I know you guys like seeing these things. This one is not mine (was not the buyer nor seller) but recently traded hands.
Ooh, nice - thanks for sharing! Great to see an in-progress version of this iconic piece - one of my favourite pieces of western Sonic cover-art. Tails with skin-coloured fur is something I've not seen since those old... what were they, Burger King or McDonald's toys? Wonder if there's a connection, haha - can't remember which year those were produced.
Wow, so cool! Buyatari, how does one become informed when this sort of thing goes up for sale? And how/why are you in possession of so much of this artwork?
Not the Sonic christmas crackers figurines? Tails had flesh-coloured fur in the prototype shot of those.
I'll start off by saying again that I was not the buyer or the seller. This particular piece was never mine. The video game art that I do have comes from getting a head start on most other buyers. As for how to keep an eye on the video game art marketplace, I would recommend this group on facebook. Closed group so you have to be a member to see posts. https://www.facebook.com/groups/502536466816380/
Nah, after a bit of Googling I found the one I was thinking of - it's the one seen in this picture: Apparently a 1993 Burger King kids' meal toy, so I guess my memory was better than I thought! Even at the young age I was back then, it still bothered me his fur colour was wrong, haha. XD
Christmas Cracker toys, photos from Sega Memories: http://web.archive.org/web/20140717.../2012/12/sonic-uk-christmas-cracker-toys.html As with Greg Martin's image, tan coloured tummy/muzzle/ears, but white tail tips. EDIT: Internet Archive to the rescue.
It's unlikely this particular manga did much influencing - you'd expect Sega of America to be leading the way for Sonic 2 and 3. In fact, Tails looks as if he's been nabbed from some Warner Bros. cartoon (the cheapo ones from the 1960s) - like they only had a vague description of the character to work with. This Greg Martin painting is probably the first to use the wrong colours, and I would imagine licensors copied it from there.
It would still be a strange coïncidence that this manga has a Tails with a color scheme that was used later by the US merchandising... and let's not forget the brown Tails from the nineties cartoons.
Can't be just a coincidence... It's very likely that Tails' prototype design did have that color scheme and then that merchandise and artwork was made from SEGA's rushed orders. Thanks for sharing it, Buyatari!
Yeah, it's not unusual for promotional photos to have prototypes. The Sonic and Robotnik figures’ eyes are a bit off too.
Damn, that almost looks like you-know-who: Isn't it possible to draw a character using Ray's color scheme with the first in-game palette from Sonic 1? Because, now that I think of it, that might have been their starting point and those crazy colors would make sense. EDIT: Oh and speaking of tan fur, we cannot forget about this:
Another bit of early Tails weirdness. The Kellogg's Frosties Spinner (yoyo) was packaged in a box labelled "Two Tails": (I can confirm that's how they arrived.) A little odd, but on its own probably not significant. HOWEVER. This Burger King Kids Club hanger (with the off-colour Tails) also calls him "Two Tails". Any other Two Tails sightings?
I have seen "Two Tails" in some of the gaming magazines, but didn't give it much thought. Check the very early stuff when Sonic 2 was announced. I have a vague timeline in my head about when Sonic 2 information was released, but it's very possible they showed the character before telling us his name. I wish we had press releases from that era.
This is Greg Martin as well. However, on the original painting he has white fur. Sega must have changed it.