#supercritters

One of my faves, he was on my list early on :]

Patrick "Eel" O'Brian - Plastic Man

Eel

But seriously, I did consider a few other wiggly animals for Plas but it really couldn't be anything other than an eel for me. I love that it's both accurate to his power and representative of his original slimy criminal personality

Jon Kent - Superboy

My Superman is a polar bear, so I wanted Jon to be an animal that was closely related to bears but not an actual bear (I only use animals of the same genus for clones, in related characters). Red pandas are caniforms, a group that includes bears, and they're also often mistaken for bears in pop culture

I also thought it was fitting for Jon to be something small and very cute, because it fits with him having incredibly strong Superman powers in canon. Imagine him doing the red panda fight paws...

Lester/Poindexter - Bullseye

One of the first characters I wrote down an idea for on this blog!

There is one major reason for this; dragonflies are the most effective predators on Earth, with an average hunting success rate of 90% of their targets. What better for the man who never misses

I also like him being a somewhat frail-looking insect because his lack of powers and unassuming appearance is part of why he's such a dangerous and sadistic person

Koridand'r - Starfire

I didn't have cable as a kid so I never experienced the Teen Titans show everyone loved so much... as a result I don't have much attachment to those guys. I've always liked Starfire's design, though.

I always find it fun to push aliens to be less humanoid, and insect species help with that

Her long, trailing hair in the classic design reminded me of the long limbs on the bottom of luna moth wings

Luna moths are a very large species of moth, and Starfire is usually drawn as pretty tall and broad

I love Hartley! I got super into his character and did a readthrough about a year ago now. Highly recommend the 1987 Wally West Flash run for anyone who hasn't read it.

Hartley Rathaway - Pied Piper

Hartley's always been associated with mice and rats, obviously, and I went with a fancy mouse because of his wealthy upbringing. Fancy mice are a domesticated mouse species traditionally bred by aristocracy for shows and keeping as pets

Specifically, he's the "blue point" coloration

Fancy rats do also exist, but since Hartley has always been a non-brawn character, I went with the more delicate of the two species

I like all of Hartley's costumes pretty well, but I really wanted to draw the classic Pied Piper look

I know this request is for the Spider-Verse Hobie, but I want to do the 616 version of any character before I do AUs for them. Besides, I'm a huge fan of the Prowler and I wanna draw him. Promise I'll get to Spider-Verse versions eventually, though!

Hobie Brown - The Prowler

Because of the cat imagery surrounding Hobie and the big claws on his costume, I wanted him to be some kind of big cat

However he's an unpowered character and one of his main difficulties is that he has to rely on his tech and mind, so I didn't want him to be one of the stronger cats like tigers or leopards

Caracals are notably very good at climbing, jumping, and are extremely secretive and nocturnal. Good for a nighttime vigilante who's as much of a loner as Hobie is

James Jesse - Trickster

This is one of the first characters I added to my supercritters list, from a conversation with my friend where I was ideating on this blog. I absolutely did not remember the context of making Trickster a rabbit, so I had to go hunt it down:

Thanks as always to haw. Maybe I'll draw Axel Trickster as a kangaroo mouse someday.

Trickster's one of those excitable, easily distracted characters in any incarnation of him, so an animal that's "bouncing around" fit him well

Axel is the Trickster who's REALLY a mouse in a den of snakes; James Trickster is a little bigger and tougher. But he's still a way less threatening than a rogue like Mirror Master, for example