Looks really good. My only complaints are about the hands. It's hard to tell for certain, but I think the hands are supposed to be pointing outward slightly as though Sonic were gripping a bent bar instead of a straight one. Also, the right hand especially needs some work. His thumb needs to be on the side closest to his head. Perhaps you should try drawing the vines in MCZ or the bars in WFZ to see whether Sonic grips them properly with your sprite.
Looks great, the only things I can pick at are about Sonic's gloves. The cuff on the left hand looks a bit too sharp on the left hand side. The right hand looks too rounded at the back like he's wearing boxing gloves. Also, I can't work out what's happening with Sonic's thumbs in these pictures at all. Are you interpreting this as having the thumbs wrapping around the vine like a conventional grip? or are the thumbs together with all the fingers? Either way, I think this could benefit with adding in some transparent parts within his hands so that Sonic actually appears to be holding on to the vine (etc.) rather than the way they did it in the original (which was just the Sonic's hands appearing pasted on top of the vine). With the lower graphics you couldn't really notice unless you paid specific attention to it, but it will be more apparent with the much improved HD graphics. I can't recall how many different types of things there are to hang off in Sonic 2 (and how different they are in terms of shape), but if they are close enough to the same shape then some transparent sections would be sufficient (and I think it will be). Otherwise, maybe separate hand sprites for each type of hangable item will be the only alternative left. Mystic Cave - hanging vine - edit: better image with assembled / partial sections. I've included a picture of the hanging vine from Mystic Cave as I couldn't find it elsewhere.
My only nag with this is that the original art of sonic head is different from the other sprites. So sonic head, even though its the same angle, same size, is different from the rest of them. Because its in HD, I think it should match the rest of sprite set. It just looks odd with the resolution that we have today that it should look like that.
In my opinion, the whole right ear (Sonic's left) should be moving, not only the upper part of the ear. I'm pretty sure that the lower pixel in the original sprite doesn't change due to low resolution limitations, I believe that the whole ear is supposed to be moving. This way it looks like his ear is broken. I think that his knee looks a bit too pointy on this one: Excelent work as always Vincent, that's some pro work there. Even if this project went down the drain for some weird reason, I wouldn't be surprised if Sega approached you to make the art for an official version.
Wow, what a huge improvement! Those hands look great! Here's a mockup of what I meant by having parts of the hands cut away.. so that when you overlay it on top of a hanging item it looks something like... this. (although, how you cut it may need to wait until the vine / bar is done).
Definitely getting there, but I still think the hands could use some work. Since the original sprites are not that helpful, perhaps studying how someone would actually grip a bar would work best, and then you could just draw the hands around the bar to match that and then remove said bar. Of course there are various ways to grip a bar, depending on the size of the bar in relation to the hands, but you can determine what looks best for the sprites. Here are a couple random examples.
I think the fingers look alright, maybe they could be curled around a little more though. The room for improvement is mainly with the thumbs.. especially the thumb on the right hand (edit: by that I meant Sonic's left). They need to curl up and around the bar a bit more like in the first photo posted. Now it's time for me to go watch Vincent's vector tutorial and hopefully get started on some work of my own :P`
It's not too hard to use Illustrator, but if you've only ever used raster programs it might throw you for a loop for awhile. I know it took me a bit to get the hang of things. And don't forget that if you have any specific questions there are several people you can ask for help.
Well, I don't think that men grip the bar in a significantly different way than women do, although their hands might be slightly bigger. But Sonic's an anthropomorphic hedgehog wearing gloves, so I don't see how it matters much. If by that comment you were asking whether there was some underlying reason for choosing pictures of women, I assure you that there wasn't. This was just what I thought looked easiest to interpret on Google Images. :-P
Very well done! Really good graphics! I compend you on how clean it is. The hands bothered me at first, but looking now they seem to be an accurate interpretation. Good job!
Thanks guys, I'll show you some other goods then! *The "coolest ones" will be left for game release surprise. P.s. Rika: Dreams comes true! (this may not, but following releases will not have blue necked Sonic! ^^)
Looks great Vincent! However, I think the tail is a tad too high, as it looks like its coming from the middle of Sonic's back. It does match the sprites position, though maybe they couldn't have the tail any lower as it would combine into Sonic's right leg, creating some fat thigh. Keep up the good work!
I think the shine on each eye should be on the left edge or the right edge, but both shouldn't be facing each other.
I was going to post earlier saying it looked weird that Sonic's feet were turning out so much.. but the lack of the black line on the original made me think maybe it was supposed to be done like that - I didn't notice the lack of white line. I think the far foot should be at the same angle as the front one, with that surface without the white stripe being the sole of the shoe.
