Stranger Things Concept Art Reveals Upside Down Secrets

Contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 1

Before the Duffer Brothers could translate their vision for Stranger Things into the hit Netflix series, they enlisted artists at Aaron Sims Creative to create concept art for the Demogorgon–the show's big monster.

The team (who previously created the look for The Amazing Spider-Man) told ScreenCrush they were tasked with designing a "humanoid creature with no face, just a mouth." You can take a look at their original designs, but the artists' description of the process is almost as fascinating.

"One of the designs we came up with the first week was a flower petal-like face with no teeth. That really resonated with the Duffers. It answered a lot of questions the Duffers had about the uniqueness of a monster with no face, and how that could be terrifying. A lot of the inspiration also came from the mouth of a snapping turtle – how terrifying that looks, and how its teeth go all the way back. So there were always teeth in our design. Some of the early concepts were more monstrous in shape, even more asymmetrical. Those were ones that veered off into their own direction, so we ended up scratching those and focusing on more symmetrical designs."

But fans might have a difficult time looking at one of the sketches–and it doesn't feature the Demogorgon at all. It shows what really happened to Barb in the Upside Down, and it's definitely not for the faint-hearted. In the art, otherworldly creatures devour Barb's lifeless body as ribs poke out of her torso and a spider coming out of her mouth.

But the artists said the Duffer Brothers decided to go another way–but not because it was too gory. "In the final design, they ended up veering away from that because it became too unrecognizable. It was difficult to tell exactly what had happened to her; it wasn't an issue of it being too graphic, but rather, that the viewer needed to see something that was very recognizably dead."

Check out all the concept art, then read the untold truth of Stranger Things.