Phantom Girl by Gene Gonzales

Here's another pickup from the extraordinary Gene Gonzales!  It's one of my favourite Legionnaires in her very best costume, so adding this one to the collection was a no-brainer.

Here's something really fun about this piece: even though we can all see that Tinya's wearing white, if you look just a little bit closer, there's actually very little white space making up her costume!  Gene went above and beyond with this one, adding in not just some pale blues as a shadow colour, but some soft yellows as the highlights.  It gives so much depth and life to the piece, and I just love that Gene treated this as a chance to have fun with his shading techniques, instead of taking the easier route of leaving her costume mostly white.  On top of that, he really made the silvery, reflective metal of her belt shine, and the detail in her hair - with all that fine linework and the highlights grading from blue to white - is just beautiful.  Gene took one of the visually simplest Legionnaire designs and dialed every bit of it up to 11 in his artistic approach, and that makes this my favourite piece I've ever purchased from him!  Also, I just love the pose he picked for her.  Very airy and graceful. 

I chatted with Gene a bit and he says that Phantom Girl - and this version of her costume - are his all-time favourites out of the entire Legion.  I think that really shows in every facet of this piece, which just makes me love it even more.