This is a small project I worked on this month to brush up on character design, and the variety within that—it’s as much for my school career as it is for me! I drew(no pun intended) inspiration from Amalgam Comics: a brief and bizarre comic collaboration between Marvel and DC that saw them combining their casts of characters together and releasing stories of them through the “Amalgam” comic line. It’s a strange thing to find out happened for real, y’know? Fan content blending characters across intellectual properties together has always been a thing, and it’s surprising to find it being sanctioned officially.

Some of these designs are more like redesigns of official Amalgam fusion characters, and others are original designs and character combinations. If you’re looking to find out more of my thought process in creating each of them, you can check out this Twitter thread I made. Whether you do or not, I’ll also list who’s who here.

First is Super Soldier, who combines Superman with Captain America. A pretty logical combination, and one that my friend George helped me fine-tune.

Second is Iron Bat, who’s pretty obviously Iron Man and Batman put together. Also pretty logical, or at least something that plenty of people before me have thought of!

Thirdly is Thunder Woman, a mix of Thor and Wonder Woman. It’s something that I’ve tried before, and wasn’t happy with, but this time it feels much more like I it got it right.

Starting the second row is Dr. Strangefate, a fusion of Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate—and a figurehead of the Amalgam comics line. Did you know that the character is also supposed to be Charles Xavier, aka Professor X of the X-Men? Makes him pretty absurdly powerful, almost to the point of overkill!

In the middle is Iron Light, combination of Ironheart(Riri Williams) and Green Lantern Sojourner "Jo" Mullein—both of whom have got some really cool designs. I was surprised by how well they worked together!

Rounding out the second row is Wonderstorm, a mix of Wonder Woman and Storm, go figure. She’s very loosely based on an official Amalgam of the same characters named “Amazon”—who was always too Wonder Woman and not enough Storm for me. I drew influence from Storm’s Kenyan roots and wanted to give this character a flavor all her own. Special thanks to my friends George and Thomas for their help in making her!

Starting the final row is White Witch, a combination of Zatanna Zatara and Scarlet Witch. I was pretty faithful to her original design, but zhuzhed it up a bit to add some extra character. Really making her seem like less of a stage magician and more of a sinister sorceress.

Second-to-last(but by no means any less liked by me) is Deadeye, a fusion of Deathstroke and Bullseye. There is an official Amalgam by the name of “Deadeye” that combined Bullseye with DC’s Deadshot—besides the fact that I’m not much of a fan of Deadshot, they have the exact same power, so it ends up feeling a bit redundant. I think a combination like this is more compelling, but I am biased in that.

And finally, we have Hivemind, a mix of Brainiac and Ultron. This was a chance to flex my robot-drawing muscles again, and I had quite a lot of fun doing it. I really like how the design DNA of the two characters fused!

Which of these do you like most? Are there any you’d like to see more of? Be sure to let me know! You’ll be seeing more from me soon.

Stay safe, y’all!