You can start at the beginning or go back to part 2!

So even now I'm still learning- I thought the main upload into the Art Portal thing was just for the cover icon as I uploaded the rest of these panels in the commentary. Turns out, no, that's acting as the first of 11 pages, not "The Thumbnail for Ten Pages" so, sorry if part 2 was a little confusing, moving forward. Here we are.

In the panel above, I was sewing intrigue into the complicated circumstances as to why Saen was chosen as Saenipp's host in the first place, but- the mystery unraveling here is we're going to Saenipp's homeworld, where we learn about his alien race.

This was intended to be the format for chapter breaks. "What Do I Enjoy On My Sundae?" and the answer would be thematic to where we are in the story. This is the last gif I made for the comic, and at the point that I made this, I had almost all of the story written out as to how it was going to go. I even formed a Youtube playlist of music that I was using to map out the pace of the action. I remember, at this point Don Felder's "All Of You" from the Heavy Metal soundtrack was playing as we're discovering the alien world.

Color! And I needed a lot of practice with environmental art, BG's were a weakpoint for me, for sure. But because we know him as a nipple alien, of course it's called Areol.

I really hate how I colored and designed Saenipp's nipple eyes here.

This also establishes another weakpoint and plot-point for the whole thing. I was going to eventually kill off Dick Neck by having him bleed out to death in the final act, so this was planting that seed while also establishing a limitation to his Healing Factor and Super Strength.

I fucking loved how that purple alien in the top right of the first panel came out.

So here we have a shot at an alien hospital. And all of them, for the most part, have the same weird tentacle things that Saen has, and no two aliens are alike. That was yet another seed planted that would've been explored later- but here we're introduced to Zroth, who was going to become one of those alien crewmembers mentioned earlier. He's a big hulkin' doctor, and this sheds a little more light on Saenipp's past.

This winds up giving Dick Neck super high blood pressure, which causes him to hulk out and fight Zroth in the clinic. Unlike Saen, this alien that's host to Zroth does have abilities. He's kinda like a fusion of Ben Grimm and Doomsday, so that when he hulks out in super strength, he gets all spikey. That's why I have his head looking as filed down as it is, that's from times in the past where he got all Warmode, and shed the spikes for peacetime.

But this is also driving home the central plot-point that Dick Neck's blood is super important and valuable, thus generating conflict and motivation.

It was around this time that these comic panels were taking longer and longer to make, and around 2013 / 2014, I was going to college and drinking a lot. Burnout was starting to set in, but I was trying to power through it for the comic.

So I dialed back on the color, because I knew I needed to burn through the slow bits so I could get to the exciting bits. This sheds more light on Saenipp's alien race, his history, and establishes that Zroth is an old war-buddy (and that Deputites are war-mongering conquers that seem to collect alien races. Saen has that betrayal moment where he feels like he's just some trophy to complete a collection or something, but he's assured that it's for something deeper.)

Hey! Because the original thread was all about Sundae's! Bringin' it back!

I felt guilty for taking away color, so I brought it back. In sketchbooks around this time, I had this weird biker roach character design that I fucking loved, so I threw him into this comic. Mostly, because I knew I needed to give Saen clothes, but I didn't like how this cape was looking. So I tooled around and designed this semi-armored space biker vest for him. But he needed to get it from somewhere, and that somewhere was going to be in a fight...at the end of a Rocket Bike chase.

I fucking LOVE how this character came out, the colors and design and AUUUGH this is one of my favorite pages I've ever done.

I've always listened to a ton of David Lee Roth era Van Halen, and around this time I had discovered Atomic Punk, so I decided to just straight-up name this bearded Zorak that, and for the entirety of the action sequence, I had boarded out the pace of the action to the tune of the song. This is the page that kicks off the track.

Here's the remainder of what exists for this comic!