Ha-ha...
Happy 45-day belated anniversary, ZE?
Alright, alright, I'm late as per usual! But I'm not AS late as I normally I am so shut the fuck up, sit down and enjoy!
Greetings, chiLL-believers! As many of you may have heard, Zay (user) has allowed Zay (character) to come back through a big way: by resuming production of Zay (comic) Escobar! It's since moved over to the ZE wiki, but on the whole I've really been enjoying this new wave of comics. They've struck a chord with me on what ZE is really about but I'll get back to that in a bit. For now, let's endulge what's essentially the big returning message relating to ZE, released with strip 110 the second of this new age of Zay Escobar.
"I know nobody cares, and that I'm artificially extending this (past its prime), hear me out.
Once again I know nobody else cares in the slightest about ZE anymore, but my passion for it never really went away. The problem was simply that my relationship with the people I worked with was severed a couple of years back (not getting into why), but I will still continue to produce comics, even if nobody else does.
For context on this current issue, an NFL coach earlier this week stepped down from his job because he was involved in a video that leaked online sniffing cocaine. This is just me satirizing the situation. I know this isn't directly Zay or anyone, but this is what this comic is about; having fun and making fun."
~ Albert Einstein Zay, 2017
There was a certain line that really stood out to me, and that was "Once again I know nobody else cares in the slightest about ZE anymore, but my passion for it never really went away". When I first saw this I was like,
lol
what
I get that most of chiLL has probably long since moved on and left ZE as a distant memory, but this nigga right here? NAAAAAH. My evidence? BE-HOLD.
There it is. The finale to the Homecoming Saga over two years in the making! Now I know what you're thinking:
"Why is it unfinished?"
Well dear viewer, there are a multitude of reasons for that:
- I take 100 years to do any given task.
- I didn't have an exact plan and ended up having to make a written list/storyboard.
- I had plans for Zay Escobar.
Big plans.
Zay Escobar has been on my mind this WHOOOLE time. Whole time, no lie! To the Google Drive!
Yup, it's a project my dude.
AND it's a the forefront.
AND it's got its own folder.
These all vary in importance, but as you can probably guess the one we'll be focusing is "The Big Pitch: The...". So what's the big idea with that? Well...
After all the drama, cancelled reboot "ZEro", and me apologizing to Zay, I realized that moving forward I didn't want him to feel excluded out of his own work anymore. So from there I started devising a reboot separate from ZEro (since that seemed to fall through). The idea was that I would make a Google Doc pitch presenting the concepts of a ZE reboot and how it would function in an extremely organized (but fun,) manner to Zay. It would go in on making Jerston (which I wanted to rename to something else) a more cohesive and living location with landmarks, finding a good tone and sticking with it, and establishing more consistent characterization across the board. All the cast and characters, main to minor, were planned to have new concept art sheets to reflect their basic personality as well their new designs (we'll get to it ;) ). Actually, I even got into some of them: Zay, Crispy (who was actually going to be called Crispy like Zay wanted), Vic, Shelbye, Shabba (his was ugly) and some of Holly got finished. In general everything would just be a lot more coherent and uniform across the board. And as a little side/passion note, I would find a way to include basically every drawing/concept sketch of the ZE cast I've made independent of the comics since Homecoming Part 4, with a special bonus section for the ones that couldn't fit). Assuming all went well, I would have it so that ZE's existence would basically be radio silent to chiLL. It might be a brief thought that occassionally crosses people's minds, but other than that basically nothing. Of course, I said fuck it to that like 6 months ago and gave a brief idea of the reboot to Roxy because I was taking forever and that's how this shit ALWAYS goes, but I digress.
Anyway, on a set-up front I was going to get a Blu News (remember those) done that's been in development for God knows how long. After that the next Blu News would be teased as having a very special guest. Initially presented as a general upcoming Blu News that would definitely feature Zay Escobar in some significant capacity, the many days leading up to this Blu News' release would be like Sakurai's old Pic of the Day. Each day I'd release one of the passion sketch/drawings, maybe with a little teasing blurb of some sort until the day finally came that it was released, titled "Blu News XX.XX.XX". X's being whatever the date ended up being. Since you know. I take forever to do anything.
When you clicked on it, it would seemingly come out the gate swinging as the Zay Escobar segment. Until you realize this isn't a Zay Escobar segment.
This is a whole Zay Escobar BLU NEWS.
Taking inspiration from game-specific Nintendo Directs, this Zionews (as it was to be called) would be a more refined, entertainment based version of The Big Pitch, after I ran it by Zay. Zionews would start off with Holly for Homecoming Part 5 (at first I was gonna finish it then I decided I was tired of paint and was just gonna leave it incomplete lol). From there it'd be revealed that ZE is being rebooted and the blog was set to be a rapid-fire of concepts coupled with LOTS of new Zay Escobar comics to make up for lost time.
That's enough about ambitious plans falling through though. We're about to get into the really fun part! Remember how I said I never forgot about ZE? Well it's time for you to see all the mass of doodles, concepts, and ideas I created just for the series. Strap in 'cause this is gonna be a LONG, content-packed one.
