Of the many divisive aspects of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Doomsday turned out to be one of the lesser offenders, though many pointed out that Weta’s design of the character was a little too similar to a handful of their other designs in films like The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Like all visual effects creations, Doomsday went through a few different iterations before director Zack Snyder and his team settled on the final design, and new concept art shows you what the villain could have looked like.

Artist Vance Kovacs revealed some of his concept art for Batman v Superman via his official website and Facebook page, giving us a look at some variations on Doomsday — sure, they don’t look totally different, but there are some interesting (and much less brown) elements here that could have set the character apart, even just slightly, from Weta Digital’s similar designs:


Concept art I did for the film

Posted by The Art of Vance Kovacs on Friday, April 1, 2016

In particular, the studies of his face with calcified eye sockets look more eerily compelling than the end result in Snyder’s film. There’s also a leaner version that looks like a combo of Ultron and Prometheus. As far as villains go in Batman v Superman, Doomsday definitely wasn’t the worst, though the intensity of the character’s aesthetic speaks to the overall much-ness that permeates the film. Still, it’s neat to see what Doomsday may have looked like if they went in a different direction.

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