OLD SENTINELS ART TO SHARE

I said a few days ago that I've been trying to clean up and have come across some old art that Luciano had done that I'd thought I'd share. During the course of working on SENTINELS, Luciano was always throwing new ideas at me and doodling sketches. I always loved seeing them and whether they made it into the book or not, they were always great. This pic is of Jesse as he appeared in SENTINELS Book 2: Masks. I'm not sure why we didn't include it in the gallery on the SENTINELS website, but here it is now.

Jesse was originally created as pretty much a throw-away character. I needed someone to get Harlette and Sin to Lady Nimue's house in Book 2 and that was his main purpose. But something clicked with Jesee and I really liked his smartass personality. I worked it into Lady Nimue's story that Jesse would be her son and that was pretty much it. When Lady Nimue's story was resolved, I had no more plans for Jesse.

Then we started working on Book 3: Echoes. The plan there was always for the jewel that Electron stole from Damien in Book 1 to cause chaos in NYC and for Gospel to reappear trying to re-gather it. And up until midway through working on Book 3, there was an entirely new character who was giving the teens pieces of the jewel. But something seemed off and I didn't like the new character. He felt forced and out of place. Then it hit me, I still had Jesse floating around out there! In what worked perfectly, we changed this new character for Jesse and that enabled us to tell more about the spirits that Lady Nimue was controlling.

Finally when it came to Book 4: Echoes, I thanked the muses that I had used Jesse in Book 3 because he became a catalyst for Lightbringer. I loved the idea that he ended up with Lightbringer and Prophet and would train as the next generation Templar Knight.

I still think there's a great story to be told with Jesse and his training and hope one day to get a chance to use him again. He's truly one of those characters that wrote themselves.