Developing the Creatures of Mars

When I began thinking about making Wildlife on Mars, I knew I wanted to make them in the form of Dinosaurs, but which Dinosaurs to choose from? The selection today ranges from Theropods, Sauropods and Ceratopsians to name a few, and of course, the non-Dinosaurs like Mammal-reptiles, Marine reptiles and Flying reptiles.

I wanted to chose designs that would be iconic and recognizable to a child but different and interesting to an adult, so I created some rules to follow.

• ALWAYS use dated and retro prehistoric designs as a guide and take ideas from nature.
• Make sure to reference your peers and acknowledge their imagination.
• NO pure science fiction life forms, it must be within the realm of plausibility .
• Be realistic, you need to make an armature and animate it.
• This is NOT a cartoon, no talking animals or cute things.
• How would Ray do it?

I also wanted to keep the emphasis on using dated designs of these dinosaurs as the main starting point, mainly because it kept the charm of their appeal within pop culture whilst making them stand out from current studies on dinosaur body plans.

For a predator, I naturally selected a design based on one of paleontologist most infamous Dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. This was mainly because it allowed me to play with the "king of beasts" theme for a antagonist, as well as dabble with alternative versions that would expand the deadly bite and small arms.

Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops by Charles R Knight

The other three original creatures were based off a small mammal-reptile, a primitive snake and a type of Hardrosaur hybrid. As the years went by, my designs went through many changes and added new ideas to the mix. The first change was to replace the three creatures from the original, this was mainly due to the simple and uninteresting appeal of the designs. 

I then started to dabble with the idea of a new creature, a Ceratopsian style creature but now infusing a mammalian twist, by taking the concept of the Triceratops been described as a prehistoric Rhino, I began to look through the many extinct rhino-like animals as well as the ancestors of the modern Rhino, eventually I settled on on the design of Arsinoitherium. 

Triceratop model skeleton , the London Natural History Museum

Arsinoitherium skeleton, the London Natural History Museum.

Finding the balance of the two concepts of the creatures together whilst keeping that alien concept at the forefront was a challenge but eventually I settled on a design that I felt was strong enough to meet my original project concept and pay homage to what makes stop-motion creature effects notable to audiences and the imagination that inspires them.

This then triggered the idea of Martian life been similar to Earth's but with a mixture of different evolutionary traits, such as the Martian Rex, it now has two toes on each foot rather than the classic three toed foot, but also a third rear toe making the foot act more like that of a primates. 

Lemur feet were the inspiration behind the Martian Rex foot change.

After storyboarding the two creatures for the Don't Panic Storyboard contest in 2012, I began to feel like something else was missing, there was a scene where the creatopcian needed to distract the Martian Rex which would result in the Rex becoming wounded and the ceratopcian injured and disorientated, but the scene I had originally in mind, whilst visually good, didn't sit right for me. 

I wasn't until I was watching a wildlife documentary that I noticed all the large herbivores had small birds picking at parasites and that some birds act as alarms when predators are close to smaller animals that have a symbiotic relationship with these birds. Then the penny dropped, the ceratopcian needed a companion!

I began working on bird-like designs, but remaining faithful to my original rules, I started to think of O'Brien's birds and Pteranodon from King Kong, wondering if I could somehow create something as unique and different... then I had a brainwave, birds with large bills sometimes have wonderful design aspects to them and since this was going to be set on Mars, the ability of flight did not have to follow the same formula, such as feathers or skin membrane, as long as it looked like it could work in nature. I designed the little "pterosaur" taking influences from a Flamingo, Pteranodon, and Seals. 

Pteranodon fossil, the London Natural History Museum.

Now that I had my designs and creatures, they needed proper names...

By chance, I happened to be visiting the Museum of Natural History in London and was asked by one of the museum staff if I would like to go on a tour of the Spirits Collection which took you behind the scenes where the museum kept all of their animal samples. While I was waiting, the staff member presenting the tour got into conversation with me about my visit to the museum, I explained I was taking "life studies" refferences of their dinosaur fossils and models for my animation project which Ray Harryhausen want to see finished, his eyes imminently lit up, informing me he was a huge fan or Ray's work and it's partly the reason he became a paleontologist. After some discussion and an exchange of emails, he kindly named all three of my creatures, their genus and what to call them as a animal, since the term Dinosaurs meaning "Terrible Lizards" didn't fit their origins and their home world.

The animals of Mars are known as Martian Saurotheium's, Saurotheium meaning "Lizard Beast". 

The predator is called a Xenotyrannus Rex, meaning "Alien Tyrant King" and belongs to a specific group called Rexthieums (King Beasts). 

The herbivore is a Alloceratops which means "Different Horned Face" and belongs to the group called Ceratoptheiums (Horned Faced Beasts).

Finally, the little pterosaur is a Pterognathus, the "Winged Jaw" and is part of the flying Saurotheiums called the Pterotheriums (Flying Beasts)