Aozora's Adventure 2022: Zik

Part 3 of four, a little bit later than I had hoped but oh well...

Around the same time I decided Satoru, I created Zik, the friendly, all-cheerful jock buddy with a wild side that knew Satoru for much longer than Aozora would. Introducing themselves to Aozora in their high school, they would both become fast friends to the sky-high boy, Zik in particular turning into the third member of what would develop into the Aozora/Zik/Satoru power duo that still exists today. In fact, part of what made Zik so close to Aozora was how similar their personalities were, even when Zik mellowed out in the following years to become more mature as he went through adulthood. Even then I always sort of focused more on the dynamic with Aozora and Satoru since they're more suitable for being foils to one another while Zik is a little too similar to Aozora that unless the writing calls for it, you don't see much of the blonde boys bouncing off each other verbally. 

Compared to Aozora and Satoru, Zik's design wouldn't change much over the years, and thirteen years later he's still hanging onto the outfit he started the series with. The only major changes to the outfit worth noting are the tweaked color palette to use a less intense yellow, a tinted green, and the addition of proper straps to the visor. Like Satoru, I gave Zik a unique set of stylized wings for this solo render, and if you're still wondering, no, they're still not a usable skill, just something to make these backgrounds cooler and give them a bit more activity than just two celestial bodies and a starfield. The wing patterns of the three boys were meant to reflect their most prominent personality traits: in Zik's case it's his raw strength. But as you'll see with Jigoku, I didn't go with the same base "avian/angel wing" aesthetic for all of the boys.


Characters and Art belong to  Superjustinbros