Schwartz wrote Bails on January 6 saying he had already been planning a new version of the Atom, in the vein of National's reimagined Golden Age superheroes the Flash and Green Lantern, and had already asked artist Gil Kane to sketch designs. Kane, unaware of Bails' suggestions, said he did "a series of drawings" on large illustration boards, including a depiction of the new Atom riding a German shepherd dog and another of a pistol firing at the Atom, who wore the costume he eventually would in his comic debut but without a belt. Kane, who lived in Jericho, New York, on Long Island, at the time, drove to the nearby Hicksville home of DC production person Tom Nicolosi, who colored the drawings using St. Martin's dyes. Schwartz, after seeing the drawings, had the belt added, a detail Kane said he disliked since "it broke up the costume lines." Schwartz said he had not wanted to reuse the Golden Age Atom, Al Pratt, and had read about dwarf stars and thought a fragment of one could power the new hero's miniaturization. He added that he and Fox together plotted the early stories of this new Silver Age Atom. Fox said in 1979, "I doubt that any feedback from Bails or Thomas had very much of an influence, though always kept their ideas in the back of our minds."