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BioWare shares early concept art/alien/Tali designs for Mass Effect 1/2/3 and DA2

Symthic

Banned
This is what we should have gotten:

quarian-model.jpg


tali_portrait02.jpg


Yet what we got was this?!

Tali-Unmasked-Mass-Effect-3.jpg
 

Giolon

Member
And yet they couldn't use any of this artwork and decided to go with a poorly Photoshopped stock photo instead?

Bioware has turned out so disappointing to me this gen.
 
I really hate how un-alien these aliens are. They aren't any different physically then humans. Even culturally they aren't all too different then humans, and it's fucking mad annoying. Why the fuck can't we alien-aliens like the Hanar or GETH? Instead we get Asari, Quarian, and Turian. If they're going to make a humanoid alien why not make them culturally or even mentally different then us?
 
They had all these different designs, yet they opted for the worst possible decision and revealed what Tali looked like via some crappy photoshopped internet image.

I really wouldn't have minded what she ended up looking like, as long as Bioware picked an original design and stuck with it.

This...

or this...


...would have sufficed. I just needed a moment in ME 3 where she took off her mask and you saw her face in-game. That was the small expectation I had and Bioware couldn't even deliver on that.

Man, Mass Effect 3 pissed me off in so many ways.
 
quarian-model.jpg


I looove this Tali design. The whole "what does she look like?!" mystery was so contrived. And when she finally is revealed she's just a photoshopped stock photo. Embarrassing shit. I want my femaliens to actually look alien. Otherwise, what's the point?
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
People seem to really like that purple-skinned Tali image, but it would annoy me if it just so happened that the one alien race that is only "different colored humans" was the one they took three games to reveal (not to mention the suspicious coincidence of also being the fan-favorite slightly creepy romance character)
 
It blows my damn mind that Bioware never modelled an actual face for Tali. They were leading up to the big reveal for THREE GAMES and they just didn't do it. It isn't a mystery in the Mass Effect universe. Shepard saw her face in ME2, and every single other person in the galaxy has access to the Extranet where they can just Futuregoogle 'Quarian face' any time they like, but we don't get to see it.

I don't even want to acknowledge that Gettyimage Photoshop shit because it's even dumber than if they'd just ignored it entirely. Who took that picture? When did Tali apply for leave to shuttle down to some grassy planet, dress up all sexy and take a holopicture or whatever, with her damn suit off? In ME2 she had to come up with a whole regimen of antibiotics and stuff in order to bang Shepard in a sterile spaceship environment, but that picture shows that she took her suit off on some random planet full of germs. Did she just dash off the shuttle and shoot a quick selfie while holding her breath?

Goddammit.
 

Demon Ice

Banned
A lot of the human Reaper concepts are so much cooler than that stupid Terminator thing that we ended up getting. Unfortunate.

It blows my damn mind that Bioware never modelled an actual face for Tali. They were leading up to the big reveal for THREE GAMES and they just didn't do it..

Yeah, and just think, not only did they NOT model Tali's face, they went through all the effort to model, animate, voice, and write an idiotic character based off of some IGN staff member that literally nobody wanted in the game.
 
The bald, clownface Tali would have been hilarious. All those infatuated manchildren trolled.

The sad thing is what actually they ended up doing in ME3. That was just lazy.

Eh? That design is gorgeous.

People seem to really like that purple-skinned Tali image, but it would annoy me if it just so happened that the one alien race that is only "different colored humans" was the one they took three games to reveal (not to mention the suspicious coincidence of also being the fan-favorite slightly creepy romance character)

That's the worst part, isn't it? All that suspense over nothing. Bioware should have made her design at least a little off-putting to sort of challenge any pre-existing notions you had of her.
 
He stated having trouble with Fenris & the whole team had trouble with Fenris. that's because Fenris is a shitty ass character. Its hard to draw shit
 
Even if that's true, it's a terrible photoshop. It looks nothing like real Quarian physiology (the hand is just a human one minus two fingers), and it still looks way too human, even more so than the Asari.

What the fuck do you expect? The Tali-wafiu guys would have heart failure if Tali was "too alien".
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Even if that's true, it's a terrible photoshop. It looks nothing like real Quarian physiology (the hand is just a human one minus two fingers), and it still looks way too human, even more so than the Asari.

The painted nails are what really kill it for me
 

Demon Ice

Banned
Agree with the poster ITT that said Bioware plays it safe with all their designs. Safe and generic, focus tested, diluted. Can't disappoint all the manchildren that were in love with Tali / Merril.

Shame. A lot of the concept art is truly interesting.
 

clockpunk

Member
This is pretty close to how I've imagined Tali to look ever since ME2. Namely how Quarians would have the same face-framing crest that the Geth have around their lightbulb-eye. It makes sense that the Quarians would have designed the Geth to look similar to themselves. We already see some of that in the similar shape of the legs and the number of fingers. Geth only have the one eye, of course, but that's an abstraction similar to how the human-built Loki and Ymir robots only have the big mono-eye, but otherwise have a human frame.