So many folders, so little time
Without further adieu, let's jump right into it:
This is a really great one to start off on (randomly picked btw)!: It's little over a year old and I feel like this was really the time where I started kicking it into high gear and feeling like I knew exactly what I wanted to pitch to Zay. It's fairly simplistic, but does a bit for being a cute little look at the character's relationships. I absolutely LOVE drawing on white boards and got into it last year. Consider this ones special since I got to draw them during class.
Alright, time for a cheat. This one is from the pre-reboot planned era. It's actually from one of my older, 2014 sketchbooks! Probably the advent of me respecting flattop Zay....
Some faint little doodles I did to get a better grasp on drawing Zay from different perspectives. His and Shelbye's heads look a little bit off though, don't they?
Whenever I found, heard, or saw something I thought would work for a comic, I'd save it. This is one of those cases. It was likely going to only serve as loose inspiration, with it being the perspective of one character and them fitting all the other characters they know into one of those positions. Example: if it were from the perspective of Amaru, number 25 would certainly be Holly while weird might go to Rose. Although, due to the heavy romance themes of the picture I might've also planned to use it for an attention whore based comic lol.
This was going to be included in Zionews as a throwback/ironic bit of sorts. It was relevant both on the front that ZE had hiatus'd AGAIN since Homecoming 4 and the fact that Zay would take back having the leader role as the last sentence jokes about.
Now we're cooking! I still LOVE this little one. Back in high school, back at the beginning of the school year they'd give us our schedules and I made it a tradition to doodle on them every time. Last year, I decided that ZE would take the forefront on one of my extra sheets and so I drew relatively detailed (as detailed as ZE can be) shots of the characters. While there are some recurring characters from the first white board shot I drew, I liked to mix things up whenever I drew one of these group shots. This time, Arthur and Jaire got some time to shine!
This is from my 2015 schedule, so I made it a little bit after Homecoming 4 came out. I think this one goes to show that I've always had ZE on the brain, even in its absence.
Non-fitting throwback, AHOOOOY! It really took me 3 months to make this? Oh jeez...
This one's relatively recent, huh? I tried to spruce this tiny one up by not including Vic at all! As you might've caught on from the light sketch one, to increase design diversity I wanted to give every character their own unique head shape. I still really like this idea but more on that in the closing. For now, let's just appreciate this little whiteboarded doodle.
Oh, and I also gave Crispy (I called him Jaire here probably because I didn't want questions on why he's named Crispy; that's also why Shank Scarf is just "Scarf") a sort of, triangular flat top idk what it's called. I thought it fit him, but if you've seen the 2017 comics he's rockin' that lowcut mohawk.
In trying to narrow down the cast and decide who truly were the main characters of Zay Escobar, I picked out these 5 as our five basic protagonists. Crispy always was sort of the fourth musketeer of the group.
Remember the Thanksgiving comic from 2015 where the characters talk about what they're thankful for? If you've ever wondered what Vic was saying behind him, here you go:
"Well...I’m really thankful for what I have. I’m so glad I met all the people I know now. I don’t know where I’d be without all of you. We’ve been through so much together, each day and adventure strengthening the bonds we have with one another. Though we may not always get along and at times we may appear to be the most incompatible group on the planet, we always stick around for one another, through thick and thin. For years we’ve known each other and never once have I regretted meeting ANY of you. Except Jaire. But I got over it. We’ve still got a long way to go, being only in seventh grade and all. You’ve all been great friends and family, encouraging me, helping me and being there period. I appreciate all of you and I’m I know I said it earlier but I’m sincerely glad we met one another. I can’t wait to see where our lives go from here on in the future. I can tell it’s gonna be great. So thank you, Zay, Shabba, Elena, Holly, Jaire, Varinius, Tori, Mom, Sean, Free, Icey, Shelbye and all the rest! Though if I didn’t name you, don’t think I don’t appreciate you. I just have WAY too many people in my life to give thanks to. Heh. Regardless, I’m glad to know you guys and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Sincerely, Victor Shiggy."
What a dweeb. jaire thing is a joke btw don't light me up
Hopping back to the physical medium, we have this scratchy set of doodles. They might be a bit hard to find, but Elena, Jonathan, and Holly are all there.
You guys of course remember Andre's pivotal addition to the series: Banana Boy or Boynana, the yellow-skinned wonder. During the Boltman arc I had this idea for a shitposty sideplot parodying Evangelion because Boynana's dad, Mr. Abomination didn't give a fuck about him, someone remarked that he looked like Shinji, and also I was going through my Eva hype phase. All the other characters were gonna be based on fruits. Moving on.
Here's a sorta' important one! You might've caught it back on the new head shape whiteboard, but I wanted to bring back Shabba's SpongeBob lip. I thought it'd be good for emphasizing facial diversity too. That's why I went out of my way to give the cast unique eyes later in The Big Pitch's development.
Also a less copyright suit-bait design for Kool-Aid Kid that made him easier to draw in paint, made him more reflect his near Shabba level cool status, and overall made him a more ZE character. I sort of wanted to rename him to something that wasn't bait either, but I could never come up with anything like Kool-Aid Kid...
One of my favorites of the entire cavalcade of doodles. My teacher had a whiteboard table and I loved it. I decided to have one of some of the ZE kids relaxing in the grass together. The table turned out to be too long for me to take a pic with my camera (this was before I got my phone), so I had my teacher take the pic and send it to me. Good times. Goooood tiiiimes.
