ILM.com features works specially selected by ILM's art department staff. In this ongoing series, two artists from the London studio share their experiences working on the Masters of the Universe film, due out in 2026 from Amazon/MGM Studios.
Conceptual artist Bimpe Alliou
The brief for this particular concept focused on the landscape surrounding Snake Mountain. The look of Snake Mountain itself - the really cool snake head and body - had already been designed by another concept artist, so it was my job to conceptualize the rest of the surrounding landscape. The director already had a location in mind that served as inspiration, so, working with visual effects supervisor Pietro Ponti, I explored the possibility of transforming this landscape into something more dangerous.
I think there were about five to eight landscape studies, each with variations. But we paid special attention to the shape and size of the mountains, as well as the lava lakes. The main challenge was making the overall scale of the various elements make sense, especially the lava lakes.
In addition to creating a landscape, another goal was to balance the composition so that the viewer's attention was focused on Snake Mountain, so I tried to achieve this by guiding the eye with the shape of the mountain peaks.
Of course, the Icelandic mountains were the main inspiration for this concept, but also the source material itself - the animated series He-Man, as well as the various landscapes shown in the series.
I tend to listen to a lot of music when I'm creating, and I think for this work I listened mostly to old pop music from the 90s and early 2000s, which might seem like a contrast to an image like this for some!
I had a lot of fun designing this series.Creating the special effects for She-Ra was perhaps the most challenging task, mainly because it was important to balance the original footage of her transformation with something new but still impressive.
Conceptual artist Pedro Manuel Blanco Villar
The challenge in creating this character was to adapt the client's existing design to a proposal developed by ILM's visual effects team. The goal was not to reinvent the character, but to refine it in a way that worked from both a creative and technical standpoint.
The main focus was on anatomy and making sure the proportions and structure matched how the character would be animated. We also spent a lot of time exploring different poses as they helped convey the character's personality and ensured the design would look good from different angles.
Another key element was the hairstyle. She played a big role in defining the character's silhouette, personality, and overall visual appearance. Small changes in hairstyle had a surprisingly large impact on how audiences perceived a character, so it became one of the most important aspects to get right.
One of the biggest challenges in creating this character was finding the right balance between animalistic and humanoid. It had to feel strong and believable, like an animal, while also being expressive enough to withstand the acting and animation. To do this, we started by studying the anatomy and movements of real animals, especially gorillas. Their way of distributing weight on their forelimbs was particularly interesting, and we explored how Beastman could occasionally adopt similar poses and movements to highlight their animal side without losing their human qualities.
We took a similar approach to fur.We collected many examples from animals such as big cats, gorillas and hyenas, studying how their fur grows, clumps and changes on different parts of the body. We then adapted these ideas into Beastman's design, creating something that felt grounded in nature while still maintaining the stylized look of the character.
The biggest inspiration was definitely the original Masters of the Universe animated series of the 1980s and '90s. The client wanted to retain the spirit and personality of these classic characters, so it was important to respect that heritage while adapting the character for a modern feature film.
The client provided us with some initial concept sketches of the character, and there were some elements he wanted to keep as they were already part of his look. At the same time, he relied on ILM's help to solve some design problems and develop new ideas that would allow him to better adapt the character for a feature film. An important part of the process was determining what should remain true to the original concept and what could be improved in terms of design. It was a very collaborative process, with many discussions and tweaks on various aspects of the character until we found a version that was true to the source material while working both visually and technically.
It was really interesting to see how little design decisions, poses or facial expressions helped define Beastman's look so clearly. It reminded me that a strong character is not just about adding details, but about conveying the right demeanor and silhouette. Revisiting the original series was both fun and truly inspiring throughout the entire process.
The full gallery of concept art from the film "Masters of the Universe" can be viewed here at ILM.com.
