I’m not sure why I felt compelled to include the line about the life pod, but it just felt right. The life pods factored into a lot of key moments back in Volume 1: using them as projectiles against pursuing mercenaries, having to buy a new one at Oniaka City Station and haggling over the price, and using a pod to force the station hatch to stay open so they could make their escape. So I thought it would be nice to have Ril negotiate to keep the life pod, since they’re also not cheap to replace!
As a side note, I did design an entire outfit for Niska when I was designing the other Tedeskians. I knew he would be showing up here, but had I known it would just be his head, I guess I could’ve skipped the time spent on the costume. Grrrr.
If this chapter gets it’s own title, it should be Strengths of Character. Love it!
Although, that would be a spoiler.
Niska’s outfit and other things left on the cutting room floor are welcome items for a separate post.
Hmmm. Yeah, I kinda miss having some random behind-the-scenes posts here on RunnersUniverse. Once I started my Patreon, I moved all my sketchbook posts and commentary there, as well as art process stuff. So there is a LOT of content there, including an upcoming one on Niska’s costume. But it might be nice to have the occasional post here covering that sort of thing. We shall see!
I like the crow’s feet and how the monitor lighting makes shadows on Ril, it makes him look all the more aged, tired, and haggard from this experience.
And as for Niska’s costume, I take it as implication that he’s just wearing a cashmere, purple turtleneck. He’s actually a real estate agent on a very liberal planet with no fire management and everything is ten times as many credits while you’re stepping over seventeen crush-heads to get into your 24,000 credit per cycle micro-apartment.