BioWare Artist Reveals Early Mass Effect, Dragon Age Art and Ideas

[MetalMagpie]

Yeah...I coulda done without seeing a naked Michael Douglas today...xP

And what the hell was #4 supposed to be? o.o

I think #4 is an early version of Tali. As mentioned in the article, the artist had the idea of making her look really repellent to see if players would still relate to her. It looks like only her strange legs and headscarf survived to the final design.

Nah Tali is the white faced one that one was to quote his blog post,

" An unused alien idea. Thank god. I wanted to design an alien that was completely horrifying and was failing in every possible way to come across as relatable to humans. If we actually went this direction I would have loved it if you could see constantly shifting eyes and teeth behind his "Hue-Mon" mask. Just awful."

Fair enough. I was assuming more than one of them was an early Tali idea, as the article does say "a few work-ups of Tali". And #4 has her legs and headscarf.

 

[Murais]

These drawings are terrifying.

Is the face-stealer pregnant? I'm very uncomfortable with the thought of it existing, the thought of it reproducing is causing the "NOPE" lobe of my brain to shut the fuck down due to overload.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Dodged a bullet there with the shitty female Normandy, I think I prefer ridiculous human EDI. Although the baby Reaper is a damn nice picture and would have looked good in-game, apart from the whole "Why the fuck is there a human reaper, not a cuttlefish spider like every other one".

 

[james.sponge]

Infant Reaper looks nice, definitely better than Terminator. GO FOR THE EYES, BOO!

 

[LazyAza]

The face stealer idea is brilliant, damn Bioware could have done a really awesome murder mystery/horror side mission with such a character. Hope it resurfaces in the new game.

 

[AJey]

Mass Effect could of had much better alien designs. This game has some of the most boring aliens in alien history, I would say. No originality or creativity, just re-skinned humans, that's all. Hopefully they will learn from it.

 

[1337mokro]

*snip*

Dude, calm down. You do realize this is [i/]early[/i] concept art for the games, right? As in, the art department's version of prewriting? And that these pictures cover the whole Mass Effect trilogy (that last Tali pic was designed for ME1) as well as Dragon Age 2? So ME3 messed up big, I agree, but it's been a year. Get over it.

OT: Quite a few of the designs are kinda awful in my opinion. Not as in poorly designed - well a few - but in that they don't fit well with the rest of their respective universes (the Cerberus and Shadow Broker stuff, for example). The Dragon Age character designs, on the other hand, are pretty amazing. I wish Merrill and Flemeth really had looked like that.

super snip

What in the world did I just read..?

Did you even read the title? It states that this is early art and ideas that weren't used, you know 'concepts'. I think you might have just gone on a rant by mistake my friend :/

Though I admit, I did like the fact you brought up their misuse of The Illusive Man, I loved that guy in ME2 but 3 felt like a different writer took over and didn't understand the character.

Anyway all this concept art is fascinating if somewhat disturbing, it's interesting to think what a different looking game mass effect could of ended up being.

Edit: Okay now I've noticed someone else has mentioned this and I feel bad, it's always sucky when multiple people pounce on someones mistake :/

sorry.

Yes thank you for pointing this out after I changed my post. It was such a huge amount of help that you point this out after someone else pointed this out to me already, I corrected the mistake and clearly state that I did make the mistake.

 

[kael013]

Yes thank you for pointing this out after I changed my post. It was such a huge amount of help that you point this out after someone else pointed this out to me already, I corrected the mistake and clearly state that I did make the mistake.

Fun Facts of the Internet: Sometimes multiple people will respond to one of your posts. These responses will take differing amounts of time to write (when I wrote my response post 10 was the most recent). Sometimes people respond to your post while you are in the process of editing it. It happens to everyone at some point, but don't expect all your responders to go back and change their posts just to stay up-to-date with yours. Glad you acknowledged your mistake, but don't rag on the rest of who pointed it out just because someone was faster than the rest of us.

 

[Gizen]

Honestly, the biggest disappointment to me in ME was that Tali WASN'T super alien. Fem Sheps had two very alien love interests via Garrus and Thane, the fact that male Shep had no distinctly ALIEN love interests was a huge disappointment. I would've been much happier with any of those designs for Tali than the one we wound up getting.

Though, admittedly, the one with the hair that looks the most human is ironically my favourite. Though that's probably because the 3rd and 4th Tali designs remind me too much of Jack (in that bald humanoid lady design) while the first one has a way too big chin for me. Though, make the chin smaller, and the first would've been awesome.

EDIT: Note, my comment is based on the 4 Tali designs present at the artist's actual blog, not the pictures posted in the article.

 

[soren7550]

Wait, is that Kai Leng?

And what's that he's holding? Is it... a toothbrush?!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES CHILDREN! HIDE THE CEREAL, KAI LENG HAS A TOOTHBRUSH!!

 

[orangeapples]

That image of TIM will haunt me...

 

[1337mokro]

Yes thank you for pointing this out after I changed my post. It was such a huge amount of help that you point this out after someone else pointed this out to me already, I corrected the mistake and clearly state that I did make the mistake.

Fun Facts of the Internet: Sometimes multiple people will respond to one of your posts. These responses will take differing amounts of time to write (when I wrote my response post 10 was the most recent). Sometimes people respond to your post while you are in the process of editing it. It happens to everyone at some point, but don't expect all your responders to go back and change their posts just to stay up-to-date with yours. Glad you acknowledged your mistake, but don't rag on the rest of who pointed it out just because someone was faster than the rest of us.

