By now, you have hopefully accepted that the Netflix series Stranger Things is the best thing to come into our lives in recent memory. It’s an all-consuming rabbit hole of a show—the sort of story that you think about for days or weeks. Months, maybe? The internet has been lit ablaze by all things Stranger Things, so there’s plenty of cool stuff to dig through to keep you satisfied while you wait for news about season two.
Case in point: this amazing early concept art, which we discovered via IndieWire. Courtesy of artist Nuttavut Baiphowongse’s Facebook page, we have a glimpse at some different designs for the Demogorgon. It’s all horrifying stuff, all nightmare inducing. It’s always cool to see the evolution of designs like these, to see the direction the artist pulls and pushes a concept before it’s finalized. The actual Demogorgon ended up with more of a humanlike body—the faceless man and all that jazz—while some of these have bird like features that steer a little too close to a demonic turkey. Thanksgiving will never be the same.
Aaron Sims Creative also shared some concept art on their Facebook page, but this stuff is for the Upside Down. These images look almost identical to what we eventually saw in the show; they’re all barren, smokey wastelands of dead dreams and growing dread. It’s ugly, sinister stuff, and we freaking love it. One of the elements of the Upside Down that was so cool was how simple it was, in a way. It was our world, but decayed and infected. There was a constant rain of ash, a grayness to it all, which is certainly captured in these images.
Creatively, Stranger Things is a clear home run. It’s a vision of the past brought to life for the present, and it’s our new obsession. While we refresh our browsers and wait for those season two tidbits, we can keep looking at awesome stuff like this. It’s cool to see how the sausage was made, so to speak, and Stranger Things is the Sausage King of Chicago, the Abe Froman of television shows. Hell, we’d buy a whole book of concept art like this. Somebody get on that, right away.
And if you’re looking for even more Stranger Things, check out Dan’s movie suggestions!
Image: Netflix
