Shvaughn Erin by W.C. Carani

This piece was for sale on CAF for the longest time, and I'm ever so glad to have finally had the chance to add it to my collection! What's very interesting is that it was listed with a title something along the lines of "Laurel Gand? by W.C. Carani". I don't blame the seller one bit for not being certain, since this character isn't a Legionnaire in the traditional sense, and is instead a semi-obscure supporting character. I remember staring at this piece for a good while, knowing it wasn't Laurel and trying to place why she seemed so familiar... and then I saw the shape of the patch on her arm, and I knew! It's officer Shvaughn Erin, Science Police liaison to the Legion!

What's really cool is that this piece is drawn by Cory Carani, who was Jeff Moy's inker for nearly every issue of Legionnaires that he drew. I absolutely love that this piece gives us a look at how Cory himself would draw a Legion character, and this piece being from 1998 means that he and Jeff were at the peak of their Legion-y talents, since they'd been working together on the book for nearly five years. You can absolutely see some similarities to Jeff's artstyle in Cory's work here, which I imagine is inevitable when an inker inks over someone's pencils for so long, but I also find that Cory's style has a unique charm all its own, particularly in the longer face and the fuller eyelashes and lips. If you look very closely, you can see that Cory also used the technique of doing his rough sketch in a light blue pencil. I love the various types of shading he used, from very stark to very faint, especially for the contours and folds of her uniform, and I also love the volume and bounce he gave to her hair!

I have a casual collecting goal of trying to obtain a large piece (not a sketch card) of every Legionnaire and every Legion supporting character, so this pickup is particularly exciting for me, since I didn't have a piece featuring Shvaughn, yet! She's my favourite Legion supporting character by far, and it's doubly exciting to have the piece be drawn by one of the artists who helped define her look for the Reboot Legion era.