Werewolves almost didn’t make it into Skyrim—they were on the chopping block due to a disastrous initial design. However, senior character artist Dennis Mejillones found a way to save the mythical creatures behind Todd Howard's back.
In an interview with Kiwi Talkz, Mejillones revealed that the first version of the werewolf resembled little more than a human with a dog’s face. Bethesda disliked the design so much that they considered cutting werewolves entirely from the game.
It was bad. I mean, it was really bad, and a lot of people were like, 'Oh man, this is bad.' Just a head of a dog on a person, on a human body, with human hands and everything.
Unwilling to let the werewolves be scrapped, Mejillones teamed up with animator Jeremy Bryant. Together, they worked on a new design in secret, pulling several sleepless nights. When they were ready, they presented the updated version directly to Todd Howard.
We literally just started the game up, gave him the controller, gave him a few instructions on the werewolf. He looked at it, and he was like, 'This is fucking awesome.'