Tuesday, December 11, 2007

ANTHOLOGY SPOTLIGHT: LUCIANO AND RICH

For Sin's story in the SENTINELS Anthology, Luciano and I decided to try switching roles. He would be the writer and I would be the artist. For Luciano's part, I had no worries. During the time that we worked on the SENTINELS series, Luciano had grown a lot as an artist and as a storyteller. Along with co-creator and writer, Javier Barrerra Fanego (Templar writer for the Anthology), Luciano had published the graphic novel REAL CLOHE. It was a great story and showed me that Luciano had the ability to tell a story. This wasn't something new to me. Throughout the years we worked on SENTINELS, Luciano had always been my springboard for ideas and would keep me in line as to what truly worked and what didn't. His storytelling is very strong and before we even started on the Anthology, I told Luciano I wanted him to write one of the solo features. What I didn't expect was him telling me that if he wrote it, I would have to draw it. Ahhh!

I have been drawing since I could hold a crayon. I trained at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and got my Bachelors degree in Design and Illustration. But I've never felt totally happy with my skills. So, I was nervous. But Luciano encouraged me to do it, so do or die, I was committed.

When I received Luciano's story for Sin, I was impressed by the depth he put into it and how he really understood Sin's background. He focused on Sin's relgious background, something that always interests me, and it made me decide to try to work in a different medium then usually comic art.

Using watercolors and pastels, I've been trying to work on Sin's story while organizing all the other SENTINELS stories. It hasn't been an easy thing, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I only hope my art matches the strength of Luciano's story. Switching roles has been a fun experiment and I'm curious to see how it turns out!

And yes, this is a combo spotlight. I feel weird spotlighting myself, lol. Also, I had trouble posting art for this, so I had to post the page as gif. It's not the best resolution, but at least the page can be seen now.

2 comments:

Hellstormer said...

Wow Rich, your art looks great, the pastels really enhance it.

Rich B. said...

Thanks, Keefer! The other artists stuff blows mine away though. But I'm glad you like it. :)