Mass Effect Interview

TeamXbox had the opportunity to sit down with BioWare's Derek Watts and chat with the art director about how the team created the overall look and feel for Mass Effect.
Q: How did you go about designing the aliens the player will meet?

A: The aliens had to be able to show emotion. They needed eyes that faced forward, mouths that could work with lip-synching and bodies that could use the human skeleton. You usually start with a rough description from the writers. This can get you in a bit of trouble when concepting because the writers might ask for a shark-like race. Next thing you know, you have a concept with a guy wearing a shark head. You can't take the description too literally. Another thing we had to keep in mind was if the alien was concepted to look too aggressive, we would have problems showing other emotions the story would need. We were lucky to have some great artists that rose to the challenge like Matt Rhodes and Sung Kim.