The Sea Beast’s director walks us through the ‘wise monsters’ that inspired his creatures

polygon.com:

In the world of Netflix’s The Sea Beast, heroic monster hunters take to the high seas to kill fearsome creatures in order to keep waters safe for seafarers — or at least that’s what everyone believes. The most terrifying of all the sea monsters is the Red Bluster, a gigantic red creature that lives in the depths of the ocean and can swallow rowboats whole.

[Ed. note: This feature contains some slight spoilers for The Sea Beast.]

But when seasoned monster hunter Jacob Holland (Karl Urban) and savvy stowaway Maisie Brumble (Zaris-Angel Hator) end up stranded on an island full of sea monsters, they discover that these beasts aren’t the bloodthirsty fiends they expected. In fact, the Red Bluster takes a bit of a liking to Maisie especially. In its most gentle moments, the Red Bluster turns from a massive, formidable beast into a gentle giant.

Like with most animation designs, the final look for this imposing monster and benevolent guardian took a couple of iterations to land. Director Chris Williams tells Polygon that his creative team looked at real animals that they considered “the ultimate monster” in a given biosphere, but they also wanted animals that convey a certain wisdom. That led them to big cats, like lions and tigers. To bring across the Bluster’s ability to transition out of sea and onto land, pinnipeds became a natural fit.

“We did a lot of research,” Williams says. “We looked at images and videos of sea lions, seals and walruses, and whales, just to see how they moved and how their physiology made sense [as] creatures that live in the water — that could go on land, but were more comfortable in the water. And that pointed us in a certain direction.”

But while the design elements took many iterations, some