We were talking about ZE on May 9, 2015 and I captured this for a good reason. You already fucking KNOW WHAT IT IS: something from a previous pic is relevant. Remember how Shelbye is clinging onto Zay's arm in the head shape whiteboard drawing? What's that about? Didn't Rose replace Shelbye as his love interest? Well, Zay had expressed regret in replacing her, so for the ZE reboot (which I was apparently planning 2 months before Homecoming 4???? wtf???) I was going to pitch that Shelbye return as Zay's GF while Rose be returned to her more unique Mary-Stu concept.
Yet another internet post I was looking to take inspiration from. I believe it speaks for itself.
It's time for a Special Set!
I think I take back what I said with the very first whiteboard pic; even back in January I was on the edge of knowing what I wanted to pitch. The varied eye designs really speak to this. Also random Terry and Mauii.
This was in the same class as the table one. I took advantage of the colored markers and tried to emphasize the characters by coloring in one of their key colors, Vic's zip-up, Shabba's hoodie, Shelbye's glasses/hairclip, and Holly's eyes/hair. Looks like the gang's in for an EXTREMELY rude awakening....
No color for Zay because there was no grey. He has pockets though so uh, that's something.
The first of the two scratchy doodle pages. Experimenting with mouth shapes and facial expressions. I think this is where the triple dips in the character's lips you see in the newer art originates from. Speaking of, let me show you the concept art pitches, bitches!
It's the main man himself, Zay Escobar. Sporting a longer flat top, new pants (that were probably meant to be green), Zay's new design was overall meant to be recognizable. Basically every feature on him was a landmark, and his face curving out at the bottom served to make his silhoutte a bit more dynamic than just a circle leading into a flattop. Still really like this one.
When I told Roxy that I was going to make The Big Pitch, she decided to contribute by creating a new design for Nate.
This was fine and dandy and all: it has the same basic layout as Nate's old design, only this time his hair is Tanoshimi'd up because Roxy's weak-ass never learned how to perfect her own character's hairstyle. smh. Anyway, with a shrink down to Nate's normal, Skylander midget stature, and more hair variations, I came up with
Nate's hair being hilariously inconsistent honestly made way for an iconic character trait (along with, of course, making him an easier draw every comic).
Vic had always been drawn a bit thinner than the rest, but in the reboot it was a very intentional decision. Vic purposely has a skinnier build than the other two, as shown in this earlier, pre-head shape concept sheet.
Here it is, the affront against Shabba itself. You can honestly tell I really fought with this one. The page is covered in scar marks, particularly from me trying to perfect Shabba's hair. Even then he still has that troglodyte forehead so it was barely a W. In general, I thought the drawing was just too plain ugly to show off in the pitch. So here I am showing it off now lol.
Shelbye on the other hand came out A LOT better. If I could go back I'd shrink her head so there wasn't so much negative chin-space, but I think her new shirt was doing her favors in making her interests more apparent.
Crispy's page is a really the star example other than Zay's despite being incomplete (like Shelbye's). One thing that it was easier to do in older ZE was have the characters really blend together other than skin tone/clothes. With Jaire, I really tried to avoid that by giving him this flattop that spreads out and is a lot wavier than Zay's. Also some CaH eyes for good measure.
If you can't tell with how their names are written, I tried to provide a 'test' sample for their hand-writing. One idea was that every character would have their own font, though that would take quite the bit of reach to get them all.
Little note I made so that not all the characters were facing the same way lol
Holly basically had the same clothes as Zay before, just with all darker grey clothes, so this time I tried to shake things up by giving her new ones. I didn't find that a dress/skirt fit her personality too well, so I gave her a tanktop and some sort of special wrist tie. Of course for Polly's sake though, she still needs some sleeved clothing.
Man, sure is a shame I only ever drew Holly's 3 revealed forms. Guess we'll NEVEEEEEEEEEEER know the other two ;))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) [/subtle]
And now back to your regularly scheduled random drawings!
This was my FIRST ever attempt at giving the cast unique headshapes exclusive to them back around Christmas of 2015. Probably not a good idea when I've been admitted to the ICU for a few days and my drawing dexterity is still fucked up but hey, gotta pass the time some how. I didn't like these so much, they put me off from trying head shapes again for a while. Circle heads up to that point had been iconic, almost a part of ZE's artstyle and I wasn't sure at the time if I wanted to expand from that. Of course I eventually tried again, and it gave us the art we see in the later parts of 2016. Tell me, which do you prefer? Real headshapes or circles?
Speaking of which...
I've been randoming which image I put in the blog next basically this entire time, but was about to just do this one since it was a perfect segway from the ICU headshapes. I decided not to and guess what? I randomed into it!!!!!!!!!!! Haa!!!!!!!!
Enough about me geeking out over destiny calling my name through a randomizer, let's talk about the image. At this point I think I'd chosen headshapes for most of the main cast, and this was just a random drawing I wanted to do. I think I wanted Elena and Vic to have similar but not the same headshape, so I made her facial features a lot curvier while his were more natural/angular. I still had nothing for Nate, Arthur, and Mauii so they stayed circles. Gave all of them a dap of color too. The purple marker I used on Nate came on too strong, so I scuttled back to a colored pencil.
