Bonus Content Disc/Creatures: Salarians

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

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Matt Rhodes: The salarian was really fun to develop, because he started off as kind of one of the classic aliens. They were thinking that... "what if we do sort of the greys?" and we try to explain, you know, the classic Roswell alien and try to explain him in the Mass Effect context. That idea was out the window very quickly because it's dumb, but the direction provided a great launching off point. And so, some of the information we knew about these guys was that they were very intelligent, that they were very... almost poetic. And at the onset I got the impression that they kind of had almost the Japanese or... well, I will say Asian approach to war. That it was something that wasn't necessarily good but there was beauty in it; that there was contemplation and time for quiet and all that. So these kind of became our warrior poets, at least for me in the early stages. So trying to play up the big giant dark eyes, eyes that were deep like wells, came from the early grey idea but it had a lot of merit to it. And there was something about a creature having big giant eyes that was very observant, that was always watching you. But that it also had a mouth that was pronounced enough that he could always be kind of sneering at you in disdain. That they knew they were better than you and they could sort of tuck, purse their lips in contempt. So these elements all ended up continuing and just-- it played so well. So here we have a fairly, you know, an ornate big headed-- he's got sort of tattoos on his head and earrings and all of that. And this actually-- something about this kind of got people excited. So we played around with some other variations on it.

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Matt Rhodes: Here we have another salarian head where we pulled it out to the top, put the nostrils up on the forehead. Still playing with the big eyes, the low long mouth. You know, again, an alien that thinks it's better than you and probably is. But it's still just one of those things you've got to face when you're new to the galaxy. And here we're playing with skin texture as well and what sort of, you know... what are they made of, what sort of creature, where do they come from, what's their environment. All of the questions of alien development.

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Matt Rhodes: Here was another head. We've got some tattoos on it. This was thinking, again, of sort of the warrior culture. This is some simple body armor that was meant to be a little bit sleek. Kind of like you would imagine this guy would be able to fight hand to hand. That he would be almost, well, you'd really hate to bring up the term "ninja," but that really-- I mean, he's very adept at using his body. And that became something that these aliens valued.

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Matt Rhodes: Here we take that earlier head and give him a bit of a mercenary treatment. Showing that, not only is he war-like and thoughtful and poetic, but that they also have their mercenaries. They're not so great. You know, they've got their problems as well. This guy, you know-- a little bit more roguish.

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Matt Rhodes: This was a body designed by Sung Kim. It was interesting, the head there. We'll show you a better sketch of it later on in the gallery. But the head was approved and it was kind of a search to find what sort of body would amount to that head. And this was playing off on a lot of the aquatic themes, I think, that seemed to be present there. The blue skin, the kind of shiny, soft, almost like dolphin skin of this guy. Really beautiful work by Sung.

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Matt Rhodes: And here's Sung Kim's body again, and this ended up being the final. There's something about the concave chest that everyone knew, it just-- it was absolutely essential for the character of this creature. That the intellectualists, the thought police, in a way, of the galaxy, had sunken chests. From a narrative point of view, it was just too strong. And it was too unique. I mean, he's still fit with the rest of the aliens, he fit the human skeleton, but that was just a nice little element that set him apart.

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Matt Rhodes: And as I said, here's the sketch that everyone said "aha, yep, that's it. That's the one." We've got the big, giant eyes, the brows, the mouth, wide-set nostrils, and the upper nostrils on his forehead there with the hole through the head. Looking at it now, it's kind of like, you know, these intellectualists have got this big hole poked right through their head. It's kind of a joke. In some ways, it started as these kind of horns, but then figured, why not just join them together? That object, actually, that one feature of their anatomy, ends up coming to play in some of the patterns and materials in their costuming. You may notice it, you may not. If you don't, that's fine. But almost, you know, much like us with our eyes or nose or mouth, that became a design element in some of their artwork.

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Matt Rhodes: Well and here, we have the salarian in his robes, sort of the ceremonial salarian priest intellectual. Actually, you'll notice on the hood, on the top there, the symbol of the hole in his head, of the hole through his horns. That distinctive shape, it's almost like it was something that they would think of as being noble and may even be something that, that despite the fact that they have to cover it, they want to remind you that it's there. And in some ways I kind of like the idea that maybe they try to play it up even more, and draw a bigger hole or a smaller one or whatever their ego is best served by. There's also an element on this too, that because with their concave chests, I told you the idea of what if that was something that they felt self-conscious about; that if you had a really concave chest, that meant you were lower in society. So what if their costuming reflected that? And so we have-- we put in some of the elements of like this ring, created this imaginary puffed-out chest, that it filled that hole a little bit, that it was something that made them feel better. And even though you know, I mean, it's obviously-- it's got a hole poked through it, it's like, you know, you're not hiding anything. To them, at least, it would make their egos feel a little better.

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Matt Rhodes: And here we have salarian armor. Very complicated helmet shape, very pale treatment. Again, just trying to come up with armor that would suit the character that these guys had already established. And again, here you see the chest filler, the chest piece, the ego piece, something that we had a lot of fun with. And there are a few little designs on the armor, some bits and pieces here, something to bring a little bit more of the ceremony back into it. Almost like they bought this armor and it was functional and it worked, but it didn't quite have as much cultural impact as they wanted it to have.