Sometimes you just get tired. You've painted about 50 different versions of something and eventually you just need to do something ridiculous. So... At first I had just heard about the idea of biotics, and I thought, "well, hey, asari using biotics, I wonder how that would work." So... [laughs] This sort of thing will just happen when you get exhausted. But she's got some pretty powerful abilities there. And this poor alien... I wish this alien made it into the game actually, but unfortunately, I didn't-- Obviously, his head was blown off, so it wasn't a complete design. We couldn't actually get him in.

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Matt Rhodes: As the further we designed this, the writers were figuring what they wanted to do out more, and design was figuring itself out. And just understanding that the asari were going to be the extensive biotic users and just how powerful they were going to be. So, this was just an attempt to sort of illustrate an asari in her badass mode. And the idea of a shocking red outfit was something that I almost wish was carried into the final. But again, who knows, maybe this will be a Mass 2 or 3 sort of outfit.

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Matt Rhodes: This was one of a long, long series in trying to discover and figure out who this matriarch character was going to be. This one, of all of them, is probably one of the most... strange mixes of elements. The more I painted, every layer I would add a new element to it or take away an element. And at this point, it was sort of an interjection, or an intersection between two directions. One was the black leather and strap bodysuit, and then the other one was sort of the holy mother coat, in a way, trying to even go with colors that suggested someone very pure, very righteous. Buckled up with a collar, as any prudent nun-in-training might wear, but split right across the chest and then flowing in the back. So, it's definitely an interesting mix.

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Matt Rhodes: After painting, again, about 30 or 40 different variations on this character, it's easy to lose sight of what you're trying to do. So, sometimes you just take your favorite so far and try to put it in context. So, I tried to give her a bit of a pose and also, in some ways, figure out what biotics might be. This was a very simple kind of solution, some sort of shield or the beginning of some sort of blast. But I did like the idea of a red coat, or red hood, something that the interior would be red. The interior had this fierce passion, almost like the danger symbol of blood and excitement, but it's all shrouded in white.

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Matt Rhodes: This was one of those designs that was kind of there, that people had sort of liked. It was a mix of elements that people had picked out. Casey and Derek had liked certain parts, so trying to consolidate them, make sure they all fit together in one design. I wasn't totally sold on this, though, and in the end, we ended up going back and trying a couple extra things. It was actually-- this formed a good base and it was kind of there, but it was just that the elements had to be arranged in a different way.

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Matt Rhodes: Now, this is the same matriarch design, just with a few elements changed, and mostly just arranged in a way that made her a little bit sharper, a little bit more intimidating, and also changed the colors away from a giant purple dress into sort of the black and darker colors that you see here. We also went through a lot of different designs, trying to come up with a good priestess hood for her, something that was intimidating and that let you know that, hey, this is someone you do not mess with. So I think she turned out really well.