SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: LUCIANO VECCHIO

On this last day of 2015, after posting so many spotlights (which I’m sure some people might be sick of, lol), I post the final creator spotlight for the second SENTINELS Anthology! Last up, but never least, SENTINELS co-creator and always inspiring artist, Luciano Vecchio gets his due!

Anyone who has followed Drumfish Productions over the years or knows me, knows of my admiration for Luciano. Sometimes you meet people that you immediately click with and who will be important in your life. And for me, Luciano is one of those people. Without him, I honestly don’t know if there would have ever been a SENTINELS series. But even more than that, over the years we have become great friends and I consider myself lucky to know him.

Since completing SENTINELS, Luciano has gone on to do so many amazing things! He’s worked on projects all over the world and for companies big and small. He’s become a role model for others and inspired many artists with his work. Currently, he’s working on projects for both Marvel and DC Comics and continuing to write and draw his own webcomic, SERENO! www.totemcomics-sereno.blogspot.com.ar

Ever since we finished SENTINELS and created the third generation of the team, we wanted to do something with them. We had many ideas and dreams about what would come next. But, with both of our busy schedules, we just couldn’t find the time to work on anything. 

Then we decided to work on a colorized version of SENTINELS. There was a demand for it and we both thought it was a good idea and easy to work on. It would give us both the opportunity to change or correct little things within the original series that we thought we could do better and it wouldn’t take much time away from our other projects. Or so we thought, lol. Because, Luciano, being the crazy man he is, brought up the third gen again and had a vision of them as adults. Those first sketches inspired us to change all of our ideas on the second SENTINELS Anthology and create a story that would satisfy us as well as fans of the series.

Without giving too much away, Luciano plotted out his idea for the third-generation SENTINELS and presented it to me. The story resolves one loose end to the original series that allowed us to tell a tale that encompasses every generation of SENTINELS teams!  I think it’s the perfect ending to everything we’ve done with the series and leaves the third-generation in a place where, if we ever wanted to, we could do something with them one day that would allow them to have their own stories not dependent on the previous generations.

Even with all the work he has on his plate, Luciano still found time to do all of the layouts for the third-generation story as well as the final art on four pages in the book. Two of those pages are a double-page spread with a bunch of surprise characters for fans of all of Drumfish’s titles! And I can’t forget that Luciano also wrote Clockstopper/SoulKnight’s story for the Anthology!  Whew! The man is a machine!

Working with Luciano one more time has been a great experience and I’m ever thankful to him for helping make this book a reality! I’m fortunate to work with so many talented artists and I can only hope and wish them all the same success that Luciano is seeing now. Bravo, Luciano!

www.lucianovecchio.tumblr.com

SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: JAMIE FAY

Anyone who follows Drumfish Productions or sees us at conventions, knows Jamie Fay and his amazing work! Jamie is the artist and co-creator of NEVERMINDS, helps with all of Drumfish’s promo ads and art and is one of the few creators who contributed to both SENTINELS Anthologies. In fact, Jamie’s first printed sequential work was in the first SENTINELS Anthology where he did the art for Firebomb’s story.

As I mentioned in my last spotlight, the second SENTINELS Anthology wouldn’t exist without Jamie, Ihor Loboda and Luciano Vecchio. These guys really went above and beyond to complete the book. Jamie drew the main part of the big third-generation SENTINELS story and did an incredible job. It was important to have an artist who could work off of Luciano’s layouts as well as make the story their own. Jamie had a lot of input to the final designs of the third-gen team and created a hybrid look that showcase his work as well as stayed true to Luciano’s ideas. Jamie took each character and made their looks unique and exciting!

Jamie also makes his writing debut within the Anthology with his story for Gospel. Drawn by Stephane De Caneva and colored by NEVERMINDS colorist, Danielle Alexis St. Pierre. It’s a great story that fits perfectly between SENTINELS Book 1: Footsteps and Book 3: Echoes and reveals what happened to Gospel while she served as ruler of Hell. The story seemed to flow very naturally for Jamie and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon, he does more writing and perhaps even writes and draws his own story!

