The Tomorrow War - Creature Design

I had the pleasure to design the vicious White Spikes for 'The Tomorrow War'.
Back in 2019, I worked a few weeks with director Chris McKay and production designer Peter Wenham on the film. To my surprise, I was told at the very end that other designers already had previously worked on various alien designs, and ultimately it was my design that got picked for the film.
Because there was no clear description of the White Spikes, I gave director Chris McKay a few different options to choose from in the beginning. In this early stage, it was all about brainstorming and coming up with interesting ideas.
The initial script had a battle scene at the Miami Beach that was mostly in water. Therefore, in the early sketches, I pictured the White Spikes more aquatic with tentacle-like legs. The main influences were the Tripods from 'War of the Worlds' and the Sentinels from 'The Matrix'. During the design process, those tentacles eventually became the two tails on the back.
I did 67 different alterations in total of that design until we found the final version. Those alterations consisted of different head shapes, eyes, spikes and legs.
Because of a planned meeting at the studio, I only had a few days to sculpt and render the White Spike. It was a tough deadline considering the complexity of the design, and exporting a model for rendering can be a time-consuming process. Thanks to 'ZBrush to KeyShot Bridge' I managed to finish everything on time.

Shoutout to the artists and animators who brought them to life: Weta Digital, Luma Pictures, Framestore, Method Studios and Spectral Motion (for their on-set animatronic).

The movie has one of the best monster reveal-scenes I’ve seen in a while. This, the animations and the sound design, all made the White Spikes truly memorable.
Let me know what you think about the movie!
Read more about my design-process and inspirations: https://www.behance.net/gallery/124512441/THE-TOMORROW-WAR-Designing-the-White-Spikes
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