After teasing a few pieces on his Twitter, Ken Barthelmey, one of the talented artists who worked on The Predator, has updated his website with some concepts from the earlier days of The Predator’s production.
In particular there are images of the work Ken did on the Emissary Predator’s and some commentary on each piece.
Even though they didn’t make it in the film, it was great fun to work on them. The Emissaries are the intellectual class of the Predator homeworld. They are NOT hunters and don’t wear armor. They were supposed to be brainier, leaner of frame and less aggressive looking than the big Hunter/warrior Predators. I thought this was a great opportunity to come up with a new looking Predator design. I gave them a more domed forehead and a bony face. I also came up with the idea to bundle the dreadlocks, which gave the head an interesting shape. The black leather cape made it look more like a higher class citizen.
Of interest are some early explorations of the Upgrade Predator. In the earlier leaked script of The Predator, a point was made of the human DNA that was a part of the Upgrade Predator’s genetic make-up. According to Ken’s notes on the various concepts, this angle was certainly being toyed with in the design work.
The Upgrade was described as a 12 foot tall next gen Predator. He needed to look bigger, more cunning and more lethal than the other Predators. An important aspect was that he has human DNA, because as it turns out the Predators admire the human capacity for dealing death. In this early sketch I tried to make him look like a hybrid and gave him some human traits
Ken also shared some early – and wildly different – takes on the Predator Dogs!
Be sure to head on over to Ken’s website to check out the further notation on these concepts!
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Especially the first.
All beautiful renderings, I'd give this guy a shot at.a PredAlien.