But what really had me convinced that the Quarians had the same face-framing crest as the Geth is how when you speak with Legion, he would emote with it. The Geth were designed to talk to and take orders from their masters, so it makes sense that they would have the equivalent of expressive eyebrows.


I'd have been very happy were that the physiognomy of the Quarians, and Tali especially - damn good design allround. Reckon we could try and convince EA to patch that in as the photo replacement...? :p

Hell, most of the concepts in that post would have been great implementations. What a shame they were not used.
 
Oh man, that fetus-style Human-Reaper is so much cooler than what we got in the actual game. That concept art straight up just gave me chills when I saw it. I can't even imagine how disturbing a reveal that would have been in-game...
 
I don't know why, but I REALLY like that fetus human-reaper design. Looks much more sinister than the T2 version we wound up getting.

EDIT: ^^ Wow, beaten by a hair.
 

Jintor

Member
Tali_01.jpg


Tali!

I think it would've been hilarious if she had taken off the mask and was way more similar to a geth than anything else, like someone mentioned above
 

Conor 419

Banned
taligetty.jpg


I'm glad they made Tail just look like some Eastern European lady, some of those other designs were creepy.

Also as I'm fairly certain the Quarians were just supposed to be very similar to humans, but more advanced.
 

Ghazi

Member
Mass Effect as a series had so much fucking potential. In the end I feel like they took advantage of what their series could've became and that's a damn shame because even with its turnout I enjoyed it.
 
I really hate how un-alien these aliens are. They aren't any different physically then humans. Even culturally they aren't all too different then humans, and it's fucking mad annoying. Why the fuck can't we alien-aliens like the Hanar or GETH? Instead we get Asari, Quarian, and Turian. If they're going to make a humanoid alien why not make them culturally or even mentally different then us?

I believe that some behind-the-scenes video for the art of ME3 had one of the lead artists more or less admitting that it was because it was simply easier to use the same humanoid animations across species; the only time you ever see hanar or elcor actually move around or use their limbs is in the background of a single scene in ME2 or Blasto's actor in the Citadel DLC.

I think this was the same video where he said something like, "how would you even make a female turian, just put lipstick and boobs on it?" because, reminder, it took them until post-release DLC for ME3 to show an alien species with two distinct genders and an unmasked face.
 
The people who think Tali should have just been another alien race that is somehow physically identical to humans are why we got the bland, uninspired designs we got.
 

Arcteryx

Member
Nearly all those concept designs are better than what we ended up with

Yup.

Sad to see unique designs get turned into "generic humanoid space alien variant 11".

That bubble bro and the "nightmare" boss all looked really cool, as did the Tali designs :(
 
The people who think Tali should have just been another alien race that is somehow physically identical to humans are why we got the bland, uninspired designs we got.

You can thank all of the "Biowaifu" dingbats for that. Can't lock lips with or write erotic fanfiction about female Powder there, no sir
 
Why the hate for the Tali fans? I don't like her very much and I have a femshep so I never got attached to her. Are Tali fans creepy or something?

Also why is it important that she looks really Alien? Asari and Drell look very humanoid. Having I believe almost exact bodies and faces.
 
It blows my damn mind that Bioware never modelled an actual face for Tali. They were leading up to the big reveal for THREE GAMES and they just didn't do it. It isn't a mystery in the Mass Effect universe. Shepard saw her face in ME2, and every single other person in the galaxy has access to the Extranet where they can just Futuregoogle 'Quarian face' any time they like, but we don't get to see it.

I don't even want to acknowledge that t Gettyimage Photoshop shit because it's even dumber than if they'd just ignored it entirely. Who took that picture? When did Tali apply for leave to shuttle down to some grassy planet, dress up all sexy and take a holopicture or whatever, with her damn suit off? In ME2 she had to come up with a whole regimen of antibiotics and stuff in order to bang Shepard in a sterile spaceship environment, but that picture shows that she took her suit off on some random planet full of germs. Did she just dash off the shuttle and shoot a quick selfie while holding her breath?

Goddammit.

To be fair, maybe she took the picture at her home. And just had a fake background in the back, remember that Quarians if trusted would share a room without their suits. Or maybe it was her at a very young age, Quarians get their suits at puberty as a coming of age... Lol why am I defending this shit?
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
I believe that some behind-the-scenes video for the art of ME3 had one of the lead artists more or less admitting that it was because it was simply easier to use the same humanoid animations across species; the only time you ever see hanar or elcor actually move around or use their limbs is in the background of a single scene in ME2 or Blasto's actor in the Citadel DLC.

I think this was the same video where he said something like, "how would you even make a female turian, just put lipstick on boobs on it?" because, reminder, it took them until post-release DLC for ME3 to show an alien species with two distinct genders and an unmasked face.

Such limited thinking
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I REALLY wanted Tali to look unconventional when you took the helmet off. A lot like the first concept art.

but it's Bioware and all they do is pander to the Bioware Social forums so she has to be TEH HAWT
 
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