How to Make a Monster!

Now, don’t let the job descriptions fool you. After seeing many of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of sketches Ben and Ian went through before settling on a final look for Dead Space, we thought we’d give it a go ourselves. It turns out anyone can do it. Here’s a drawing of a scary creature we made:

Above: That’s a (terrifying) crab with a pirate head

And here’s a picture of a Necromorph Ben drew:

Above: A notable lack of pinchy crab claws, but this creature is a pretty good effort from Ben

Obviously, there’s not much to it – that was just our first try! But if you’d like to hear it straight from them, here’s what Ben and Ian had to say about the process they went through to create Dead Space.

GamesRadar: When you’re developing a creature, where does it start?

Ben Wanat: Way back when we started the project, it was wide open. We didn’t even know what we were making - didn’t know what the aliens would look like, didn’t even know if they were going to be aliens. Were there going to be robots? You gonna fight aliens? You going to fight other people?

Eventually, the design team came up with a list of enemies that they wanted to design. They had a pretty good idea of how they wanted those creatures to operate, gameplay-wise. But at that point, we were still trying to come up with a look for the creatures. I was just cranking through the drawings. We’d think we hit on something, and then I’d try cranking on that for awhile. Eventually, we ended up with the look pretty close to what we have now, that we ended up shipping the game with. That was pretty close to two years of concepting.

Ian Milham: When creating a new area for Dead Space, we’d consider several different things. First, what happens here in terms of gameplay? Is it a place for storytelling and pacing, combat or both? Will the player likely be running for his life through here, or creeping along? Second, how do we want the player to feel in here? Some spaces are meant to invoke dread or foreboding, to feel uncomfortable. Others present a clear relief or feeling of “Whew! I made it!” Third, how can we make this area unique? The player might spend 15-20 hours on this spaceship, and endless metal halls get boring. We were always trying to make areas feel new and different.

Above: Here’s a final version of concept art next to an image of the same area rendered in the game