The Dirty Pair's LOVELY ANGEL

From waaaay back circa DIRTY PAIR: SIM HELL (the fourth Dirty Pair miniseries, and the first one I did for Dark Horse Comics), here's the old design sheet for the Lovely Angels' namesake starship, the, uh, LOVELY ANGEL. Looking closely at the image, it appears to be drawn on linen-finish cardstock, which is a less-than-ideal medium for technical drawings... Odd.

The ship's only previous appearance had been in in the first DP miniseries (DIRTY PAIR: BIOHAZARDS); years (and some degrees of artistic improvement) later, I decided to redesign it considerably for SIM HELL. Among various new elements, I added: X-29-style forward swept wings; the pod dealie underneath the ship that would later become the gamma ray laser cannon in FATAL BUT NOT SERIOUS; a two-toned, light/dark value homage to the distinctive design ethos from Ikuto Yamashita's manga DARK WHISPER (a riff which I continue using to this day, as that value scheme still looks great in B&W); and a hammerhead-style prow.

The latter's not actually a Blockade Runner visual reference, I remember THAT much, but rather was a reference to... uh, I can't remember exactly WHAT the heck the "hammerhead look" was homaging. Maybe it was a reference to the actual shark?*

Anyhoo, no particular point to this, other than the fact that my design for the LOVELY ANGEL has come up a few times in random conversations of late. I should say that I've come to think that this version of the ANGEL was way too small; in retrospect, I really should've given 'em a huge and intimidating monstrosity as a namesake ship. (And who knows, I still might do that someday.)


*As opposed to a reference to the shovelhead (or bonnethead) shark, which is the wee, obscure and oft-ignored cousin of the glamorous "rockstar" hammerhead. Far more awesome, though, would have been to base the LOVELY ANGEL's prow on the bizarre snout of the thoroughly demented-looking goblin shark [link] ...