You know, dark blue hair, cyan shirt, black shorts? Yeah, that Justin.
Back in the day, he could be said to have represented an... immaturity period of mine before I started to bloody grow up. While it was fine and dandy in 2007 or so before I made my online presence known and when I really started to get into art and character creation, it wasn't until 2008 when I started doing the Super Justin thing much more seriously, and 2009 when I did the inevitable: joining DeviantArt.
Since then, myself and my self-named OC went through both ups and downs, resulting in the decision late October of that year to restructure myself and abandon the Super Justin side, and since then Aozora's Adventure took over and became what Super Justin wasn't. A far more creative project with more advanced character designs and characterizations that didn't leech half it's creativity off of some doujin soft game (but still contains plenty of references to mainstream fictional works).
Attempting to make Super Justin it childish-oriented in the case that it did get video games only hurt it more, and the repeated recycling of characters from completely different publications did it no favors as well. Arguments of course erupted over the seven months Super Justin lasted, and I was sick of the criticism and I had two options: Cancel the project entirely, or retool it so it's nothing like what it used to be.
And I picked Option 1, as I felt Aozora would give me much more creative freedom overall than what Super Justin would ever allow, but in the background, in the magical world of offline, I slowly and silently tampered with the three main Super Justin protagonists.
What you see here are the latest versions of the artworks I made in September of 2009, freshly entering 10th grade and during my attempt to, well, git gud with doing art. Compared to months earlier, characters had more realistic anatomy and I didn't simply rush through it all. But before I get ahead of myself, who is this blonde kid just floating around and who is that angry teen with the two-tone lab coat?
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Roger and Zax. These two were originally created to be male versions of two female characters I was once attached to for some time, but in an attempt to distance Super Justin from these girls and their universe (and cause the idea itself caused some level of controversy), I reworked their entire backstories and readjusted their appearances to distance them from the characters that inspired them. I also (not shown) changed Roger's wings to typical bat wings and gave Zax a much less-revealing outfit, with the potential for Roger and Zax to change back to their original designs in colder/warmer seasons respectively (I'll be sure to show off those someday). For the heck of it, I also went and made Sonic the Hedgehog and GBC-styled icons of the trio (the former happening mostly because of the similar chemistries and personalities the Justin trio has to Team Sonic) which I never showed to the public since I made them in 2013.
If Super Justin ever makes a comeback, everyone will get a major re-tool to completely outclass their original incarnations from 2008/09, with brand new characters to replace all the old ones including a new villain character to antagonize the trio. Unlike Aozora, Super Justin won't be overflown with characters from the start and to keep it from getting ridiculous, the roster overall will stay small. And to stay safe, no one from the original run of Super Justin other than these three will be present, expect for maybe Matt, Justin's green-clad brother. As for the general tone of the series itself, it'll stay lighthearted and not get super dark, since Aozora and WARMAN already fulfill that role, but there will be some level of tension here and there.
So will these three get new artwork? Maybe, if I do decide to go through with it, but keep in mind Aozora and co. will still be the main focus overall (and not to mention I have several other projects and arts I want to get to as well, now that I have no more conventions until October if I can make it to NYCC).
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