Fun fact #2 when you are too unobservant to notice that the post was changed before yours was even up. Try looking up and confirm if the original post you wrote a reply to was changed or not. Especially not when it takes you so long to write a reply that several people before you already pointed out the mistake, the post was changed and there was enough time for several comments to be made in between.

Fun Fact #3 when you notice that someone else has beaten you to the punch you don't make the same comment. It's just forum etiquette after all that you don't post 15 images with the same jokes or to open 15 discussions about the same subject. Observation is the key to avoiding unnecessary spam.

Though I'll basically drop this issue here because it is pointless to pursue further when we should all laugh at TIM's hilarious design. He looks like someone put him through a metal thrasher.

 

[Dragonbums]

To me, this has always been (and always will be) Tali.

Me too Matt Rhodes. Me too.

I mean, seriously. ALL of the concepts for Tali's face (and subsequently the Quarian race in general) are better than what we got.
This wouldn't even be that hard. It's so basic, yet alien.
Not the crap photoshop job we got and labeled as "artistic vision".

 

[Dragonbums]

Mass Effect could of had much better alien designs. This game has some of the most boring aliens in alien history, I would say. No originality or creativity, just re-skinned humans, that's all. Hopefully they will learn from it.

That's not fair.
game restrictions play a lot into how the aliens have to be designed.

For instance, Turians are supposed to have longer arms (that reach a bit above the knees instead of mid thighs like humans.) however due to the fact it would cause coding glitches with the human base bone structures and actions and that it would take far too long for coders to make an "alien" bone base with each individual action, they have to resort to conforming some aspects of design to the human base. Adding only a few adjustments to the overall physique here and there.
I bet you the Yahg and the Salarians were pushing it.

 

[PBMcNair]

That's not fair.
game restrictions play a lot into how the aliens have to be designed.

For instance, Turians are supposed to have longer arms (that reach a bit above the knees instead of mid thighs like humans.) however due to the fact it would cause coding glitches with the human base bone structures and actions and that it would take far too long for coders to make an "alien" bone base with each individual action, they have to resort to conforming some aspects of design to the human base. Adding only a few adjustments to the overall physique here and there.
I bet you the Yahg and the Salarians were pushing it.

That's true, but I would have thought they could have made alterations in the sequels. It might look odd, but that didn't stop them in dragon age 2.

No matter how much I wanted it to.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Is that a Quarian in the first picture? Sure looks like one.

Pretty interesting concept art if I must say so myself.

 

[Dragonbums]

That's not fair.
game restrictions play a lot into how the aliens have to be designed.

For instance, Turians are supposed to have longer arms (that reach a bit above the knees instead of mid thighs like humans.) however due to the fact it would cause coding glitches with the human base bone structures and actions and that it would take far too long for coders to make an "alien" bone base with each individual action, they have to resort to conforming some aspects of design to the human base. Adding only a few adjustments to the overall physique here and there.
I bet you the Yahg and the Salarians were pushing it.

That's true, but I would have thought they could have made alterations in the sequels. It might look odd, but that didn't stop them in dragon age 2.

No matter how much I wanted it to.

I haven't played Dragon Age yet so I can't really compare.
However I would assume they are both have different teams (with some overlap of course) and whoever was in charge of DA decided that they were going to take the plunge.
I guess swords and arrows are easier to manage than guns.

 

[AJey]

Mass Effect could of had much better alien designs. This game has some of the most boring aliens in alien history, I would say. No originality or creativity, just re-skinned humans, that's all. Hopefully they will learn from it.

That's not fair.
game restrictions play a lot into how the aliens have to be designed.

For instance, Turians are supposed to have longer arms (that reach a bit above the knees instead of mid thighs like humans.) however due to the fact it would cause coding glitches with the human base bone structures and actions and that it would take far too long for coders to make an "alien" bone base with each individual action, they have to resort to conforming some aspects of design to the human base. Adding only a few adjustments to the overall physique here and there.
I bet you the Yahg and the Salarians were pushing it.

Sure, I have no doubt that there were plenty of technical restrictions, but the problem still remains - wherever you look nowadays, whether it be comic books, movies, books or games, aliens are mostly humanoid. As a sci-fi writer, it makes me rather sad, since I love the concept of alien life. Evolutionary routes that life forms could have taken on other planets are endless, yet for some odd reason we stick to our own liking. Shame.

 

[Josh123914]

Mass Effect could of had much better alien designs. This game has some of the most boring aliens in alien history, I would say. No originality or creativity, just re-skinned humans, that's all. Hopefully they will learn from it.

That's not fair.
game restrictions play a lot into how the aliens have to be designed.

For instance, Turians are supposed to have longer arms (that reach a bit above the knees instead of mid thighs like humans.) however due to the fact it would cause coding glitches with the human base bone structures and actions and that it would take far too long for coders to make an "alien" bone base with each individual action, they have to resort to conforming some aspects of design to the human base. Adding only a few adjustments to the overall physique here and there.
I bet you the Yahg and the Salarians were pushing it.

Sure, I have no doubt that there were plenty of technical restrictions, but the problem still remains - wherever you look nowadays, whether it be comic books, movies, books or games, aliens are mostly humanoid. As a sci-fi writer, it makes me rather sad, since I love the concept of alien life. Evolutionary routes that life forms could have taken on other planets are endless, yet for some odd reason we stick to our own liking. Shame.

Primarily because they're the most relatable. I mean if all the races were Hanar or Elcor levels of inhuman it would be a logistical nightmare to code and every character with a gun would end up being human.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Is that last one Tali?
.>
I'd still romance the hell out of her. Too bad we got lazy slap=dash super human photoshop instead.