Bonus Content Disc/Creatures: Geth

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

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Matt Rhodes: This was one of the sketches that were a turning point for the development of the geth. We were looking at what would be really freaky, what's going to really get visceral and start scaring the player and, you know, something that has a really, like, deep impact. And I was thinking about the idea of a muscle chart, and sort of like this exposed, skinless character and, if it was an android you could do that. You could have this robotic, synthetic body that runs around and jumps and would obviously totally freak you out-- freak me out. This was really one of these sketches. It got kind of passed around the office and everyone sort of agreed, like "yeah, this is a pretty cool direction." At the time, the geth were actually just another alien species. But this was originally just a droid, just a straight-up droid. And then it just got placed into the geth location. So this set us off on a fun path. Here he's sort of, like, clasping to the wall like Spider-Man, just looking around. Still kind of creeps me out actually.

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Matt Rhodes: And this next geth here, this was more development once everyone sort of really dug the plastic muscle idea. And I wanted to make it look really artificial, really dead, kind of formaldehyde-ish sort of white muscle fiber stuff. I was also kind of toying with the idea of, you know, take like Bishop from Aliens where he's bleeding milk, and just skin Bishop so that he's just running around like that. And then, you know, give him a weird face. So all of this stuff, we're just playing with ideas, again, trying to come up with something that really plays into this emotional, sick response.

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Matt Rhodes: Again, here we're just exploring the plastic muscle structure. Here he's got some glowing lights on the inside of his body, and a human skull face missing the bottom jaw. You know, took a few elements from this, but one of the things was that, you know, these guys aren't human. They didn't come from humans. They're not trying to be humans. So, all these tiny little tweaks... Some stuff you take, some stuff you leave behind.

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Matt Rhodes: Now this drawing was a combination of a lot of different elements that we had gone through working on. Here, again, you see the muscle system. He's bleeding the white milk there. He's got the hood with the single eye and, you know, the shape of the hands, tubes wrapped around him. He was-- this was a concept that was sitting around for a while, and didn't end up being the final, but it was just so good, we ended up rebuilding-- we ended up building a whole creature skeleton for him and actually got him in the game. So he's the hopper and he runs around and you actually face him.

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Matt Rhodes: This was one of a series of very early sketches where we were trying to make sure that the geth fit onto a human skeleton. So this was actually one of the quick process doodles where we took the human model and then started painting geth appliances over top of him. So putting the hood on and bending the legs out, trying to make sure that all the joints line up... All these funny little things that you end up doing in production art.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's a version-- a lighter version of the geth kind of stripped down, but this model sheet, we're just, you know, trying to explore where the tubes go, where the armor goes, what color things are, where, you know, the shapes of the feet and hands... You know, the whole nine yards. This is what the model builders end up taking. You can see the little separated leg there, spewing blood. White blood.

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Matt Rhodes: Now this head was one of the first that sort of got discussed when talking about the geth as an alien race. There's this idea that, yeah... Really, they would be everything that the geth are except just creatures. This was designed before the android direction got picked up. This guy's based on a bat. He's got the big flared-out nostrils and pointy horrible little teeth. The idea of kind of a short haired surfeit, like a short-haired body, was kind of interesting.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's a colored version of the alien race geth very early on. Just playing with materials and trying to figure out, you know... We've got the short hair and then he's got this kind of almost like seal skin covering or armor, natural armor growing on him. It's just interesting. This was a strange one and it's funny what directions we'll end up going when trying to find the right path.

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Matt Rhodes: Here is a concept for the geth that Derek ended up doing. This is sort of a creature that comprised mostly of tubes and piping. And, this was actually a really strong direction that we ended up using a lot of the elements from this. Because he's composed of pipes, he ends up looking mechanical, but also not necessarily organic, but just very-- a different kind of machinery than most. Also, we've got the multiple eyes on the face, just trying to sort of dehumanize the figure.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's some sketches of the geth that Derek had done, trying to, again, break up the human face. Just putting a shape where the head should be that's so alien and so bizarre that you sort of get an instant rejection feeling when you look at it, just that you're repulsed by it. So like guns shooting out of the nose or tubes shooting out of where a mouth should be and just splitting it up into fragments. This-- a lot of elements from these got carried on to the final.

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Matt Rhodes: Here are some other sketches that Sung Kim ended up doing. Really cool, again, just early exploration of the android concept. You can see the bits of the piping, and trying to change the shape of the head, trying to alien him up a little bit. I really like this. This is kind of like a mercenary android.

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Matt Rhodes: And here is another sketch by Sung. Just... Again, here he's trying to break up the shapes and, you know, stick with the skeleton, but really try to pull this as far as it can go. The hole in the chest there is one of my favorite elements. And we tried to keep some negative space in the creature in some ways. But it's little elements like that, that I just really enjoy.

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Matt Rhodes: And here's another Sung Kim. Just... It's an interesting shape in the chest here, just sort of playing with the arcs and the curves, and trying to see what sort of lines you can create with the form, while still staying true to the skeleton. I really like the upper thigh there, how it's sort of like a hollowed out section. It's sort of implying that there was material there, but now it's been removed.

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Matt Rhodes: This is a sketch that Casey did for the geth at another earlier stage. We had the sort of the hood, this, and the actual face for the-- on this one, and it basically being exactly the final for the geth. He had the glowing blue light there, the hood with the flaps, kind of the eye recesses up in the top of the head. But this was one of those things you could-- you'll actually notice that the legs on this guy are what got translated into the geth armature.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's a combination of a lot of different elements. This was-- you can see the, the neon, or the-- not the neon, the fiber optic muscles, the hood on the right from Casey's drawing, one of Sung Kim's heads on the left. Following the shape of one of Derek's drawings-- you know, this was like a combination of at least four different artists, all their conceptions and ideas in it. And the thing on the right ended up kind of working. Everyone's like "okay, all right, let's explore that a little further."

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Matt Rhodes: Here we took one of the combinations of elements and then started making even more mixes and variations on that. The guy on the left here, he's got the crazy feet built out of tubes. He's got the armor built onto him; very, very, very stark, the black tubes and dark gray armor. And then we tried some different stuff with almost sort of like a dolphin skin armor, sort of like the texture of something that's just been grown. And again, just, you know, trying to push it, trying to see where this could head. And one of the things we were finding was because he was standing still in sort of a neutral pose, it was difficult to get the feel for him. So we tried posing out a few of these guys in some more threatening and menacing positions, and we were able to get a much better view of him.

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Matt Rhodes: Here is the geth trooper. This guy is-- he's got his armor on. Everyone was sort of agreed on the location of things. He's got these big tubes in the back. Those actually ended up going, but for the most part, you see, the arched neck, the protruding sort of pigeon chest, all of these little features, they made it through.

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Matt Rhodes: And this is the final, once we got it all refined. So, you know, cut up the armor a little bit in different places. You'll see that head that Casey had designed very early on made it through to the final. He's got all his tubes and pipes and ready to run around in Mass Effect and scare the crap out of you.