I am a big fan of dedicated-character convention sketchbooks, and last year – the first year I really had enough disposable income to start a proper con sketchbook – I decided to get a couple of dedicated-character sketchbooks going. These are taken from the first of my two sketchbooks, and it features one of my favoritest characters ever: Brainiac Five of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
So here are my collected Brainiac Five sketches, as of today:
Art by Karine Charlebois.
Art by Jay Jacot.
Art by Chris Hamer.
Art by Dean Dumont. (Haven’t been able to find a webpage for him. If anybody can point me to one, it would be appreciated.)
Art by Gibson Quarter.
Art by Thom Zahler.
Art by Ty Templeton.
Art by Sam Logan.
Art by Paris Alleyne.
(I don’t know who did this! I got it done last year, and they gave me their card, and I lost their card before I could write down their info in my book! Can anybody help me find this person? Did you draw this? let me know.)
Art by Andrew Gregoire.
Art by Dave J. Woodward.
Art by Te’Shawn Dwyer.
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Nice! I’m pleasantly surprised that there are a lot of reboot Brainys. Sort of disappointed there aren’t any toon Brainys, though.
What’s your favorite and least favorite incarnation of the character?
Themed sketchbooks are the best! If you ever run into him at a convention, ask Randy Martin (husband of famed colorist Laura) about his Edward Scissorhands sketchbooks.
In terms of costume/version selection: I always encourage artists to do whatever the hell they want with the character and draw whichever costume they like. (I didn’t have a toon Brainy reference included among my references; have to fix that.)
I think threeboot Brainy is the most popular with artists who are less familiar with the Legion because, all things considered, threeboot Brainy really has the best overall costume (that arrogantly-cut Vril Dox II jacket is so perfect for him). Artists familiar with the character tend to go with their favorite era Brainy, which usually ends up being either reboot or classic. (Ty Templeton, when handed the sketchbook, said he had a difficult choice because all of his Legion work had been reboot Brainy, but the Brainy he read growing up was classic Brainy.)
I think your talk about these books last year was what inspired me to start my Legion-themed sketchbook. And thanks to Ron Frenz, it now has a Brainy in it..
Can I ask a few simple logistical questions? What kind of sketchbook do you use? And the reference material, do you keep that in something like a simple manilla envelope?
My sketchbooks are 8 1/2″ x 11″ hardbound books, about 200 pages each, high-quality paper; I’m not sure what brand they are at this point (the labels are long gone). I went with hardbound over ringbound because the binding provides more protection for the paper inside, but be forewarned that the binding on my books is already a wee bit looser than one might anticipate.
For references, I scanned comic pages/covers and printed them out full-colour on a laser printer at Kinko’s. I keep the references and a backing card/page (to prevent bleedthrough when an artist is working on their sketch) inside the book.
Nice collection! You might want to consider starting a gallery at ComicArtFans.com, if you haven’t already.
Very cool. I actually started a one character themed sketch book that’s Legion related. Proty. 😀
It makes me happy to see Koko. Next time I go back to MA I’m going to find those issues and bring them home for my kid. DC never collected the first two years of the post ZH Legion, did they?
Thanks! These are really cool and I’m jealous and I wanted to get one started myself.
My B5 sketch from Yildiray Cinar. Dunno why I asked for it in retrospect . . . and I think it would’ve worked better with color. Otherwise, I’m not sure you’d know it was B5 unless you knew that already.
I’ve started posting some of mine, for interested parties.
http://candid-gamera.tumblr.com/tagged/convention-sketchbook
I’ll probably have all of them up by the end of the long weekend.
Here are some sketches based on One Piece.
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