As if all of that wasn’t enough, Jamie also drew the front cover and designed the credit pages within the second SENTINELS Anthology. This created a consistent and professional look for the book that is striking and can’t be denied.  

By now, you all know what kept Jamie from working on NEVERMINDS for so long. But, he’s jumping back into the series soon and I’m looking forward to seeing him complete the first story arc! I’m also excited to see what new prints and art he creates. His recent Marvel pinups of Agents and Shield and Agent Carter have gotten him a lot of attention and even been shared and re-tweeted by some of the cast members. So, if you haven’t seen them and/or want to see more of Jamie’s art, check out his DeviantArt page at www.jamiefayx.deviantart.com

I predicted long ago that SENTINELS artist, Luciano Vecchio would one day be working with one of the big comic companies and I’ve had the pleasure to see that vision come true. The same can be predicted about Jamie Fay. Mark my words, one day he will be working for the big guys and I would place money on him drawing one of the X-Men books (or maybe Captain Marvel!).

SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: IHOR LOBODA

The final three spotlights for the second SENTINELS Anthology are the three creators who contributed the most to the book and who I couldn't have finished the book without. First up is the amazing, Ihor Loboda!
When we decided to do a large story focusing on the third-generation SENTINELS and once we knew that Jamie Fay would do the art based on Luciano Vecchio’s layouts, we needed to have an amazing colorist on the story.  So, we launched a search! Jamie set up some excellent colorists to audition and we were immediately drawn to Ihor Loboda’s samples for this project.
Working with Ihor has been an incredible experience! I had no idea when we started what a huge role he would take with Drumfish Productions and how he would work on some many projects! But seeing his work, it should be no surprise. He’s a talented guy and it all started with him coloring the second SENTINELS Anthology!

Ihor and Jamie really clicked and truly make the third-generation SENTINELS come to life. They also made them their own characters. From Elena’s attitude to Simon’s determination to BoBo’s still innocent demeanor, they portray the team perfectly and own them all! I loved seeing each colored page as it was sent to us from Ihor. It was a great experience watching the pages become completed. They were full of extreme detail and rendering and are really works of art.

As delays prevented us from finishing the story and we didn’t have pages for Ihor to color, another opportunity came up. Ihor took over coloring the original SENTINELS series for our digital releases of the re-worked and colorized version! And things didn’t stop there, lol. Then we needed a artist for Boiler’s story for the Anthology. Once again, Ihor stepped up and did the art for that. And still later, Ihor jumped in to help us complete the remaining five pages of the main third-generation SENTINELS story and he did all of the art for those too! Whew! What I should say is basically; Ihor was working on everything SENTINELS for a while!

During all of this, I had the pleasure of seeing Ihor's style develop.  He also did a colored a number of my Panel Prints for me and agreed to be the colorist for my webcomic, KOWA. He’s one of the hardest workers I know in the indie comic scene and I know a lot of people! He brings an amazing amount of detail and energy to everything he does and he can immediately set the mood for every scene he colors perfectly.

I know it’s only a matter of time until Ihor is working for a big name company, becomes well known in the comic industry and is making tons of money! I’m very happy that he worked on this book with us and look forward to the next two projects that we’re working on together (more info on that soon!). Please check out more of Ihor’s work at www.igloinor.deviantart.com

SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: DANY MORALES

As I mentioned in the previous spotlight, the big story in the 2^nd SENTINELS Anthology focuses on the 3^rd gen team as adults. But within the story, we have every generation of the SENTINELS teams in there and since we wanted the stories for the 1^st and 2^nd generation to each look different and be separate from the main 3^rd gen story, I did the finished art over Luciano Vecchio’s layouts. But what really helps make each team’s story look so unique is the coloring on them. Dany Morales did the coloring for the 2^nd generation SENTINELS and he knocked it out of the park! 