You've probably noticed already, but I /LOOOOOVE/ drawing Elena, I doodle her eyes, face, hair etc. on all sorts of shit. She's probably my favorite ZE character to draw.
I had made it a point to draw the ZE cast as MUCH as possible during The Big Pitch's production. Any chance I got on white boards, you'd be sure it'd go to the ZE cast. This even permeated into one of my school projects where we made cards for U.S. service members.
We got the cards back a bit later to work on them and by that time I got a phone, so if you're wondering why the quality's better, uh ha HA u already kno wtf it is
I-impossible! An artifact from the day IMMEDIATELY after ZE began! I /refuse/ to believe I came up with this idea that long ago. Though when I think about it, that's a good thing since I can distance myself from these limp raps. Anyway, this was a planned...arc (it sounds SO wrong saying that about ZE when it was a day old) based on this one guy Zay knew, Cillan Darcy or something. His schtick was that he had 10000 sockpuppet accounts that were named in a way that it was obviously him each time. The idea for the story was that prior to this event in a shorter story arc, Cyven steals Zay's identity, does shit under his name, he gets found out and thrown in juvy. Something happens to the Escogang down the line that gets them in juvy and they meet Cyven once again. He's a leader of sorts of these delinquents now and challenges Zay to a rap battle because I had no understanding of how to express a more black-based tone in a story without more base shit like rap. Anyway, notice how I couldn't even come up with an insult for Shabba lol. he that cool bruh
HOLY SHIT HE GOT THAT CRIMSON CHIN STILL FIRE I HOPE I CAME UP WITH THAT MYSELF I'M REWRITING THAT DOWN LMFAO
A triumphant lad.
Some heavy-lined mini whiteboard Zays. I think this serves as a good way to talk about one of the most distinct artstyle plans for the ZEboot. Take a look.
Thin lines have really become one of the star aesthetic choices of the 2010s and while I love them with all my heart, I really wanted ZEboot to stand OUT. As such I decided to experiment in one of my idea notebooks normally reserved for writing ideas/charts the moment I got it. And if I do say so myself, I think it looks BOMB. The characters just really pop out and the variation in thickness from part to part just WORKS. Shabba's head is a bit wonky, but in general this picture is the true encompassing of EVERYTHING I wanted to present artistically for ZEboot. The bold outlines were also meant to represent street graffiti, because it reminded me of the controversial, insightful expression associated with hip-hop graffiti. Not like ZE's really 'bout that, but I still think it's a much more aesthetically pleasing, compelling way of referencing black culture than diet Mordo/Rigbone raps.
Let's keep up on the more engaging stuff as I provide you with the outline/storyboard of Homecoming 5.
If you still remember Homecoming 5 from the beginning of this Blog, (which you fucking should because it's been fucking YEARS) you can see it varies a bit from the final product. In fact, the board got farther than the real comic. And the outline made it all the way to the end!
Ignoring the sticky note, you can see the plan was for them to play hot potato with the trophy for a bit (ended up switching the order of some characters) before Brette gets it. Everyone dog piles Polly, with Amaru of course being extra as fuck and standing on top of her after Sean, Zay, Kool-Aid Kid, and someone else pin her by her limbs. Polly seems to be reverting back and tells Brette to lean in, presumably so she can apologize. Polly was on some snake shit tho and slugs Brette in the face, giving her a swollen eye. This results in Brette standing up for herself and hitting her back with the trophy, knocking the Polly out of Holly. It skips to Holly waking up, probably suffering from severe brain damage since that shit knocked her out and she apologizes for being awful despite it being Polly's fault because she's good like that. The principal who I don't remember the name of atm but I've always imagined as sounding like C.H. Greenblatt, the creator of Chowder, then reveals that neither Brette not Holly won. Instead, Ms. /SALEMI/ did. How? It turns out the vote was open for alumni too, and because this asspull is so huge but I wanted it so bad because I didn't plan ahead I was gonna go back and retcon some comics by editing them. It's also the reason why Salemi lets Polly set up her plan: she wasn't sleep. She was woke. Holly's about to probably get expelled but Freemale pulls some shit out of her ass and saves her, Amaru tries to meme Holly but Sean tells him to cut that gay shit and it seems as though all is well. Holly gives Brette a personal apology which sets up her getting a character arc later on. and all of the important characters who're still there take a picture together, Ms. Salemi VICTORIA-ously holding the trophy up. The final joke of the mini-series is that the still photo of all the characters together has its fourth wall broken by Zay stating that it can finally go back to being his comic. From there, things were to return back to normal with Zay as the lead star. The End.
Sarah (now Sara) uh, doesn't die btw. She was prob gonna block the axe swing with the trophy which miraculously takes no damage.
"Wait a second", You're wondering.
"Only one question. Save the rest for the comments." I respond dismissively.
You ponder for a second and quickly blurt out "What's with the Victoria thing? Is that a pun? I thought that was the name of Vic's sister."
Well my friends. It's time for the /nuke/. The big kahuna, a project in the making since /November 22nd 2013/? Well you better be. It's a pic so huge, I'll have to cut it up for Wikia's weak photo uploader. Get fucking ready.
