Here’s everything you need to know about baby Demogorgons.

If you’ve finished Stranger Things 2, you know that the creatures this season are next-level. So we chatted with Christina and Paul Graff, who headed up visual effects this season, to answer all your burning questions. Here’s the coolest stuff we learned.

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Dart wasn’t designed to look like any specific kind of animal, and the designers had to keep him as ambiguous-looking as possible in his beginning stages of development.

“The job was really to keep Dart an undefinable creature for the first couple of stages. We had to keep it a little bit of a secret about what it was, until it actually started to look more like a Demogorgon. Even the boys didn’t know what it was, and they’d already seen a Demogorgon.” —Christina Graff

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Since he doesn’t have eyes, the designers used Dart’s body language to convey emotion.

“One particular challenge was conveying emotion. Dart doesn’t have a face, and he doesn’t have eyes.” —Paul Graff

Dart is definitely a male — though the designers didn’t discuss how Demogorgon gender works with the Duffers.

“We didn’t talk about gender, but Dart is understood to be a male Demogorgon. That wasn’t ever a topic.” —CG

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Demogorgons go through five developmental cycles before they’re fully grown — and each stage was designed by the same studio that designed the original Demogorgon last season, Aaron Sims Creative.

“The Duffers knew they needed four stages for [the] story. In the terminology of Season 2, you have Stages 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the Demogorgon from Season 1 would be Stage 5. If you take the Stage 4 Demodog and put it up on its hind legs, you can see that it’s getting very close to what we’ve seen in Season 1.” —PG

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A Demogorgon’s entire development, from Stage 1 through Stage 5, only lasts “a few days.”

“It’s super fast. Basically, the entire season happens in a few days.” —PG

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The team had funny nicknames for the four stages of the Demogorgon before it reaches full maturation.

“Internally, we had nicknames for them: the first and second we called the Frogogorgon, we called the third stage a Catagorgon, because it’s about the size of a cat, and the fourth we called a Dogogorgon, because he’s about the size of a dog.” —CG

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The Demodogs weren’t based on any specific kind of dog, though the designers did draw inspiration from multiple breeds.

“We knew Stage 4 was the size of a large hound, somewhere between a Shepherd and a Great Dane, and we really liked the skinny design. We had more muscular ones at first, then we got to this creepy, skinny, more Greyhound body shape. That’s what we settled with.” —PG

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The Shadow Monster/Mind Flayer is made of the same particles that float around when Eleven destroys the Demogorgon at the end of Season 1.

“[The Mind Flayer is] made from particles that we take from the end of Season 1, when the Demogorgon dissolves into these black ashy particles. We figured, what if we make something that is somewhere between a giant, spidery monster and a tornado and a thunderstorm?” —PG

The Shadow Monster/Mind Flayer was designed to be of “a particulate nature — like clouds in a storm.” It has tornado-like tendrils that have very special capabilities.

“His arms invoke tornadoes, you saw what happened on the baseball field. The tendrils can cause destruction and also separate properties. They entered into Will’s orifices, they don’t rip him apart.” —CG

“He’s ethereal. It moves and swirls like a tornado, but it’s not just air power, there’s some kind of mind power behind all of it and it has magnetic, electric characteristics.” —PG

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It’s roughly 50 stories tall.

“The Duffers quoted the Shadow Monster as being 50 stories high, so we know it’s a huge thing.” —PG

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And, as we’ve previously discussed, the Shadow Monster/Mind Flayer will definitely be back next season. Sooo, get ready.

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