I'm very excited to finally be able to share this piece (it took me a while to get a good scan!). This is the first piece I ever commissioned, all the way back in January of 2022! Even the story of how I came to commission it is a neat coincidence. I was first introduced to Craig's work when a Saturn Girl piece he'd done was posted to eBay. I was so fascinated by the method he used that I searched out more of his work, and found out some other avid Legion collector had gotten several dozen pieces from him. From that point on, I knew I wanted to commission some Legionnaires myself, but I was much less involved in the OA world back then and had no idea how I'd pull it off. This was back in the days before I regularly checked the CAF Roundup email, which is important to note, because on the singular day I decided to open one of the roundup emails and skim through it, it contained an announcement that Craig Rousseau was accepting commissions. I figured that was a pretty good sign that I should jump on the opportunity, and here we are!
Craig is a longtime artist who's got a real knack for drawing art in the styles of various animated shows. He did a little bit of art for the Legion cartoon, which means he can draw characters pretty close to how they appear on the screen. With that in mind, I don't think anyone will be surprised to see that I asked for my favourite version of my favourite character ever, Brainiac 5 (with his Season 1 design).
This specific kind of commission is my favourite kind that Craig does. He takes coloured Canson paper and then colours over it with inks and pencil crayons, leaving some spaces blank so that the colour of the paper beneath becomes part of the art. The paper also gives the whole illustration a colourful, vibrant undertone, and I find Craig leans into that vibe even further with the huge array of coloured pencils he uses! Even something as simple as Brainy's belt has four colours in it, and five if you count the empty spaces that let the purple paper come through. I love the funky teal colour Craig chose to do the deepest shading, and how he used a purple slightly lighter than the paper to do the highlights on Brainy's costume. I think it could be really easy for an artist to "phone it in" when doing a piece like this, but Craig is always so careful and precise with how and where he puts colours, and it makes his work some of my favourite in my entire collection. It's also worth noting that he mimicked the style of the cartoon nearly perfectly. The pose is unique, he didn't just trace a screenshot of Brainy, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was based off a specific frame from the cartoon with how well Craig stayed on-model!
I also picked up Craig's pencil prelim for this piece, which is what he traces onto the Canson paper so that he doesn't have to erase any lines and risk lifting up the colour from the paper. I love getting to see how he played with subtle changes in the positions of Brainy's limbs to make sure the pose was just right. Also, while I love Brainy's neutral, maybe pensive expression in the finished piece, I really, really like the smile Craig drew him with in the prelim. I find even that single little change in the length of one line totally changes the tone between the prelim and the finished piece, so it's nice to have the two examples side by side in my portfolio!
All in all, I still fondly remember my first ever commission as a fantastic and exciting experience, which I'm really grateful for because it got me excited to commission more pieces from other artists. I remember feeling almost giddy to have had even a tiny hand in the creation of this piece - obviously nothing to do with the artistic process at all, but the thought that this piece wouldn't exist if I hadn't asked for it felt very significant to me at the time, as a new art fan who was just starting to build her collection. I've gotten many more pieces from Craig since, and I've found that that feeling still persists. Even though the Legion cartoon is long over and done with, I love being able to help breathe a little bit of new life into the characters through the art I collect.
Thanks for sharing your first commission story (and piece!). Especially early on, the experience of the commission process itself is just as important (if not even more so!) as the end result - happy to hear you had a positive and satisfied experience on both counts!
" Thanks for sharing your first commission story (and piece!). Especially early on, the experience of the commission process itself is just as important (if not even more so!) as the end result - happy to hear you had a positive and satisfied experience on both counts!
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Thanks, Kavi! It really was such a great experience. Especially for a tiny newbie like me - who was very nervous to reach out to an actual artist for the first time - it was exactly the positive reinforcement I needed to keep going.
It's really neat with those color pencils that have to be controlled when worked in over the textured paper. Just enough so the base can still be there peeking through.
" It's really neat with those color pencils that have to be controlled when worked in over the textured paper. Just enough so the base can still be there peeking through.
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I've seen a few other artists use the same technique, but I find Craig really has it down to an artform. I never get tired of looking at his work!
