BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Goshen

by on April 7, 2011 at 12:01 am
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I covered a little bit about Goshen’s design on The Big Snow Job #3, Page 22. Most of the sketches were either too drab and not ornamental enough or a bit too busy and fancy. I toyed with the idea of giving him the same hide patchwork as Clem (and Keyla’s cloak), but I thought it might be a bit too busy. And for the same reasons I decided not to give him war beads, I thought the leather armor look of the patchwork wouldn’t fit his character.

Something I did like a lot was the “trenchcoat” look of long, low-hanging cloth in both the front and the back, which gave Goshen a more regal look. It was also important to me to incorporate some element from Keyla’s cloak into Goshen’s design as the original intent was to tie them together visually through some costume details. Originally, it was going to be the hide patchwork, but once I ruled that out, I was just left with the short white fuzzy fur. As it turned out, I think that worked out well, since the fur collar and hanging stoles looked pretty regal as well, without being overly-ornamental. I repeated the stoles on both the front and the back so that Goshen would have the same defining element visible from either angle.

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BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Goshen and Clem

by on March 31, 2011 at 12:01 am
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On this page, I did some sketches to settle on the looks of Goshen and Clem (who went by the name “Clim” in the early stages until I decided to change his name for reasons now forgotten to me). As mentioned on The Big Snow Job #3, Page 22, differentiating features included horn thickness and shape, braid length, and different combinations of beard braids, sideburn braids, and regular braids. With Goshen, I also decided that he’d have the longest braids, the only beard braid in the village, and no war-beads.

On The Big Snow Job #3, Page 13, I mentioned giving Clem a distinctive red tunic and red bands in his facial braids, as well as the layer of hide patchwork. On this page, you’ll also see the quickly abandoned idea of trying to differentiate Clem with an eyepatch.

I made a note to possibly differentiate Clem and Goshen from the other Ulon Dosi by having them with grayer fur or gray stripes, but in the end, I didn’t bother. I think I tried it and it didn’t work too well. And I found the different braid combinations and outfit details were plenty to make them visually different.

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BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Dhama Suul

by on March 24, 2011 at 12:01 am
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With the top sketch, I feel like I found a head design that I liked, so I started playing around with the body. As a mob boss, I wanted him to have an imposing figure, so I went with a big beefy body. I think I loosely had a walrus in mind in terms of overall feel, so that explains the flippers. I didn’t bother spending too much time on the body design since I knew it would be covered up almost entirely in the actual story, what with it being a freezing climate and all.

With the last two designs, I decided to give the character one last go in terms of different looks. I actually like the one on the left as a design, but it’s a bit goofy looking, so not quite the imposing figure I had planned for Suul. With the one on the right, I went back to a previous head sketch, this time with more of the body filled in, and it clicked for me. I think the wide hammerhead shape just made the head so much more distinctive than the one above it. It’s the sort of thing where, if you saw a bunch of different aliens in a lineup, you’d definitely notice him because of the distinctive hammerhead snout. And that’s what I figured his character should be about… someone who stands out in a crowd.

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BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Dhama Suul Head

by on March 17, 2011 at 12:01 am
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More Suul head sketches, again focusing on the sawtooth look. I liked the hammerhead looks of the top two sketches but figured I’d play around more with an alien take on an actual sawfish snout, since I’ve always found the sawfish to be one very cool looking real-life creature.  None of the sketches turned out very well though as they all looked a bit too “deliberately” designed as opposed to something that truly looks natural.

It’s like when I see a costume design that has a ton of horns and spikes and huge sweeping pieces of oversized armor and flowing capes and sashes and various other embellishments on it. It certainly looks cool, but it always feels like something an artist went to town on and had a lot of fun designing but not something really believable and natural as an actual thing.

And besides, those sawfish-snout Suul sketches ended up looking too much like dragons for me.

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BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Dhama Suul Head

by on March 10, 2011 at 12:01 am
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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.

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