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hahaha it's been so long since i did one of these
Alright, alright, I'll stop playing: behold Escobar Expedition in its full contents: on imgur because it can actually handle it ;))
This is probably a lot to take in, so I'll start it simple: Escobar Expedition was intended to basically be a huge sheet that gave the deets on the entirety of the ZE cast. I started work on it a few days after the series started and from there it expanded. It contains many characters that had been yet to be introduced, and as such I kept pushing it off from release as not to spoil them. The biggest ones probably are Holly's other two 'personalities': Jolly, a happy upbeat Holly who's always looking to brighten days (think of her as Jordan but COMPLETELY hype) and Molly, the calculative, cold-hearted genius part of Holly meant to be rivals with new character, Danielle. There's honestly too much to go over on this one, so look over it on your own and save those questions for the comments section below.
With Holly's other two persons finally revealed, let me show off a chart intended to be a brief summary on her personalities.
Holly's 4 other personalities were all to have 2 triggers: Holly reaching the peak of whatever emotional state matched the personality or a physical trigger like her sneezing.
At the very end of Zay Escobar's initial run, Apallo came up with the idea that Arthur's hair should change color to match his emotional state. Not entirely new personalities mind you, just a color change. Check it out!
Original by Apallo.
Elaboration by me.
So if you noticed Arthur's hair changing color all the way back in Homecoming 5 and thought it was just an error, THINK AGAIN! Compare the chart to his hair and try to see what he's feeling.
Awww, we've got a tragic one coming up. When I say I used these characters as much as I could I meant it. In Economics class we were assigned to make up a comic using some of the important terms we learned. And being me, you know this was right up my alley. And by up my alley I mean something I'll put way more work into than I should and turn in weeks late. Sigh. I still got a good grade on it though. It was about Tori asking Zay about making a choice on whether to body someone after they did her wrong. Zay goes on a PSA-ish type thing while still retaining his personality and its gag-filled of course because it's ZE. Unfortunately the comic itself was lost because my teach (he's a lad I swear) indiscriminately threw out all our work at the end of the year, so by the time I asked for it, it was 2l8. All I have now is the original transcript I wrote which probably varied from the final but fuck it I'm not even gonna read this joint roll the clip
The idea stemmed from me wanting Zay and Tori to have a defined relationship. Tori basically has a crush on him, but it's the most primordial form a crush can take: she herself doesn't even know she likes Zay like that, she just knows whenever he comes around she likes hanging out with him. She doesn't try asking him out or anything, she just REALLY admires him. Zay, of course being like 6 years her senior and having a gf is flattered by this and catches on pretty quickly, but doesn't really use it as a manipulation tool or anything. He just likes her company.
I found this entry form for a basketball tournament on the floor and was struck with inspiration. For a while before I found it, I had an idea for a plot where Vic struggles in gym class due to the other kids making fun of him and Shabba tries to toughen him up. The fact that this was a 3v3 was /ripe/ for plot potential too....and they say coincidences aren't real.
Similarly...
Y'all already know where this was going. Similarly enough, it was gonna be another Vic/Shabba plot (Zay possibly there) as the 2/3 skip one day and go out and have some fun.
Here's a cute/dumb one! It's from my diary journal and that's the day I was on some fucking sub-Homer brain activity and tried to pass through two girls without saying excuse me. Of course they got angry, and I guess one of their angry faces reminded me of Mauii Gets Mutilated's iconic face.
"Woah, who is tha--"
Classified top secret by order of the Super Simian Collective.
"wtf i thought this was a big blow out of all the secrets what is you hid--"
I said keep rolling.
In all seriousness though, one of the few things I'm not planning on showing off is the multitude of comic ideas I had, not only because there's so many of them but also because...well, we'll get to that at the very end. Remember those 6 files at the beginning in my Google Docs Zay Escobar folder? The one called 'Zay Escobar Plans' isn't as much of actual plans as it is just where I dump all my comic ideas. And believe me. There's a lot.
This next one was simply going to be a parody of this gif.
Rather than being the slickest thing sinced The Grease, one ZE couple's attempt to recreate this would result in the two of them being knocked off the bench. Maybe they would've laughed after if I wanted to make it cute.
Let's delve back into the world of not knowing how to properly express an African-American inspiration with some of the cast with THIS highly unnecessary planned comic all the way back from 2013.
I think this was around the time I first heard Fuck tha Police and I really liked the song so what I basically did was take the cast of ZE and have them take on the role of the NWA in a plethora of comedic scenes.. It's basically a storyboard for a music video at that point.
Yeah.
Lyrics are abbreviated to the first letter because I wanted to pay more attention to the drawings, just like how I want you to pay more attention to the next drawing hahaha
This handdrawn overreaction was planned to appear in a comic! It's one of Mr. Kehler's yet-to-be-introduced son, Jimbo. I think Zay mentioned him once, possibly as a joke, but regardless I took it seriously and began planning his debut comic, "Mall-tempered". It stars Holly and Jordan chilling at the mall sitting on a bench when suddenly, this little kid rolls up and talks to them. He asks for something and they're like 'sorry, we don't know what you're talking about' or something and then he flips out in the reaction shown above. The final punchline of the comic is him crying for his dad, who is revealed to be Mr. Kehler.
