MI Stuff- dev file (Patreon)

Haha, so, this is extremely cringey stuff, but it's also my first serious drafting attempt. I guess this could be seen as a gestural sketch in that focuses on emotional impact and direction over draftsmanship or accuracy. Also: it's fucking horrible.

Some editing notes:

• Bex has always been a character that represented hesitant sacrifice, but I didn't settle on exactly what that was until 2016 (this document is from 2013). In this early version she literally sacrificed her life (aging) but in this version, she was also pretty much a voice-only character, which I decided was a horrible idea after traveling down this story route a bit more. I didn't want the entire story to be about a dude saving a girl with a mystical black lady voice giving advice over the radio, which is where it was going. As a sort of internal nod to myself and my shitty ideas, I kept the radio voice elements in the final draft for Chapters 1 and 2, which culminates with Mike sending a distress call that is heard but unanswered. Sort of a little slap in the face to myself (and Mike, haha) as punishment for lazy writing in the first place. 
• There used to be a Nigerian base, which I'd planned to be a brick-domed colony. Using Martian soil as a building material while excavating a crater to use as the base of the dome was a cool hab idea I read about and I thought it'd be a nice visual to drive up and over the edge of a crater to see the dome being constructed and portions of it covered with some temporary clear element, like looking in an ant-hive. But I didn't really have a great reason why the two communities would be separated, especially after doing more research into African space programs; right now the most viable option for countries that don't have access to a lot of capital or tech would be to rent a seat on a flight from a country like the US, China or India or whatever, which led to Bex having a slightly older and different model suit in the comic to acknowledge that she's really working hard to make it happen, compared to Mike who's got a lot more resources and is on his home team's base, so to speak. 
• Kalla in this doc is not the same as Kalla in the comic, the character here was completely scrapped. She was turning more and more into an Angora-like main character, which is nice for The Meek but in a story like this I required something more somber. I like shark-friend Kalla much better.
• Gobero is and has been a big influence on this story, which I will lay here as a dogwhistle for you to pick up on later if you like. I don't think I'll be literally expounding or explaining it in the comic but, there it is I guess.

I feel odd because we're in a semi-humorous bubble in the story right now (thanks Levi) but we're headed outside soon, once I get my mental shit together. I have another post about the organic robots but I'll keep the spam level down for now and save that for tomorrow~