So much wrong with that model, but at least they noted the muzzle shouldn't be long. Yet most of the poses on the sheet still draw him like that.
Actually Aosth and SatAM Sonic didnt have a tail. Instead he had a 2nd back spike which seems to have been forgotten here. Honestly looking back, compared to JP Sonic this Sonic was almost as drastic a departure as Boom Sonic was, I guess since it was all we had we didnt notice though.
Got some merchandise tidbits from Portugal for you all. First, remember this from the Sonic Mania Plus thread?: Because I'd completely forgotten about it. I got it in the mail today in an hilariously oversized envelope. It's a bonus from pre-ordering on Fnac. I figured some of you might want to see what it looks like, so I took the liberty of scanning it: The copyright notice on the back reads "© SEGA 1991". Could it actually have been made back then, or is it some sort of "reprint"? Does anyone here recognize the artwork? This also reminded me of some really old plastic Sonic pins I've had lying around since 1993. They came with Triunfo-branded cat's tongue cookies. Thought I'd scan these too: They were meant to promote Sonic 3, but it's clear someone just used whatever Sonic pictures they could find. Not sure how many of these existed. I believe there might have been a TV commercial for this, but my memory's kind of foggy about that. Speaking of TV commercials, there was one for a promotion called "O Verão de Sonic" (The Summer of Sonic), which was a collection of stickers that came with Danone yogurts (I believe this was back in 1992, or at most, 1993). The commercial featured an animated wind-sailing Sonic and an announcer asking things like: "How does Sonic run on water?" to promote the Sonic-related riddles on each sticker. I might still have the commercial on an old VHS tape, but I don't have a VCR to share it. To compensate, here are some pictures I found on the Internet: (Source) (Source) Funny how they seem to have taken Eggman's Japanese artwork and replaced his face with the US one. The answers were hidden under scratch labels, most likely because they were embarassingly bad. There's stuff like: "Which robot wants to destroy SONIC? | The ROLLER." "Who tickles SONIC's nose? | ORBINAUT." Oh, and pogs. Everyone loves pogs. Some Bimbo snacks came with lenticular Sonic pogs circa 1996, the kind that changes from one picture to another when you view it from a different angle. These were called "Sonic Mexe-Mexe", which would translate into "Sonic Move-Move". Here are some pictures I found on the Internet (source): That's all for obscure memorabilia for now.
Wow... I remember those from Danone, especially the badges... and those from Triunfo... are these yours? ... by the way... do you have Bollycao Stickers ? We need scans of all that stuff to our wikis... Would you mind to scan these for us?
The badges are mine (excluding the Danone ones), but the rest I just found on the Internet. I do remember those Bollycao Stickers, and I even had one of the Master System version of Sonic 2, but unfortunately, they're long gone now.
Yep... I was expecting that answer ...they're kind of rare nowadays ... but thank you anyway... I had some of those Danone badges and a good amount of Bollycao Stickers (lots of Bollycao buns eaten) as a kid but unfortunately... none survived ...
It's from one of the rare "vacation scene" images. The art itself seems to date back to 1991 (Max the Monkey from the Sonic Band is in it). They mainly showed up in magazines in mid 1992.
I have seen a lot of Sonic merchandise with a 1991 copyright - I think it's probably because the source images come from 1991, rather than the products based off them. This is why I keep pushing better coverage of Sonic-related merchandise on our wikis - I don't actually know if there was a lot of Sonic merchandise avaliable in 1991 - 1992 and especially 1993 is where Sonic becames the greatest thing ever in terms of marketing.
I do recognize the artwork from a Spanish christmas Toys R Us catalog. I still have the trimmed illustration somewhere (kinda wish I would have saved the whole thing) but anyway, I think it's also appeared somewhere on this message board previously. EDIT: Oops, hadn't seen Pengi's reply! It looks like it was traced really poorly for some reason... Unless the Bollycao stickers were released that early (they may have been from 1992, according to this site), I actually don't remember seeing any piece of Sonic-specific merchandise in 1991. It was "just a videogame" back then, at least in Spain. I'd need to check again but I don't think it's uncommon to see the character/brand's original copyright year in place of the actual year that the merchandise was made (as in, 80s garfield dolls with a 78 stamp)?
Kinda hard to confirm this specific pin's manufacture date, I guess, though it's cool to see the original artwork. Thanks for shedding some light on this. It strikes me as odd that they chose something like this as the pre-order bonus for Mania Plus, instead of something, well, Mania-related. I like it, though! I just found someone selling one on eBay, too: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1991-RARE-EARLY-SKIING-SONIC-THE-HEDGEHOG-PIN-BADGE-METAL-ENAMEL-SEGA-COLLECTOR/113162923229?hash=item1a59092cdd:g:28cAAOSwhpZaLaqt No further info there, but that one seems to have a better paint job than mine, at least (Sonic's arm color seems to have bled on to one of his quills).
I know of one thing: The New UFO Catcher was released in 1991 and as well as having Sonic on the doors (and Sonic 1 music), there was a set of Sonic prizes released around the same time. They appear in the promotional shots for the thing, anyway. But this is a Japanese-exclusive thing. In the West... dunno. I suspect it didn't kick off until Santa had finished putting Mega Drive + Sonic 1 packs under Christmas trees.
Today on "there are too many versions of this game stoooop": Apparently Microsoft now sell Xbox 360 games in Xbox One boxes. Both Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Sonic Generations appear to have been given this treatment - there are obviously other non-Sonic games too. And to think, in 2013 we couldn't even be sure they'd be selling discs for the Xbox One.
They've been doing this for a while now. They're really playing up the backwards compatibility angle this generation. Probably a good move, since Sony and Nintendo both dropped the ball in that regard.
There's a set of odd Sonic 2 promotional images drawn by Duncan Gutteridge. You've seen them before: etc. People like to pretend this is concept art for the game - it's not. It turns out it's artwork for a 1993 Sonic calendar: At least, that's my best guess. Having retailed around late 1992 (because obviously you want to sell 1993 calendars before 1993), the artwork could only have been loosely based on official Sonic 2 material, because the game wasn't completed. Perhaps the above shot was inspired by an incomplete Wood Zone after all. But in short, this is not game art, it's calendar art. Art that was later repurposed into other things. Probably. How do we know for sure someone was making Sonic artwork specifically for calendars? Here's a clue.
Oh it was definitely repurposed - I'm pretty sure both of those with some editing are used on the Sonic Choose Your Own Adventure Gamebooks.
