Predator - The original design

Before Stan Winston and his team came up with the Predator design that we all know and love there was an abandoned design built at Boss Films Creature Shop by Steve Johnson. Worn by an actor on stilts with arm extension it supported by a harness and wire rig. Hired to wear the suit was Martial arts actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, hired for his agility. The Predators head was designed to be able to turn and flip to almost any angle so he could track his prey and the eyes were based on insects eyes.
For the original test shots they didn't use any overhead support wires, FX shop crew tried out the leg extensions, it was reported that only a few feet of ground could be covered before it became very tiring on the crew members legs, so taking this suit into a Jungle setting was going to be difficult. It was rumored that James Cameron(Terminator, Aliens) was called in as a consultant to look at the footage they'd shot of the creature, his reaction was that it looked like a guy on crutches hobbling through the woods. They decided to rig the suit with wires to support the suit but again in a Jungle environment this was going to prove very impracticable from shot to shot and in the end other people had the final say.

Above is a small maquette of the Predator creature designed by Boss Film FX.

Finally it was said to have been Cameron who recommended Stan Winston for the job, and on a flight with Winston, Cameron was said to have come up with the idea of adding mandibles to the creatures mouth.
Other FX by Boss that were canned included a menagerie of Alien heads in a trophy room onboard the Predator's ship, an idea obviously re used in Predator 2.

Although the creature designed by Boss may have been a more exotic take on the Predator design this creature looks too indigenous to a planet to have the look that it could build a spacecraft and fly around the galaxy. I'm glad they went with the design we ended up seeing but it's interesting to see how much work can go into a project only to be scrapped and probably costing the production a fair few dollars in the process.