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I think it probably also has to do with the sort of work AEGIS has him doing. It also doesn’t hurt that Bill originally pitched him as “Dark Link” many years ago and I still have the art he shared for the idea tucked into my references folder.
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Because many of my characters have significant names along multiple dimensions, here’s a rundown of where SNOWMAN aka John Black comes from:
- “Dark (whoever)” characters, as mentioned, are usually the evil or at least morally questionable version of a character
- Pearl Jam’s “Black” has been with me for a long time as music, and “I know you’ll be a star
In somebody else’s sky / But why / Why / Why can’t it be / Oh can’t it be mine” is specifically how he feels about Pneuma (and now by extension Aria & Summer, though he’s still working on that) - “John Doe” is a name for an anonymous person. Like Summer, SNOWMAN isn’t supposed to exist. He’s the definition of a character who should not exist, actually. And like Summer, he doesn’t know what his role in life should be so he’s rolling with this spy shit for now.
- SNOWMAN itself was the code name for the operation to retrieve Rossum. Like a lot of military project names, it sounds random. A snowman is a thing you build that looks like a person but isn’t, and will be gone soon.
- There’s the 1988 “Jack Frost” movie, where Michael Keaton dies and wakes up in the body of a snowman.
- Buuuut there’s also “The Falcon and the Snowman”, a 1985 spy drama about some young guys who got in over their heads.
- Conveniently for me, there’s also “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”, and SNOWMAN definitely occupies the Winter Soldier slot, so I can draw parallels there. Not anticipated when I wrote the character, but there we are!
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I don’t have a neat visual reference for Senior Commander Saito, but if you want to know what he’s all about, jam these two dudes together.
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I’ve taken a stab at Saito and other Atlanteans, but its definitely been a stretch. Will probably get something together soon.
In the meantime, I had some free time this morning and wanted to sketch out what “Shadow Shields, up!” might look like. 
Had the wings in the sketch but forgot them when I went to add effects. Might go back and add them in later, but this was just supposed to be a quick sketch and it’s already gotten out of hand.
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Been inspired to do some artwork for of the key focuses in the latest Phase Two stories.
First up the Chin Spiderbot.
So there were a lot of ways I could handle this. The original inspiration is fairly basic, but iconic in its shape. I didn’t want to do just a straight copy of it though, so I made some choices on its function.
The spiderbot seems like it has a dual role in Chin’s operation: a covert spy and a hunter-killer drone. This could be handled with two models, but I decided to go for something simple. The basic design is such that a spiderbot could find a secluded place, grip the ends of its legs into a surface (like a wall or ceiling) and then retract its legs in to become just become an unsightly bump in the background (even more so if it has some limited color changing capabilities).
In its hunter-killer mode, it’s all about mobility and intimidation. As the title of the story goes, there’s a lot of people with arachnophobia, and having a big robot spider with equipped with some small arms fire capabilities is probably going to increase that. The triangular “eye” is its targeting sensor for some sort of internal firearm mounted in the center of the triangle (I didn’t include detail for this since it was mostly a hasty sketch and I didn’t want that to detract from the overall design). I could see that eye moving the full area of the dome body, tracking it’s targets. I also means the spider could become an impromptu mounted turret in its “blister” mode.
Could do another pass if there’s any major feedback, but I see this being pretty functional design for the story needs.
Now for the Atlantean Blood.
This one I’m a bit more iffy on. I feel like they should be fairly alien in appearance, but not to the point that they could not act as infiltrators (though under some concealing clothing like Ninjess uses).
I’m also of two minds when it comes to their clothing. On one hand, wearing constrictive clothing underwater inhibits the ability to swim and anything that isn’t skin tight will likely cling to the skin anyway as soon as someone leaves the water. On the other, cool outfits are cool and comics can sometimes sketch believability for something that looks good.
For now, consider this a work in progress on both those fronts. Part of me wants to have the Atlantean to have a purple/blue color scheme, but like real squids I imagine they might have some minor color change abilities (Was this already a part of the story? Another excuse to read it again. 
) but whether this is controlled (like a chameleon) or uncontrolled (like blushing) is another matter.
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Let’s say that their outfits can become skintight underwater, shrinking almost instantly, and then loosen for air-wear. They have advanced biotech, no reason why their clothing has to be functionless fabric.
They do, and it’s normally unconscious but they can train themselves to use it consciously and deliberately. This is something the ninja corps definitely learn.
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I think you really nailed it. They also have a holographic projection mode for concealment, but we haven’t seen that in action (on screen).
Works. Simple, evocative, but different enough to be unique.
Which in turn (from the turret perspective) makes me think of a larger (and cruder) version, the Lexcorp/Waynetech bots from “Worlds Finest”.
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Created with Blender. I used Metaballs to make the station, the Inkwood shader to texture it, a nebula HDRI off Shutterstock for the background, and some basic geometry and Realtime Materials plugins to make the Vanguard.
