Bonus Content Disc/Creatures: Unrealized Concepts

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

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Matt Rhodes: At an early stage, it was great to have other people contribute. We ended up getting a lot of different sketches, all sorts of different stuff. It's great being able to tap into other people's minds as well, because, you know, you always see stuff that you wouldn't expect. This, I found interesting. You got the tiny, tiny little arms with articulated fingers right beside big elephant feet. It's kind of a neat idea. I think it was based on-- The body was drawn off of a head that was drawn earlier. The six limbs would have probably been difficult to animate, but we've done crazier stuff.

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Matt Rhodes: Here was an idea toyed with earlier on by me. There was kind of a big floating whale; some sort of huge giant fish-like thing that would have a big gaping maw that it could pull you into. Of course, swimming never really-- and ocean or sea exploration never really factored into this. There's no need for something quite like this, but it sort of bears some familiarity with the gas creature-- the gas bag that ended up making it in.

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Matt Rhodes: These are just little thumbnail sketches of alien heads. Again, you're testing it out. You're playing with it. What can you get away with? Each one has something else that's being emphasized. Here is the eyes forward. No need for a nose. He's got the heavy set jaw.

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Matt Rhodes: I've always loved this guy. So gross. Just absolutely gross. He's got his squidgy little eyes and just massive tentacles for a mouth. I would have loved to see this guy talking. It's like, with every syllable he utters, those little tentacles just go twirling around in all sorts of directions. It would have been great.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's a face that was trying to toy with the surreal a little bit; something stretched out where all you get are the eyes. No mouth, no nose. That's always intimidating. That's always something that weirds you out a little bit. It's really the definition of alien.

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Matt Rhodes: Again, little thumbnail sketches. Here's a guy with some big octopus tentacle lips mouth that are pushed together or thrown over his shoulder or whatnot. Again, just almost trying to make aliens that look uncomfortable. You almost look at them and you wonder "is this obscene? I don't know. I can't tell if I'm allowed to be looking at this or not."

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Matt Rhodes: Here is a very 70's sci-fi painting alien. Something overly elegant, overly like, we think, "welcome. Welcome to space. Welcome to the space station." Not really quite what we were looking for.

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Matt Rhodes: This guy is angry at something. Again, it's taking creatures and almost just poking holes through their heads. What happens if you scoop out the back and just leave almost like a hammerhead shark thing with his eyes on the edges? I guess, give him pigtails. Who knows why that ended up happening, but there you go. You're forced to deal with that reality.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's the idea of, you know... piling stuff up on the face. Ridges and almost look like barnacles on his chin, now that I look at them now. I like the idea too of having wizened old faces in the middle of this alien shape.

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Matt Rhodes: Here is one of the results of an exercise that we did where we would take a head and try to come up with a body that matched it. So here we have the long, thin head with a long, thin body, trying to maintain a little bit of that elegance to it.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's another concept done up by a member of the team. Again, just toying with shapes, trying to like... "we need aliens, let's throw more aliens on the pile."

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Matt Rhodes: Here was another submission. Again, it's great to see this stuff, because you'll always see something you never thought about.

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Matt Rhodes: Here were some animals that were sketched as ambients. Just the idea of some sort of tree monkey or something that would hop from limb to limb or crawl up underneath your spaceship when you landed. So, toying with big eyes and monkeys and... I like the little ape dog in the bottom there.

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Matt Rhodes: Here was the idea of trying to come up with a creature that was just big and gigantic and lumbering, almost like a brontosaurus. But trying to think of maybe big horses or something, but the size of dinosaurs. It's just kind of an intriguing idea.

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Matt Rhodes: More creatures. You can see the kangaroo, and the koala-panther-horse in the bottom, and the little fish with legs. This was a lot of fun because you just go drawing animals and then eventually just start mixing and matching all of the stuff that you've learned. It's something that I would love to do more of in my spare time.

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Matt Rhodes: The space cow. The space cow was drawn as a little joke and I'm almost sad that that joke didn't come all the way to fruition in the game, but maybe at some point later on. This little guy was great, chewing on his grass with his three horns and his big, giant, puffy body.

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Matt Rhodes: This was a direction that I actually really enjoyed, and could almost come into play on another project at some point if I'm allowed. That would be kind of great. This was messing around a lot with, much like Sebulba from Star Wars, playing with which limbs become the priority. The idea of what if the hind legs were no longer as important as the front. Then he started to develop another set of legs in front so it starts to play with your perceptions a little bit. I like the idea of these big, heavy boned faces. It's like scarab beetles, rhinoceros beetles that fight each other. They have these big shapes on them that are almost in the abstract. It really lets you know you can draw almost any shape you want and it probably exists somewhere.

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Matt Rhodes: There was more development along the lines of this fighting four-limbed creature. Here his legs have almost become like a tail, that I really liked. It was kind of like trying to come at the T-Rex from a different angle.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's a sketch of a creature that ended up getting colored up, a bug. Also thinking of flying creatures; creatures that were maybe like birds but that came at it from a different section. Here in the top right, a creature with wings that are mouths. Or in the bottom, an insect. It's almost looking like a Pokemon now, but where its ears have become gliders.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's playing with more ambient creatures. The idea of birds that, you know... The top right doesn't even have a head. There's no need for a head. Or Syd Mead curved parrot. That was almost a bit more of a joke. Flared out tails and little beaks. It was just great to mix and match pieces.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's one of the early designs that kind of inspired the gas bag. It was summertime so it was mosquito season. They were pretty much what I hated the most at that point so I thought "what would I want to see the least in the galaxy? More mosquitoes." You travel all this way, and you think you're going to get away from them, but you don't. They're bigger, and they're scarier, and they can suck more blood. There was also a drawing of a flea. That was just some reference drawing trying to figure out how they work.

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Matt Rhodes: Here's more four-limbed creatures. This one was a little bit more... not necessarily peaceful because it still has a fairly aggressive beak that looks like it could be used for pushing other creatures out of the way, but something that was almost verging on a water creature or something like that but its tail had reached way up high. Looking at these, they were actually based on fleas' architecture originally; flea's limbs and their setup but then translated into something a little heavier.

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Matt Rhodes: Again, some more alien submissions by some of the other people on the team. Interesting colors, this squid-like creature.

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Matt Rhodes: There's a very, very, very, very early sketch done before a lot of the story stuff had been figured out, but I just like the idea of a big fat guy in a tube covered in cables. I mean, who doesn't love that? Really, honestly?

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Matt Rhodes: This was kind of funny. I was mentioning earlier that there was the idea that did get cut, but the idea of playing with the grays in some way, the Roswellian sort of alien would come into things and you would see how they really fit into the grand scheme. I was just trying to come up with some possibly different shapes. Somehow the one on the right is wearing pajama pants wrapped in a blanket. I can't explain that... There you go, it's on the cutting room floor.

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Matt Rhodes: I love the idea of having these little terrible things walking around that never hurt you but just look stupid and just made you laugh whenever they walked around the corner. So that's what the things on the left were. Just these ugly little grubs with two legs or four legs or whatever. They're just something to take your mind off of galactic problems because, hey, look at those guys. Their lives probably suck. Then on the right, I'm just trying to play with, again, just attitude in aliens' faces. I'm trying to play off of really human emotion in foreign faces which is always the task but this is sort of trying to be more intentional about it; in some ways trying to think "what would Jim Henson do?"

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Matt Rhodes: Here are some alien faces. These came into play a little bit later; something like the separated jaw on the top right. Insects and spider faces and slug faces. What is the grossest thing possible? Sometimes it felt like that was the task. It was like, what's the grossest thing you can come up with?