Here's one of Rose hug-tackling Zay. Judging by the look on his face, the days of Rozion are LOOOONG passed. Shelbar is all the rage now! Anyway, I also had an idea for giving Rose an entire family Zay would meet later, but only ever designed her older brother.
Whether this is the true starter of triple dip lip or merely a solidifcation from that one doodle page, there's one thing for certain: this is when the development of a newer artstyle was really concentrated and it was being put into effect.
Story time!
So I'm talking to this girl—I know, hard to believe. Because it isn't true.
So I was doing a crossword puzzle during the 10 minute break between two of my classes and outside this classes is a sort of lobby-ish area. Other kids come sit here too while they wait for class to start too, so don't think I'm out here avoiding people. 'Cause I'm not. As I'm sitting and waiting, this girl comes and sits at the table I'm sitting at. The dialogue begins.
Girl: You remind me of my friend Victor.
Me: How so?
Girl: Your mannerisms.
Me: Ah. What's your na...
(A FEW MINUTES LATER)
(Roundabout sets in)
Me: (in meteorology; thinking about encounter)
Me: wait a second
(flashback) Girl: You remind me of my friend Victor.
"remind me of my friend victor"
"my friend victor"
"victor"
"victo"
"vict"
"vic"
This drawing's from my diary journal btw.
Speaking of school, it's back to me using the ZE cast in places you wouldn't normally expect! This time (and by that I mean earlier this year in like, April or May), I used them for a whole project on college life in my college prep class.
On a side note of seeing cute drawings of the cast in general, you also get to see whatw as intended for some of their designs in the reboot. Glory to Brette's Meat Boy eyes.
A few ideas for expressions for a story arc I had planned where Zay helps Alex/Ninja Boy--
Yes. Yes he is.
So anyway, it was for a story arc where Zay helps Alex talk to Ana Lee. That's all you need to know for now ;)))
I found a fancy, special document orange envelope and drew Zay's face on it sometime this year. I cut it out and it's going on the cover of my next sketchbook. That is all.
Shelbye!
Everything I've shown you so far has organized in a plethora of different folders by topic. Random pictures, meta pictures (one of my folders), College (the school project I just showed) etc. All of these are under a folder named "Zayonara" and Zayonara is one of the two folders under the prime folder simply titled, "Zay Escobar". But what's the other folder? Before I organized everything for the sake of this Blog, these were the original sub-folders of "Zay Escobar" (everything else was basically messily shoved together, waiting for the reboot debut).
The purpose of most of these is pretty apparent:
- Art examples is references like official art
- Assets is for when I was doing fancy stuff like Holly shrinking in Homecoming 3
- Comics are the raw comic files
- Drawings are random little doodles
- Inspiration is stuff I wanted to use for comics (and no, everything that should've been in there that I've shown, like the escalator bench gif, was never put in there. )
- Scrapped content is for content that's totally be used some day [/Kappa]
- Sneak Peek was for when comics (read: Homecoming) were in production and I wanted to show off a little.
- And Utilities is just a skin color palette.
But what of Season 1? hehheh...well....
These were the 31~ comics probably intended to be remade and dropped in that Zionews that was coming. The "Reboot" sub-folder likely just holds comics that were intended to be remade for the reboot as well, but weren't part of this initial Season 1 wave.
On the topic of things intended for the reboot, I was planning to start a new archive alongside the canon archive and the guest archive: the commentary archive. There I could go in deep on production things. Here are the 8 I made for Homecoming 5 (cropped all the way back from 11/5/15 to 11/11/16!);
Showing off Kool-Aid Kid's towel pre being recolored.
Pre-coloration since I guess I was just really proud of that linework.
Kool-Aid Kid's face was rougher here. Was being highlighted to showcase how to 'properly' draw his face.
I was legitimately so happy with this faraway shot's details/the perspective of Sara and Arthur that I made zoomed in copy that was just gonna be there so people could get a better taste of the MASTERFUL ms paint tech
Ended up turning the whole comic on its side so I could get proper lying down anatomy for Sara.
Increased the floor wall space between the floor and Holly so Arthur could fit more comfortably between the two for the shot.
It's time to jump up in the air! Jump up, don't be scared! (this was a complete accident, that was probably supposed to be her smile)
This has to be one of the most involved/difficult shots I ever drew for ZE. Being in MS Paint certainly didn't help in some respects, but to start off I simply listed the character's names to the head they belonged to and hoped for the best.
I had never fully decided on whether I wanted it to be a looking down shot or a looking-up-out-of-the-center-of-the-group shot. You can tell in the previous pic Kool-Aid Kid was definitely meant to be the latter type of shot, but Sean clearly contradicts him with a looking-down. Jordan doesn't help by going back to a looking up, and Amaru is straight up at a 3/4ths. I really loved these shots I drew of them though, so I saved them for funsies.
Before the reboot was solidly confirmed and I was going to redraw those 31 old comics, I intended to release "patches". These would be updated versions of old ZE comics with typos in dialogue fixed up as well as some more unsavory art features fixed.