I’ve been fortunate to work with Dany many times over the past years when he colored a lot of my earliest Panel Prints. I love Dany’s style and think it has a very classic feel to it. Readers of SENTINELS are mostly familiar with the second generation of the team because they were the focus of the epic saga. So, it was important to spotlight them in a new and fresh way. Since the series was originally printed in black and white, this is the first time we’ve seen the main team together in print and in color. Luckily, doing the digital colored versions gave us a lot of reference to work with. And an added bonus, in this part of the story, we get to see James (Switchfast) in his one and only superhero costume and reveal his other superhero name that was only used once. Dany’s coloring really makes the story shine and especially James’s character. I don’t wanted to spoil too much of the story, but there’s something in this part that I think many fans wanting to learn since we first published SENTINELS.

Since working on this story, Dany has gone on to do a lot of amazing work with Zenescope Entertainment and Action Lab Entertainment coloring such titles and covers as Puppet Master, Vampblade and Zombie Tramp! Please check out more of Dany’s work at  www.dany-morales.deviantart.com

SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: MICHAEL BLOECHLE

Within the 2^nd SENTINELS Anthology, we have one huge story with the 3^rd generation SENTINELS as adult heroes. This story focuses on the 3^rd gen team, but it also features every generation of SENTINELS teams. We wanted to do a story that really served as something special to all of the people who had been following us for years. When it came time to spotlight the 1^st and 2^nd generations of the team, I did the finished art off of Luciano Vecchio’s layouts, but we also wanted the different generation parts of the story to feel unique and have a distinct quality to them. For the 1^st generation team, I knew Michael Bloechle would be the perfect colorist to help us achieve that goal! 

Michael (Micha) is an amazing artist from Germany, who entered our 4^th Drumfish Art Contest over on DeviantArt. Michael won third place with his rendition of Stitch all grown up. I remember being truly impressed with the way he colored his work. It was so painterly! I loved it. A few months later, Michael surprised us with a portrait of Firebomb that has to be seen to believe. It was so beautiful! It was so realistic that you could see freckles on her skin in the picture.

Now, I had already known that I wanted to work with Michael one day, but this picture solidified it! Micahel agreed to color the 1^st generation part of the SENTINELS story and I couldn’t be happier with the results. There’s a feeling of time and place with the way he colored the story. It separates itself perfectly from the other stories and stands on it’s own. It also makes my linework look so much better after I destroyed Luciano’s sketches!

Please check out Michael’s work at www.micha-vom-wald.deviantart.com

SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY #2 SPOTLIGHT ON: PATRICIO OLIVER

Patricio (Pato) Oliver is the artist on ClockStopper's story for the 2nd SENTINELS Anthology!

What can I say about Pato???

Let me rephrase that...What can I say about Pato publicly that won't get me in trouble or offend anyone reading this, lol.

I met Patricio when he came to visit NYC in 2014. Luciano Vecchio was attending NYCC with me and had asked if I had room to host his friend. Of course I said yes. Little did I know that I was letting the devil into my home. Honestly, Pato is an evil force of nature! He's wickedly talented, insanely funny and rotten to the core. Naturally, we hit it off immediately and became instant friends, lol.

I love Pato's artwork! His style is very energetic and graphic. His character designs are original and thought-provoking. And he uses color very boldly to express emotion in his work. This all made him the perfect choice to illustrate Luciano's story for Simon (Clockstopper). It's an important part of the Anthology and is the final time we see the 3rd generation SENTINELS as children. This story leads right into the longer story with them as adults and also serves to show some of the changes within Simon and reveal his new superhero name.

How then could I intrust such an important character to the Sith Lord known as Pato? That's easy, I became his apprentice and he forced me to. :P

Seriously though, I'm very proud to have had Patricio involved in the 2nd SENTINELS Anthology and I think everyone will agree once they see his work.

Please check out more of Patricio's artwork at www.patriciooliver.com.ar He has tons of all ages work there, art from his amazing story "The Book of Tenebrae" (of which figurine have been made of!!) and his Game of Thrones art is not to be missed!