Update: V2
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I took the hexagonal shape from Mike’s drawing and thought, what would Jordan’s shadow shield look like when it actually got hit? Here’s a way to visualize what happens, as the shield represents how much capacity it has, and how fast it recharges.
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Since there’s been a bit of activity with the Phase Two Jason Quill stories and, having re-read them to find context for Dave’s comments, I was reminded just how much I liked them. With that, I figured I would take a little time and do some experimentation in that wheelhouse.
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Well, that’s certainly intriguing!
With the Concordance Coordinators turning up a few times throughout Phase Two, I figured it was worthwhile to see if I could put together a look for them.
A couple details I tried to get across:
- I see them as very old, having long bonded fully with their shards. While most likely some alien species, I wanted them to appear more distant than just giving them an alien shape would and instead made sure they didn’t have any facial features to betray their thoughts. Additionally, they’ve gone all energy being.
- Their astrolabe/halos were described as being used a tools, like control panels for the Schema, so I decided to make them look a bit more complex than the ones I did for Concord or the Trio. In fact, if I were to include them in any actual artwork, I’d probably have them made up of several overlapping rings and probably much larger than shown here, like 50% of the Coordinator’s height.
- Rather than a uniform, I went for more of a robe-like cloak to seem more high-and-mighty than Agents like Adam and the Trio.
Most likely not the final look, but definitely a good first pass on the design.
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Well now we’ve got Rossum-type robots, which implies that they are visually distinct. Wonder what those might look like? 
So I’m thinking something simplistic, easily mass-manufactured (hence why Rook when to him). But simple doesn’t mean it isn’t brilliant (in fact, from my experience, simplicity tends to be one of the most difficult things to achieve).
What I think most denotes a robot as a Rossum-type is the face. I took some cues from both the robot Peacekeeper from the 2009 Astro Boy movie, as well as Ivo’s Android (Amazo, not that he’s ever called that in the show) from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Very inhuman and feature-less, which fits with how Rossum sees his creations.
As for Rossum himself, this is a clean-up of an earlier design for him, mostly based Rossom’s inspiration: Dr. Tenma. The one thing I added for my own amusement is the sneakers with the suit. While watching the Librarians TV show, I noticed that the character of Flynn Carson always wears a pair of Converse sneakers despite almost always wearing a three-piece suit, and it just stuck with me as fun detail. Perhaps Rossum knows the next “run for your life” situation is never too far away and wears appropriate footwear. Who could say?
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This all looks fantastic!
Which also makes them very brandable, since his main gig was selling creations to other villains for their schemes.
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While Bill’s graphic is more in keeping viz suit-wearing …
Since it looks like I’m going to have to deal with at least one Atlantean on a regular basis going forward, I figure it’s worth while to take a second pass at my concept for Atlantean Blood.
I’m uncertain which I like more, the tentacle placement of my first concept or this one. What I do like the coloration on this one.
Open to commentary on this more than normal because I know it’s something I don’t feel 100% confident on. A lot of that is due to every time I push the design to more “alien” I take a half step back toward human and I feel like it’s making the design less than it could be, but that could also be perfect for these half-human, generically engineered people.
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So here’s the deep dive into the Atlantean Blood as characters. Some or all of this might either be obvious, or a repeat of stuff I’ve said before, but too bad.
- They’re definitely inspired by HP Lovecraft’s Deep Ones. They look like half-human hybrids that under many circumstances would awaken feelings of fear and disgust in ordinary surface people.
- They’ve been engineered for utility, and won’t blend in. Atlanteans have other options if they need infiltrators that can pass on the surface world. The ninja corps’ strategy for infiltration is “never be seen”.
- At the same time, they’re an oppressed underclass among their own people, serving their immortal masters’ long-term goals.
- First and foremost, they must be amphibious, able to function in both air and water. The fins and webbing and etc. serve that goal well.
- Second, they must be humanoid enough to use human tools and weapons. The surface dwellers have created a lot of neat things. Again, nailed it.
- Third, if you asked a human biologist about this kind of hybrid, they’d probably laugh you out of the room. Their creation is a delicate balancing act of genetic-engineering genius, so they will be a compromise in many ways.
- Through the magic of genetics, some of their practical engineering might have unintended or weird side effects, like strange markings, tentacle placement, or whatever, so feel free to go wild there. Individual Blood can be extremely individual-looking, with the slider bar for “human” vs. “cephalopod” anywhere on the scale.
Overall we want the Blood to evoke both horror and sympathy, depending on whether they’re friends or enemies. We should clearly see the familiar, framed by the alien.
Some random images that might be relevant?
Probably a decent middle ground.
Probably as far as the Blood are pushed toward squidhood, biologically.
If your design gets this far toward human, you’ve gone too far.
Pretty good!
Also pretty good! It’s neat how they have an essentially human face but then a ton of little details that say “hey, nope, look again”.