Characters: First Glimpse

When musing on Ecclesiastes I think, "These reflections are weak; exquisite dialog will beef up the plot."

When editing dialog I think, "These word balloons are weak; exquisite characters will beef up the story."

When creating characters I think, "These talking heads are boring; an exquisite narrative arc will beef up the plot."

When shaping the plot I think, "This plot is weak; exquisite model sheets will beef up the message."

When drawing model sheets I think, "These black and white drawings are weak; exquisite penciling, inking, and coloring will beef up the drawings."

On and on the chase goes. I aspire to exquisite-ness (new word) yet exquisite-ness eludes me at every turn. It's like jacking up a car four corners at a time; I'm running around shoring up sagging aspects of this work in progress in a semi-hallucinatory frenzy. It's not one big project, it's ten million little projects. The exquisite product "in my head" is light years beyond what is actually being produced which is decidedly un-exquisite (another new word). And yet I keep hoping all the pieces will coalesce, fall together, merge seemlessly into one glorious finale (when mixed metaphors flow like Niagara I'm in a creative rant mode).

Here's the first un-exquisite glimpse of who we're dealing with in Ecclesiastes University in order of appearance. I apologize for the poor scanning job; eagerness to post before leaving for work necessitated haste/waste. CS Lewis said, "Half a loaf is better than no bread." I say, "A hasty scan is better than no scan."

One further observation: the alien son looks nothing like his alien father. How do I explain this?  Choose one:

A. The son is adopted.

B.  In their alien universe achieving enlightenment (as the alien dad has done) results in an evolutionary casting off of vestigial mechanical accouterments: hoses, wheels, goggles, etc.

C. There's a dad lookalike inside all those mechanical accouterments. The son is just decked out in the youthful fashions of on his planet.

D. I am lazy and don't want to draw two Steam Punk aliens inside the space ship. 

E. The world views of both aliens is so different I didn't want to confuse readers by drawing them similarly. Their disparate appearances is symbolic of their disparate means to galactic unity: technology vs. metaphysics. 

And a final question: what's up with Karenoia's lack of chin? She's an adaptation of this old caricature: