I think it's a fair thing to say that I've come a long way since the era I first joined the internet, and while I'm still trying to get my motivation boosted (which is hard where there's still a pandemic out), clearing out some of these smaller projects and occasionally jumping into tutorials for the 3D art tool Blender, with Game Maker to follow soon enough, I figured I'd drop some of the better and less rushed content I produced during my freshman year (and the first month in sophomore year) in high school.
Unfortunately one thing that will always strain this era of Super Justin was its... complicated relationship with the doujin-soft game Rosenkreuzstilette. To make a long story short, trying to make brother figures to well-liked characters and have the resulting designs be much weaker and cartoony (both in design and personality) didn't exactly work, and the series not knowing what age demographic it was trying to appeal too didn't help either. Thus, many of the Super Justin arts of the time also co-starred censored versions of one or more of the Rosenkreuzstilette girls- which of course won't fly in this new era where I've shifted from a failed series that doesn't know what demographic it's aiming for to an ongoing series in production with a defined target demographic. So for that reason I won't be showing anything that I can't easily crop/edit out, and anything that was "early Photoshop hell" won't be shown either because they scream unoriginality and are easily the most cringe-inducing works of the lot.
This particular art from April 20th was posted just a little under one month since joining DeviantArt. It was a celebration of having posted 100 individual artworks to the site, many of which came from when the then-modern era of Super Justin began in August 2008. Those will likely be dumped in a separate post (if at all) since most of them were made in MS Paint on Windows 2000.
These next two subjects come to us from April 23rd, 2009. This was the period when "early Super Justin" was starting to develop an art style, but it still remained heavily stylized and cartoony. That said it's very apparent the art was made quickly and with nothing resembling consistency- just whatever I had on the mind at the time and something that'll be a recurring theme throughout this post. Body parts having different sizes, no attempt to clean up the lineart when I scanned it to color in, etc.
This particular art was another milestone pic and features Justin's brother Matt and his sister Amy- the latter of which would be retconned into his older cousin due to her taller, more mature build.
Of course, Tan-Tan would get his own art later that day, drawn on notebook paper as with many of my character arts of the time. Despite its resemblance to a character sheet for a newly created cast member- this wasn't the first appearance of Tan-Tan in the slightest as he debuted months prior in September 2008 as a robot buddy to Justin (sort of what Rush is to Mega Man). Tan-Tan's simple design compared to the human figures I was more familiar with let me really play around with his emotions and personality and he would sneak into other, unrelated pictures as a comic foil to Justin just as much as he was a buddy. He even got a second character sheet in early October 2009 that was a little more polished and had new emotions, but because this was around when I canceled Super Justin, it was never scanned and colored in. Besides, I don't think anything I do nowadays with Tan-Tan will ever top "smug Tan-Tan".
April 29th brought a series of powered-up arts of Justin, featuring four elemental powers (fire, thunder, ice, and water) plus a Mario-inspired Raccoon form and a Kirby-inspired Jet form. Many of these powers would be retained when the torch was handed over to Aozora, but with more diverse transformations beyond a straight up palette swap (starting from later on, at least).
On May 15th, the full realization of the Super Justin universe being greatly grounded around Rosenkreuzstilette was created- a mock-up title screen of "Rock-Justin" with the most cursed running pose I think I've ever drawn. The project itself was literally "diet Rosenkreuzstilette" in structure and the levels were going to be more typical Mega Man fare than the medieval-gothic Castlevania feel that RKS used. To no one's surprise, it was canned when Super Justin folded and eventually turned into the Rock-Aozora series, reusing some of the Rock Justin concepts but taking the ideas in a less derivative direction and featuring an ensemble of entirely new characters created in late 2011 and early 2012. If Rock-Justin was re-created today, it would play drastically different from your typical Mega Man game, feeling almost like a faster-paced Burst Chaser hack.
Speaking of Rock-Aozora, it was even meant to have a sequel! On May 20th, I introduced the ensemble of Dan (top left), Inferno (top right), Richard (bottom left), and Wrenchi (bottom right) to DeviantArt. They were only slightly more unique than the likes of Roger and Zax, with only Richard being explicitly based on a Rosenkreuzstilette character. Since the four were more B-list creations and didn't last as long as the original Super Justin cast from 2008, I didn't do as much with them compared to the likes of Justin, Roger, and Zax and promptly swept the entire quartet under the rug when Super Justin hit the bucket.
May 28th saw the release of the first of three group shots featuring the Super Justin cast of the time, and just to give you a taste of how much I didn't want to show, everything pertaining to characters I didn't own were all mosaic'd out. That's how much of an old shame many of these pics were for the time and I wouldn't know what to do if I had included more.
Noteworthy in this pic are three characters not seen in prior posts: Isamu (cyan), Otzi (light blue), and Stitch (green). The latter two were both scrapped and wouldn't return for the reboot since I thought they were extremely weak designs (shorts and a basketball uniform? Really?!). As for Isamu, I kinda stopped eventually doing things with him beyond making him a foil to Tan-Tan (a foil to a foil, I guess).
Before you know it, it was June. The whole "Quantity versus quality" thing was still getting out of hand, especially with those "early Photoshop hell" pics still cropping up every now and then. They seemed to become more prominent on certain days but my normal traditional arts still appeared to hold them off. And June 2nd brought the return of Fire Justin for one last piece made with colored pencils. It at least managed to come out decent, but it still has obvious issues if you know where to look. I mean, wow, that color job on the background.
On June 9th, I posted this for what was my fifteenth birthday, in perhaps one of if not the only time I ever made celebratory birthday art. And now here I am, twelve years later not really bothering to do the same thing due to the cavalcade of other projects I've gotten to (and plus I was already
working on new art for Justin at the time this year) The small Justin candle topper would have been a cute custom accessory for a cake but I'm not sure if I'd ever attempt to light it...
June 10th saw the arrival of the second of three group shots featuring the Super Justin cast at the time. Of course it was covered in Rosenkreuzstilette characters so I had to crop out all but four of the rest of the subjets in the image (and they would be harder to pixelate). This particular illustration features Justin, Otzi, and Zax, alongside another character in blue named Koreno. He was another character that... wasn't designed that well in hindsight, suffering from the same issue as Otzi and Stitch and not making it to the reboot.
Then came the third group shot with an even bigger ensemble that was posted on June 14th, but it somehow managed to look even worse than the full version of the second group. The only part I'm comfortable with showing is Justin, since I was so proud of it back in the day that it became my profile pic for a while on DeviantArt.
Things would go quiet for the rest of June. This art from June 23rd was, ironically enough, posted before shit hit the fan, and it was a very fitting metaphor for what was to come. Some offscreen drama erupted and I further realized that my rushjob quantity versus quality art style wasn't fit for what I was trying to accomplish, so in came the beginning of the end for what was the original Super Justin series throughout the remainder of July, August, and September.
...Okay, I lied. Before June ended, a new piece featuring Inferno was released on June 26th, and if you need further proof that my ability to make backgrounds only barely evolved since 2009, here you go. My year of learning Photoshop in 9th grade graphic design class in high school had come to an end and I would not get to use Photoshop in the class again until 11th grade kicked off in 2010, and by then Aozora had already started development.
July 1st brought in a hypothetical design for early adult Justin, which added some more visual flair to his outfit. It unfortunately didn't stick for his younger self and before you know it Justin was back to his original ensemble. I was still posting art regularly and continued to upload multiple artworks, but I attempted to brach out with more non-Justin art and artwork that featured the Rosenkreuzstilette cast completely separate from the Justin cast.
July 15th brought the final piece of Koreno to the masses and sure my digital art was getting slightly better but some of that stink from earlier in the year was still there and Koreno's design remained underwhelming even though it was now more than just a swimsuit.
July 18th got a new piece of Dan artwork, and at this rate I was realizing Dan was another character that I wasn't particularly fond of, and for many of the same reasons as Koreno. You have to really, really work to make a "walking shirtless scene" both cool and enjoyable, and when the chests lack any sort of muscle detail they just look boring. This wasn't the last time we would see Dan, but he wouldn't be a prolific character behind the scenes by any means.
July 24th gave Tan-Tan another piece of time in the spotlight, alongside two other robots with the same build as him: The super-bubbly San-San and the highly dramatic Ran-Ran. While I did make an effort to distance them in both appearance and personality, San-San was very much the "Ms. Pac-Man" to Tan-Tan and Ran-Ran was yet another foil to him when Isamu already played the role.
Realizing my efforts to get into digital at the time (as you saw with Koreno and Dan) weren't really working out, I decided to step back into making traditional art, starting with this group art of the original five boys from the era in Justin, Roger, Zax, Otzi, and Stitch performing in a band in a recreation of the "Sonic the Hedgehog Band" image meant for the original Sonic the Hedgehog. It easily eclipsed the three massive group shots I made earlier in the spring in quality, with more on-model characters than what was previously done.
The artwork was made on August 26th and by then I started to give myself more time with each drawing than I had earlier in the year, relying less on quantity in favor of making each piece more polished. This was also when I began to invest more heavily into normal Rosenkreuzstilette art, phasing out the censored designs I was using in favor of the real deals and not letting the Super Justin cast cross over with them as much. This would also be the last time the characters' "classic" looks would be used since I first developed them all the way back in 2008- just one month shy of their first anniversary. It also marked the final appearance of Stitch- while I did have plans for him years later in 2013 to redesign him and make his appearance more interesting, the idea never happened and after losing all traces of what it would have been to the hard drive crash in 2020, it will likely never come to be, considering I went all in on Justin, Roger, and Zax being the main trio and Aozora being a much more enjoyable 'venture for me these days when it comes to full art (considering it took me quite some time to finish the new 2021 Justin render due to pandemic fatigue among other things).
On the other hand, it wouldn't be the end of Otzi just yet as he would get one last pic to himself on August 31st in new clothing in addition to a group shot with some Rosenkreuzstilette characters the same day- and it would be the very last time the Rosenkreuzstilette cast would appear alongside the Justin cast. While this new Otzi appearance was an improvement, the "makeup" around his face and hair was maybe a little too much (and it was obviously a brush with no trimming to the edges) and a simple kimono could only do so much to improve what was previously a character wearing nothing. Otzi, of course, wouldn't see another image featuring himself when Super Justin would retire, and would be excluded from the reboot.
And here it is: the ending of the end. September would be mostly filled with more Rosenkreuzstilette art and some meme posts, but some Super Justin art was ultimately produced. Despite that, this would be the final month of Super Justin's original run. September 1st brought a simple pic of Tan-Tan and the last one I have on record for the little bugger before the reboot. It was also very experimental, going all in on a minimalist tri-color style that honestly doesn't take advantage of the yellow and white as well as it could have.
Tan-Tan would survive into the current era of Super Justin, but his counterparts San-San and Ran-Ran were both dumped, combining small traits of them into Tan-Tan thanks to his highly variable personality and "acts of comedy".
September 10th brought in new artwork for Amy, though the attempt to make it a full size definitely hurt the quality of it, considering I was more used to smaller and medium-size figures that didn't take up all of the paper. This would be the last time Amy would get any art and indeed, from here on out it would be the "final" appearances for everyone.
Following the Otzi redesign, I began redesigning some of the regulars that have been sticking with the series since the new era started to improve their designs. On September 18th, the new Roger you all know today and the one I've shared previously on this blog would be created, taking the design from the May 28th group shot and upgrading it. Gone were the Kamina glasses and instead a slick orange visor was added since I thought it complemented his look better and gave his hair more form. His wings would also change later on in the reboot to more typical bat wings as they looked more powerful and practical while still complementing Roger's overall look (I've yet to draw them though).
Two days later on September 20th, Zax got his overhaul as well. It was an improvement, yes, but it was still with its problems. Namely, it was way too revealing and the idea of a "beach scientist" did not work with this look. I had since updated the look in modern times changing the red shorts into mahogany pants, fixed the shoes, and did some tweaking to the arms to make them more anatomically correct. The giant mallet that was first drawn onto Zax in the June 10th group became his staple "morph arm", though in the future I'd like to make the arm larger and robotic with metal platings while keeping the transformation aspect intact, shaping the arm into different forms as his arm here already does. Rocket boosters for fast speed, spiked hands for smashing more quickly than the hammer, drills for tunneling through the ground, literally I could be here all day but I have to get this finished eventually.
September 22nd would become the final date of regular art for Justin and pals. A new Justin render would join the two existing fullbody renders (albeit without shading and some slanted anatomy until later when I edited it post production) and the new characters created on May 20th would get one final piece of art together. Dan kept the same overall design but had more defined abs, a more consistent hair shape, a longer skirt, and a few visual changes to the spear. Inferno got more buff and had his collar transformed into a scarf, Richard's shirt was made to cover up his navel and his jacket had buttons added on, and Wrenchi swapped his wrench with one that was more visually appealing. Even with these updates, it unfortunately wouldn't "save" the project, as days later I would declare the Super Justin series ultimately finished and retired.
The last day anything resembling Super Justin would release would be September 24th, featuring the return of his Mario/Kirby-style transformations in addition to four based off of Rayman 3. Following the decision to cancel the project, I left the arts up for a small bit before going through and removing (or rather, stashing) everything related to Super Justin uploaded across those six months a few days later. It was a good spring and a good (if stressful) summer for the crew but me wanting to do something more original without outright snatching existing characters overpowered my thoughts as the sixth and final month posting the crew online to DeviantArt and the thirteenth overall since they were first developed came to a close.
October 2009 would see the entry of Aozora and his initial crew as early as the 21st of five as I shifted into doing more polished fanart while developing the first phase of Aozora in the background. The Rosenkreuzstilette girls continued to stick around in my DeviantArt gallery, completely disconnected from any of the changes they underwent to "censor" them in Super Justin. 2010 was filled with the characters until a little over halfway into the year, and as I shifted more towards Aozora character art in 2011, the last piece of fanart I would make for Rosenkreuzstilette would be in April of that year. Even today, the way I draw the more elegant and "cutesy" women was directly based around RKS and you can still see that today with characters like
Talisha or
Mignonette.
And that puts the initial run of Super Justin to a close. I do have other artwork from earlier in the Super Justin series depicting the characters but I don't have access to them as of now. Today, the characters exist in Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, with Justin, Matt, and Amy playable in their own dedicated pack (with Roger, Zax, and Tan-Tan in the works but they'll be ready "When They're Done"). I've also been considering doing more traditional sketches better displaying some of the new looks/abilities the characters would have, intervened with trying to get things off my to-do list, make new Aozora art, learn some 3D modeling, and finally figure out programing so I can bring one of my game ideas to life. But that's another story.
