BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Dhama Suul Head
As I previously mentioned, I didn’t have the design for Dhama Suul done when I did the art for issues #1-4. But I did have a random line in The Big Snow Job #1, Page 20 where Dhama Hes referred to Suul as a “sawtooth.” So that’s what I had to work with. I’m just glad I hadn’t written some other throwaway line that might have been much harder to work with! “Ah, Suul, that visually magnificent alien with partially invisible features and other attributes that are constantly swirling in an indescribable symphony of color and sound!” So yeah, “sawtooth” was okay.
Anyway, sometimes with alien designs, I start with the entire body, since the overall silhouette and body shape is pretty important to me. Other times, I’ll start with the head since that’s really the most important feature, and then work from there. In this case, with the only defining trait being the “sawtooth” line, I figured it’d make most sense to start with the head.
On this page are some of my very early head doodles, for both Suul and possibly some of his henchmen. With the bottom half of the page, I started playing with different heads that might be considered “sawtooth”-y.
Ah, Suul, that visually magnificent alien with partially invisible features and other attributes that are constantly swirling in an indescribable symphony of color and sound!”
If you went that route, you could have had him a barely discernible entity in an ornate, repulsor-driven, Guild-Navigator-from-Dune-esque containment pod. But maybe that would be better for Dhama Gyoza, who floats in a ponzu sauce mist.