We talked a lot about the build up to the release of Alien: Romulus, from the suffocatingly brilliant poster design to the campaign in New York City. Now that the movie's tearing up cinemas, we're starting to see some of the stunning Alien: Romulus concept art on which the hit movie was built, and it does not disappoint.
A lot of concept arts made contributions to Fede Álvarez's sequel, and some of them are now sharing glimpses of their work on Instagram. Browsing through them reveals the painstaking dedication and attention to detail that ensured the movie fit the look and vision of the the classic franchise (warning: don't read on if you want to wait to surprised at the cinema!).
Dane Hallett, who also worked on Alien: Covenant, writes that in his early explorations for the bursters in Alien: Romulus, he wanted to add something without detracting from the beauty of the original. His work for the film started with the cocoon, which would be built practically by Legacy Effects.
Joshua Viers drew initial designs for the Renaissance Station and the interior of Tyler and Kay’s trailer. He says that the spikes at the bottom of Renaissance station were intended to reference the antenna at the front of Syd Mead’s concept painting of the Sulaco ship from Aliens. The exterior of the station was refined by Alex Nice, who also worked on interiors. Alex also worked on early iterations of Rook.
Meanwhile, Nick Stath designed interior spaces in the Renaissance, using his experience from his previous career in architecture. His concept for a space deep inside the space station references the raw, industrial look of Aliens.
Col Price, who worked on world building the Jackson Star mining colony, says artists were encouraged to try things that were off-assignment. For him, that included the echo ship and the offspring. Despite him not normally doing characters, he writes that he "had a mess on nomadsculpt" to roughly sculpt character concepts and then paint over them.
Matthew Savage has shared cross-sections of his designs for the Corbelan, cargo haulers used by Jackson’s Star miners.
Pablo Dominguez has shared concepts for the echo probe camera he designed. He also has work on ArtStation. and James Casey Holland has been sharing Alien: Romulus costume design concepts.
