The Time Machine

Occasionally, our artists are presented with internal creative challenges, which enables our studio to expand our repertoire of techniques and refine our skills. These challenges also provide us with the opportunity to design for properties that we have long desired to explore.

The following project looks at an adaptation of H.G Wells’ Time Machine, with a focus on creature design. In the book, the Morlocks were an evolved (or devolved) species of Homo sapiens that had adapted to living underground in cramped, low-lit conditions. They are also cannibalistic and feed on their surface-dwelling cousins, the Eloi.

While there have been several adaptations of Wells’ novel in the past that utilized creature suits and prosthetics. As a point of difference, we wanted to explore how the Morlocks might look if they weren’t constrained to a suit performance and were based solely on their book descriptions as small, ape-like creatures.

We also wanted to briefly explore Morlock culture in the form of tattooing and face paint. As subterranean dwellers, the Morlocks would have been very familiar with signage and wayfinding from subways and tunnels. These signs may have gained prominence over the decades eventually becoming void of their original meaning but remaining sacred symbols to Morlocks. For this reason, subway maps, symbols and signage have been used as key motifs in the tattoos that adorn some of these designs.

Art Direction by Vaughan Flanagan