Ain't Love Super? character lineup

I was commissioned to design and draw portraits of this group of characters for Meet Cute's "Ain't Love Super?" podcast, a rom-com radio play about superheroes and villains. The show is fun and available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Design notes:

Most of these characters were designed together in pairs to varying degrees. First up were Robber Baron and The Mink. For their portraits I made a conscious effort to demonstrate something about their character. I wanted Mink to be looking up and Robber Baron looking down to imply something about their confidence levels and juxtapose that against each other.

I designed the two speedsters, Jiffy and Turbo together, too. The pair have similar color schemes with one having the cool color being dominant while the other has the warm. In their actual designs, Jiffy takes inspiration from WWI and II soldiers uniforms, just like superheroes of the golden and early silver ages of comics. In fact, Jiffy is also the only character here with simple black dot eyes, common in comics of that era. Turbo by comparison is hyper-modern design, taking inspiration from The Flash and Quicksilver, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's use of Under Armor. The microcosm of Jiffy and Turbo's design is their shoes: Jiffy wears PF Flyers, in a nod to The Sandlot, and Turbo has those running shoes with the individual toes.

Reflectra has more than a little Power Rangers/Super Sentai in her design. My big statement for her was to give the white bits on her costume a shiny, reflective rainbow quality, like the sun hitting oil or soap in a puddle. For her mash, I was inspired by Looking Glass's mask from the HBO Watchmen series, and that carried into the other accents in her costume.

Matriarch was described to me as this story's Superman proxy, so that led me to giving her a visual shorthand of primary colors to communicate that. I traded out the pure yellow for gold, though. Meanwhile, Dr. Payback who changes his identity to Mr. Roboto needed to communicate an arch from villain to hero through his color schemes. The villain color scheme of gunmetal gray and toxic green clashes against Matriarch's bright primary colors, and when he becomes a hero as Roboto, his metal becomes silver against her gold, and his green becomes a slightly lighter version of her same blue, to compliment.

My understanding of Mightyman is that he would be the strongest hero in this universe if not for Matriarch, so I imagine he would have a chip on his shoulder. Then he was described to me as "kind of a dick", so I decided it would be interesting to pose and angle him like a villain. He also contrasts against Matriarch with a stark black and white color scheme.

Finally, Laura Levi, our Lois Lane-alike. I sort of mashed up Bruce Timm's Lois, April O'Neil, and Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. She's connected story-wise to Mightyman, so I wanted her pose to be very approachable in comparison to him.