Salvage Hounds: Meet the Captain ⋆ Twilight Tangents

Meet Olivia Singh, the ring leader of the Salvage Hounds and captain of the Mutt.

Born on the Moon to a British Anglo-Saxon mother and Indian Father, Olivia grew up to be a criminal. A thief, actually, and a pretty damn good one, working the near-Earth orbit sphere for easy milk and honey. Back then she tended to run with bad people, and that got her into lots of trouble, the bad kind, just like the people.

Character and costume design for Olivia Singh. Her leather jacket buttons up to a high collar look. Hmmm, does she need to hide her face from the law from time to time?

So she slipped away, to Mars. Rinse and repeat — even worse trouble, even worse people. That’s when she headed farther out, to the mining ops of the asteroid belt. She thought she was going to lay low in the void, but she thought wrong — before long she found herself suckered into a dangerous job, one that went dangerously bad.

Maybe trouble just seems to follow her… How far from Earth would she have to go to get away from it?

Turns out: the very frontier of civilization, the colonies of Jupiter.

Character design turn-around for Olivia Singh. Olivia’s middle name is Chandra, a name given to her because she was born on the Moon. (Chandra means “Shining” / “Moon” in Sanskrit).

Olivia Singh might be her real name, but she’s left a string of aliases in her wake. And a string of corp cops and not-so-nice people looking for her — after all, just because she slipped away to the edge of space doesn’t mean she did it clean. Olivia definitely owes people… the kind who don’t forgive debts, and who know how to hold a grudge…

A few panels from Salvage Hounds. Olivia in her Exo-Pod cockpit — she’s definitely NOT having a good day…

But there’s no place left to run to, nothing farther than Jupiter in manned space — so the corp-controlled frontier is where she’s gonna have to figure out a way to make a living, for better or for worse.

So no more aliases, she’s just Olivia Singh now. She’s got a ship, the Mutt, and a salvaging operation with a crew of fellow ne’er-do-wells, all working together to keep their heads down and walk a straight path as best they can – though Olivia’s version of the straight path seems awfully crooked more often than not.

A panel from Salvage Hounds. Olivia being all cool, hanging out in zero-g in the Mutt’s hangar.

Olivia pilots the Mutt’s Exo-Pod, her command and control craft in the field. This shot also shows how I’m combining 3D renders and traditional drawings for the art in Salvage Hounds.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for introductions to the rest of the Mutt’s crew, as well as some behind-the-scenes features about the making of the art, from roughs to pencils to inks!