In this arc, I wanted to start getting more into the two main political alliances of the universe. The series has spent a bit of time on the Unified Planets side but nothing really on the Tet’Sali side. So I thought I’d use the Rogue storyline to start introducing that aspect. So here you finally get a look at the Tet’Sali Triangle formed by the three planets that make up the Tet’Sali League.
As I mentioned previously, this story arc introduces a number of new characters. With this Rogue crew, I deliberately wanted to introduce them slowly, to make it a little easier to digest. In Chapter 1, we met Hiura and Maeki. Here we get Brinn. More on her in the next post.
Speaking of Maeki, you might notice that she now has pupils. I kept waffling back and forth on whether she should have them or not. On the Chapter 1 cover, I drew her with them. In the Chapter 1 and 2 pages, I did not. Ultimately, I decided to give her pupils so that she AND Hiura didn’t have the same blank white eyes. While I like that look, I don’t want to overuse it. Plus, pupils make it much easier to have characters glance to the side or do other minor “eye acting” things. I did go back and add pupils to all her pages thus far, but I didn’t bother re-uploading her two Chapter 1 pages since it’s such a minor thing. But they’ll be fixed in the print version.
While I had Cyril Vincent doing the colors for all of Chapter 1, he’s a pretty busy guy with other coloring jobs on his plate, which made me a bit nervous about maintaining a production schedule. So I did a second colorist search which brought me to Wes Hartman, who I brought on as a second colorist. Wes did this sequence and I am really happy with it. Working with two colorists, there is a tiny bit of work in making sure the finished pages all look cohesive, but I don’t anticipate any issues. I think the cel-shaded style lends itself to better matching by nature than a more rendered or painted look. Luckily, I am very happy with both of their work, so hopefully I can keep both of them busy with lots of RUNNERS pages!
I hadn’t noticed the difference in eyes. So many different aliens passing by, blank eyes might unconsciously have been made the norm in my mind.
That last sentence makes me wonder if bounty hunters are aware that the cargo is a person. Makes me think of the conversation between Roka and Bocce about questionable goods. So maybe they know, but calling Sky cargo makes the job easier.
With the last sentence, the idea was that the bounty was on the cargo, which the Brimia was transporting. But enough time has passed that the cargo would’ve reached its destination by now and no longer be associated with the Brimia. Which is not to say they DON’T know what it is.
You could say that Maeki’s pupils have a special geometry. So they are always there, but in certain lighting, they visually disappear. Maybe they are a dome over a cell of milky fluid full of symbiotic microbes that react to incoming light by emitting chemicals that she perceives as vision.
Though Brinn is looking like she’s got a symbiotic microbe lite brite eyeballs theme already…
Space Oprah rushes in: “You get eye microbes! And you get eye microbes! Everybody gets eye microbes! WAAAAAAAHHHH!” 😀
Ha ha. Yes, that is the answer! From different angles, the pupils are visible or not visible. Now I have an excuse for not drawing them when I’m feeling super lazy and cannot be bothered with 2 extra circles!