It’s nice when you have an established look for a character since subsequent outfits can just draw inspiration from that look. That was certainly the case with Bocce, whose snow outfit was heavily derived from the look of his regular outfit.

I think I pretty much covered Bocce’s outfit in the commentary for The Big Snow Job #2, Page 2.

And now we start getting some explanations!

Whenever I can, I try to avoid characters delivering long bits of explanatory exposition since it rarely feels natural. But in this case, I think it works since Goshen would believably be explaining to his captors what he knows about their operation in order to show that he is no fool and is well aware of what they do and why they do it.

I like that while Goshen believes he’s telling Roka’s group things they already know, the actuality is that they don’t already know. So Roka and Ril are learning the true details of the operation at the same time as the readers. I hope it’s clear in the artwork that Ril’s comment is not meant to be snarky towards Goshen. He’s actually legitimately impressed by the creativity of the drug smuggling operation and is commenting to Roka. It’s Goshen who mistakes that for self-congratulatory posturing on Ril’s part.

Early on, I toyed with the idea of Sky having a snow cloak/poncho like everyone else, but eventually I abandoned the idea since her outfit is mostly white anyway, so she didn’t really need the camouflage. I also considered a form-fitting hood but realized the exposed long hair was a bit more feminine, which suited the look of her character more. Plus, long hair is something I can draw blowing to the side to convey windy weather, if need be.

I mentioned in the previous post that I like to use different textures, and that also applied to the fur in the snow outfits, which I wanted to be slightly different between characters. So Sky and Cember have very fine fur in their detailing, while Roka’s hat trim and coat collar are a longer, shaggier fur. For the record, the short fur is much easier to draw. I’m just saying.

Additional notes can be found in the commentary for The Big Snow Job #2, Page 4.

Looks like my table will be A178, so feel free to stop by if you’re there!

The layout of the hut interior was a bit tricky to work with. I wanted the inner ring of columns since Roka and company were going to be tied to them, but those columns definitely made panel compositions more challenging. It was tough at times finding good angles that would clearly show the characters, their spatial relationships with each other, and the layout of the room itself, all without the columns themselves blocking a lot of that visual information. But I think they worked out well in the end and, in some cases, made for nice foreground elements that really enhanced the depth of the panels.

I settled on Ril’s outfit pretty easily (I love when that happens!). Different textures are important to me in terms of adding variety to outfits, so for Ril, I thought a fine vertical ribbed pattern would be a nice way to make his outfit visually different. And, as mentioned earlier, that ribbed look was also derived from his hat, which had already been established in the flashback sequence from Bad Goods.

For Bennesaud, I wanted to give him a little something for this story arc in the form of a belt of pouches. I very briefly considered a bandolier across the torso, but quickly decided that that would be too Chewbacca. I always liked the look of military pouches across the stomach, so that pretty quickly became Bennesaud’s look.

To make Bennesaud’s belt a little more visually interesting (to me, at least), I made the pouches different sizes, so there’s one big pouch on the back, three small ones in the front, and three medium-sized ones on either side. The idea with the really big pouch is that maybe Bennesaud keeps Cember’s snow cloak in there for him since Cember doesn’t have his own bag in this arc. Not really sure the cloak would all fit in there, but that was the intent.

Additional notes for Ril can be found in the commentary for The Big Snow Job #2, Page 1.

Additional notes for Bennesaud can be found in the commentary for The Big Snow Job #2, Page 4.

Just a random detail that I thought of when designing the Ulon Dosi village huts: the rooftops each have a central basin where snow can collect. The stone chimney runs through the basin, and heat from the fireplace melts the snow into drinking water. So each hut generally has its own reservoir of water. I figure there are slots that allow the water to then be channeled down into the hut itself for easy access, which I guess beats climbing up onto the roof every time you’re thirsty.

After having drawn portions of Clem a number of times on different pages, this was one of those panels where I deliberately wanted a full body shot of him so I could use it for character costume reference going forward instead of constantly flipping between different pages.

For Cember’s snow outfit, I did like the idea of the radiating flaps on the bottom (sketch #2) since they seemed reminiscent of his lower body tentacles, but ultimately, the design just felt a bit too busy. The final design feels more streamlined while still being fashionable, as per Cember’s aesthetic.

And here we have the final design for Cember’s snow cloak as well, which ended up being shortened into a half-cloak. More like a poncho, really. Again, that just seemed a bit more fashionable for Cember than a full length cloak like Roka and Ril’s. The blue clasp and puffballs added that last little bit of flair. Because with Cember, it’s all about the flair.

Additional notes can be found in the commentary for The Big Snow Job #2, Page 4.

My first sketches for this cover had the crew tied up and kneeling on the ground surrounded by a bunch of armed Ulon Dosi goat aliens, all pointing their rifle sticks at them. But I realized that imagery was too much like the “Bad Goods” issue #4 cover, which had the crew surrounded by Jondhi police officers, all pointing their weapons at them.

For a little while I thought about doing it anyway. Maybe it would have been a funny running gag to make every story arc issue #4 cover feature the crew being held at gunpoint by someone. But then a flash of inspiration struck and I came up with the idea of having a brick of Crush as the main focal point of the cover instead of the crew.

I really like how this one turned out. It’s a nice and simple mood-setting piece that still features the cast but also spotlights what the real story has been about this whole time. I toyed with the idea of having a couple armed Ulon Dosi guards in the background, but ultimately I decided that the stark simplicity of the crew and the brick would work best.

For comparison, here are some links to pages from the story that feature The Hatchet:

RUNNERS: Bad Goods, Chapter 3, Page 1

RUNNERS: Bad Goods, Chapter 4, Page 7

According to Brandon, he used pieces from the Midi-Scale Millennium Falcon, and I think it came out amazing! It definitely made my day to see one of my ship designs made from LEGOs. Now all I have to do is get him to whip up a Midi-Scale Khoruysa Brimia, with detachable Mosquito, of course.

Additional photos of Brandon Koller’s LEGO Hatchet can be found here.

Many thanks, Brandon, for sharing!

Boom! The big double-cross revealed!

While a lot more gets explained in the upcoming issue, I was psyched to finally get the story to this point. There has been an uneasy feeling the whole time that this run was more than Dhama Hes let on. I wanted the hints to keep compounding over the last two issues, but this was the scene that was really going to drive home to Roka and company that they’ve been lied to and are into something much deeper than they suspected.

As a general note, this is also where the series starts to go in a direction and tone that I planned since the beginning. I always meant for the entire first arc, “Bad Goods,” to be a very fun and light introduction to the Runners universe, kinda like how the first several issues of Bone lightly eased the readers into a much deeper and more complex world. The problem was that people started viewing Runners as an all-ages book, and that label concerned me.

While I don’t currently plan to do any scenes of really graphic violence, language, or sex, I always knew that the series would be dealing with more questionable themes. These are smugglers after all. They don’t make their money transporting yo-yo’s and candy. So with this arc, I wanted to make that direction in tone very apparent and have it deal with drug running.

So is it “all ages?” I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t consider it “all ages” in an Owly way. The standard I use is The Lord of the Rings, which is my biggest inspiration and the personal goal I set for myself in what I’d ideally love to achieve. Plenty of kids read that at a younger age, but it does have a lot of complex themes going on. Along those lines, Bone and Star Wars also have some darker themes, but they’re still considered “all ages.”

So I don’t know. I personally have some issues with telling people that Runners is “all ages” but maybe that’s just me. If any of you have an opinion, feel free to post your comments as I’d love to hear them!