Davalos was an interesting character to create. His appearance was originally inspired by some concept art I came across on Pinterest, and the image immediately gave me the idea of a fearsome pirate who had somehow become part man and part machine.
 

Originally, he was simply a notorious pirate in his heyday. As the character developed, however, I imagined him becoming a heavily mechanized pirate and eventually one of the guards stationed at El Fuerte de la Tempestad, or the Fury of the Storm fortress, in New Cumana.
 

I was initially uncertain about introducing cyborgs into the world of Sky Pirates. The story already had plenty of steampunk technology, airships, pirates, and unusual inventions, and I wasn't sure whether adding part-human, part-machine characters would fit. But the more I thought about Clara Asheton, the more I realized that Davalos served an important purpose.
 

Clara is an officer in a world dominated by men, and she needed someone she could trust completely. I wanted her to have a protector who was physically imposing, fiercely loyal, and unlike anyone else aboard her ship. That led me back to the strange and exotic figure from the concept art that had inspired me in the first place.
 

And so Davalos was born.

What began as an unusual visual idea eventually became a character with an important place in Clara's story. He wasn't created simply because I wanted to put a cyborg pirate into Sky Pirates. He was created because Clara needed Davalos.