Example of something I was going to patch: size up Jaire's hand. Looking back though, it was sort of a goonish idea to edit those old comics with my modern artstyle. For all their flaws/quirks, good and bad, they're reflective of how I've grown as an artist. I definitely wasn't going to destroy the old versions, just edit up new ones.
Fixing typos tho, hahaha yeah still for that.
Behold my first foray back into the world of uniquely shaped heads! This time I actually wanted to stick with it though! You can see primordial versions of Zay and Shabba's headshapes here, as well as me pushing to finally start using speech bubbles which Roxy objected too. Smh
Random flying Zay from summer of 2016.
Last year for Christmas I got this cool book called "Wreck This Journal". It's essentially an activity book that let's you engage with it on a whole new level since a lot of the prompts are really open to how you go about them. This one asked me to draw something with my left hand so uh, you know what I had to do to 'em.
Wish I wrote their names under them too for good measure...
It's time for another special one! The following pictures were for a planned special ZE halloween special where the kids (more than the Escogang, also some of their friends) were considering going with uniform costumes (I.E. if DBZ was picked as the theme, everyone would have to dress as Dragon Ball characters). This resulted in me experimenting with the characters in a number of iconic artstyles, all of which they'd have some comment on why they shouldn't dress as that. These were intricate, so I started them out on paper and would later transfer them to MS Paint.
Obviously paying respect to ZE's roots.
I ended up drawing too close on the edge. Ha...
That's more like it! Note how I didn't just randomly assign the ZE cast a character; each one had some thought put into them.
Variant with Pacifica as Keshuna instead of Rose.
TOME isn't that huge but it's artstyle is certainly recognizable and I wanted to draw it so MMM (tongue out)
Sorry squaddies! South Park is another really important factor to ZE's roots and it would've been really cool to see the entire cast drawn in the style but I was too lazy to draw them and left it to the major ones, saying I'd get back to it.
"you were too lazy to draw SOUTH PARK characters, but had enough moxie to draw the gravity falls one AND the tome one"
and well what i have to say to that is
THERE'S MY RIDE
Other than Gravity Falls', this one is my favorite.
Pretty proud of this one. It's def not at that Simpson level of expression, but I still like it a lot.
Last and DEFINITELY least is this Family Guy one that I never finished. It's honestly ugly, and I don't think it's because it's the FG artstyle ;(
Shitty Straight Outta card from the Anti-Zay circlejerk era when I was planning to keep doing ZE completely independent of him. Will print IRL to burn.
Complimenting the turd casserole that was the last picture we have THIS unfinished slaggotry. Back when Ecruos stroked the flames of the circlejerk like the ACTUAL FUCKING SNAKE HE IS, Fire Emblem Fates was fresh and new and we didn't know its plot was complete dogshit yet. As such I decided to make this stupid shitpost where it's the old ZE cast face to face with the new ZEro designs. aww jeez.
Quite ironic that I had myself on the conquest side and Zay on the Birthright side but didn't realize I was being a dick, huh?
ALRIGHT WE'VE FINISHED THAT TIME TO GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE
I had planned on having a short series of strips where the kids (Zay, Shabba, Vic, Holly, Amaru, and some others) got together and watched TV together. Here were some of the planned shows:
For the Crispy McChicken show, I was gonna pitch the idea that Jaire had an uncle who ran this famous sort of talkshow like Ellen or Oprah, but a lot more comedy based. Jaire looks up to him a lot and thus took on the moniker of "Crispy Jr.", though he's only ever called Crispy. Pigo was meant to be a little kid's show like Dora or Little Einsteins and The Invincible Crabman was an all ages action show starring the world's coolest crab.
These two pics were intended to be used during the build up to the Zionews.
Ooh, time for my TRUE, ACTUAL, REAL favorite of all my whiteboard drawings!
I drew this on a desk size whiteboard during english class. I like how it serves a really short but reasonable look into the characters via 2 lines of dialogue and expressions
Was gonna use this for a gag with Terry. It was just so funny.
Pic that was stated to be of Shabba's car and as such I decided to save it and use it as reference for later. All the way back from February 2015 btw!
A fun little sheet I made for a bit of the cast and their relationships to one another (but not all of them; y'all already know there's too many of 'em). Because I was planning on keeping the cast in middle school, the name Sexy Science Girl was NOT an option anymore, so she got renamed to Cute Chemistry Girl. I think it keeps the meaning well enough.
Here's a big plot one! When I saw this I instantly knew I had to integrate it into a series. Holly's skin tone has basically been a non-element in the series. I think it's been referenced once, but other than that everyone treats her no different than they treat any other kid. As they should. But last year I finally began to formulate a justification for her skin tone. In the early days of the reboot, her skin would serve as a non-element, but much later it would be revealed to be a brick joke of sorts. Emulating the fact that Holly had step-siblings, Holly was to be adopted with her parents being caucasian (though it's not shown in the early days of the reboot). Holly's distinct interest in politics, unusual/misnomered Multiple Personality Disorder, green skin, and sharp teeth when in Polly form--all seemingly irrelevant factors of her character would come together to reveal her as a reptillian-human hybrid and would've gone down in history as one of the greatest character reveals of All Time. But alas...it is not meant to be...
We're at the final stretch everyone! Just a few more..
