See What the Horrifying Aliens Almost Looked Like in "The Tomorrow War" (2021) Concept Art By Ken Barthelmey

Unused The Tomorrow War (2021) concept art by Ken Barthelmey

Check out The Tomorrow War concept art by Ken Barthelmey!

The movie military science fiction action movie directed by Chris McKay was released on Amazon Prime. It stars Chris Pratt as a teacher conscripted into a war in the year 2051 to fight an alien attack that threatens to destroy mankind. While box office numbers aren't available according to third-party streaming analytics corp Samba TV 2.41 million households watched the film during the weekend of its release. It's currently the most ever for an Amazon Original according to the site. 

Illustrator Ken Barthelmey designed the creatures. The aliens, nicknamed "White Spikes", were described to them as "vicious creatures that attack and eat everything in sight". The veteran artist told Variety McKay wanted them to look like a "dental nightmare". 

Ken Barthelmey is a professional concept artist who's worked on cinema films like The Maze Runner (2014), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).


"[McKay] asked for a compelling design that conveyed the hunger and intelligence of these creatures, Barthelmey said. "Additionally, the White Spikes needed to have different abilities such as fast swimming and flying. It was important that they were agile and able to move extremely fast. It was my job to translate all this information into one cohesive design. In our Skype meetings, Chris mentioned H.R. Giger’s Alien and Hellraiser as a reference point but he also encouraged me to show him additional ideas. He liked the work from my portfolio and wanted to see what I’d come up with."  

In the end, he combined Viperfish, frog skin, small front arms based on Preying Mantis claws, and backplates designed to resemble the shell of a grasshopper.

Click on the images to enlarge












Here's what the creatures looked like in the final film courtesy of Amazon Studios.




See more of Ken Barthelmey's portfolio at http://theartofken.com Click on the links if you want to see more of Ken Barthelmey's work or The Tomorrow War artwork on my blog.

About The Tomorrow War (2021)

Official synopsis: "In The Tomorrow War, the world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chis Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet." 
Directed by Chris McKay 
Cinematography by Larry Fong 
Production Design by Peter Wenham 
"The Tomorrow War" stars Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Jasmine Mathews, Edwin Hodge, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Keith Powers, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Mike Mitchell, Jared Shaw, Alexis Louder, Rose Bianco.
"The Tomorrow War" was released on July 02, 2021 (United States) 

[via Variety]

What do you think of the concept art? If you've seen The Tomorrow War what do you think of the look? 

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