Primordial ZE drawing! From November /18th/ 2013. Look at those abysmal proportions...adorable...
And now my friends, it's time for something very special. Eons ago, in a midst of a joke-filled conversation, one of the greatest Escobar-based puns ever was forged: Zay Escobard. This comic remained in vaporware hell for the entirety of ZE's initial run, only ever being referenced by name. But in 2015, I dared to dream...
In an English project I had that required I use a certain set of vocabulary words in a comic I decided to put ZE at the forefront of a school project for the first time and create Zay Escobard ONCE AND FOR ALL! Handdrawn and to be converted to paint later, of course. But enough stalling, here it is in its long-awaited glory: Zay Escobard! (spoiler alert: it's unfinished because I last minute EVERYTHING lmfao kill me)
The art starts out pretty good, but you can probably tell that it gets a lot more hasty as the comic goes on, being punctuated by the unfinished last panel which was supposed to star every ZE character that was fictionalized in their comic. All of this was obviously going to be fixed in the offiicial version, with this original handdrawn stuff going to the guest archive.
Second to last we have these left over, recent doodles. Some of which are going on the cover of my next sketchbook alongside the formal envelope thing while others have been glued onto a page on my current sketchbook.
And with that, we've finished (almost all) the entirety of all the drawings/concept art I planned to make use of in the build-up of ZE's reboot as well as the reboot itself. While this episode really was all about what /I/ had planned for ZE, I also did it to celebrate the return of it on Zay's front. Really, I feel as though his return to making ZE made me realize a lot of things. Which is what we're talking about in this ending segment.
Parts of the author's notes on these new comics really spoke to me in seeing things more from Zay's perspective. I'll give you the two that helped convince me to make this Blog.
- "This is just me satirizing the situation. I know this isn't directly Zay or anyone, but this is what this comic is about; having fun and making fun."
- "but Zay Escobar has always been done in MS Paint. There is a reason for that, by the way."
If you remember back, the former was a large source of contingency for ZE during the fallout between Zay and chiLL. The fact that a lot of Zay's comics were injokes was looked upon with adversity. Whether or not it was genuinely bad, misunderstood, or poorly executed isn't the point though. This showed me that so many of the aspects of ZE that we were dismissive of or ready to abandon were what made ZE, ZE for Zay. For the reboot I was thinking about ditching MS Paint and using something better, but from that quote I can gather than using MS Paint for the series is a conscious choice on Zay's part. The biggest push for me in realizing, really, how much ZE meant to Zay was The Escobar Chronicles. The fact that he had this idea for a more serious spin-off about the cast made me realize: ZE is almost like this, loose-biography of Zay's life. There's definitely a lot of liberties taken and Zay, Shabba, and Vic were never REALLY Zay, Andre, and I but the way Zay goes about making his comics feels like a pure, carefree form of expression. He's making what makes him happy, what he wants. No matter if that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's really interesting to watch. And from what we've seen, I personally think it's a good thing. Like, totally independent of us being pieces of shit, I just find this new wave of comics funny. Zay Escobar is something near and dear to Zay's soul and whenever I see these new comics no matter what they're about, I can feel it. At this Ultron Sigma-level brain activity it made me realize that what I want ZE to be and what Zay wants ZE to be are very different. The way we go about expressing ideas, what we write about, which characters we write about, how we feel the series should work vary a lot. Like, this for instance; you know how I said that the doodle page was the second to last picture from the reboot plans? Here's The Last Hero.
This was a little doodle of Zay I made and next to it are the words "Zay is a pretty, uh, co[ol]". I made it as a sort of, prompt-during-an-interview, stream of conscious type of things where I would give a brief summary of Zay's personality. Notice how it's unfinished though. That's because I straight up didn't have and still don't have an exact idea of what kind of character Zay is. I still put him in comics before that anyway, but I was making it a point in The Big Pitch to talk about how I don't know who Zay is and I wanted to set some rules or something so that I could get a firmer grasp on the character? But Zay (user, not the character)? He knows exactly what he wants to do with every character, and while there are some differences with how he portrays some of them (Vic and Crispy), I honestly want to see these differences. I want to see how ZE goes completely under his umbrella moving forward. And that is the big reason I created this blog. With this dump of all this planned content I would like to reveal that I'm quitting the band motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OUTTIE 5000 I FOLD CANDACE IS OUT PEACE SEEEEYA GOOD LUCK ZE In all seriousness, I genuinely want to see where Zay takes it as his own vision and don't want to water it down with my own ideas. I'll find somewhere to relocate that 39 pages of ZE content. Speaking of ideas I have....
Alright, alright that's enough out of me! Well...there IS one more thing.
I leave you all with one last ZE! It's Zay's choice as to whether he wants to put it in the comic canon or make a 2017 guest archive. Or ignore it entirely idk.
Regardless I hope you enjoyed this trip down reboot lane and I hope that maybe some of this stuff was able to inspire Zay, you know? Maybe not like he wants to directly use these ideas but seeing so much ZE stuff makes him want to work even harder, idunno. If you have any questions about anything you just saw here, leave 'em below! Because this is the end. There's absolutely NOOOOTHING left to see here. Nothing at all. No secrets. Please, get a move on to the comments section.
