How would you redesign Sonic the Hedgehog?

Sonic's trademark grin was introduced on the side of his face, so that's why Sonic's got anatomy-breaking side-mouth goin' on. That said, I don't really mind side-mouth, but I'd prefer his mouth in the center of his muzzle like in the Sonic Adventures. Only less spastic ala Sonic Adventure 1 and less square ala Sonic Adventure 2. Seriously, what was up with the square mouth.

I'd also like the art style from the adventure days to come back as well, I always liked that style. I miss the days when game box art was original art and not 3D renders, I really do.

EDIT for clarification: I mean the way Sonic was drawn as opposed to him being tall and lanky. Like this:

I absolutely love that art style.

 

^ This, though the moving of the mouth looked weird in Sonic DX.

Note that some practicality can be applied to fantasy, just because his fur color is illogical doesn't mean everything else has to not make sense.

 

Fair enough. Still not a fan of it though. It made Sonic's model in Brawl look ugly, same goes for the one in Sonic 06. Didn't mind it as much in Heroes though

 

The '06 model was ugly in general, I think everyone can agree on that. :v:

I'm surprised nobody's tried to mix Sonic with Rocket-Knight yet. They look similar enough with some differences. (I was never big on RKA, but the art style looks nice.)

 

I think that concerning Brawl it's a matter of animation (and texturing) when you consider that it's more or less the same model used in the Storybook games. It's the way they animated his spikes like locks of hair. It really kills his image.

 

I like Uekawa's illustrations too but I think the reason why they stopped, at least on console games, is because it made the games look cheap and 3D renders are seen as more modern and "professional". Thick lines and flat shading are good for GBA and DS games because they stand out more on a smaller box but nowadays if you see something like that on a console game it's more likely to be a budget title. Back in the Dreamcast days it was a little more novel and Sega was pushing the style with a lot of their first party games like Jet Set Radio.

One thing I don't like about the Sonic Advance and Rush box art though is the composition. The characters just sort of float over the colored backgrounds and they're not arranged very carefully. There also wasn't much variation within the Advance series cover art. The character illustrations are fine but they're just sort of pasted on there.

 

This.

They don't look sharp when they're flopping around like that. They look better when they're rigid, so when he spins it's like a circular saw blade, not just a blue guy doing somersaults..

 

The art style is fine but I hate that coloring

It looks like he just pressed the emboss button in Photoshop

 

I love the coloring. It's the main draw for me.

 

I'm not the only one that noticed that... I love the Advance artwork, and just about everything about Advance 1 and 3, but the box art has always looked cramped to me. Why is Sonic so big compared to everyone else? Why is everyone else on the margin of the picture? Why do the character graphics look like they were taken from stock images?

I also like the coloring, but I'd prefer the airbrush style. And I can say that it's a lot harder to make that shading than just clicking emboss. (I tried. )

 

Hint: Sonic Advance.

 

Pretty much. It's a bad attempt at Opposing Poses (as John K called it), but the point is to focus on the main character.




Oh who am I kidding they just pasted art together and made Sonic really big.

 

I think the cover for the soundtrack of Sonic Rush Adventure is amazing! I hope that they try to mix with "artstyles" like they did with the Mario-series (Yoshi's Island, Paper Mario).

 

I would honestly start by giving all the male characters full sets of clothes, because only the girls wearing them is kinda weird. And I definitely don't want more fetish fuel for furries by making the girls have LESS clothing.

But that's just me, and I know many people hate the concept of Sonic wearing a full set of clothes.

 

The composition is what bothers me, it just looks like a quick job. Is it like this for all regions? Usually Japan and Europe have nicer cases than America. (In my opinion.)

 

Pants would just slow Sonic down, man.

But I wouldn't mind seeing someone like Tails wearing a vest or a jacket.

...Maybe a hat or something.

 

Well, Knuckles had a hat once. I seem to remember Tails wearing a hat somewhere before... But still, clothing the characters doesn't really sit well with me.

Besides, Sally doesn't wear clothing, so clearly they can make no-clothes-females work.

 

Eh, Sally did kinda spawn a lot of furries, so that kinda proves my point. Although any popular female animal character does, so it also makes my point invalid. But regardless, I was talking game-only wise. And discluding the technicality that Amy was going to be called Sally or that Sally was apparently in spinball (heard that somewhere one time, but never got too far into the game to see, so might have been bs- but it was a spinoff anyways), Sally's not an official game character. Created and used only for the shows/comics and related media thus far, afaik.

 

Just to clarify- in the USA manual for Sonic CD, Amy is presented as being Princess Sally. Because no-one would notice THE CHARACTERS BEING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

And Sally, together with other freedom fighters, do appear in Spinball, on a bonus level.

 

You could argue that it wasn't the fact that she didn't wear clothes, but rather + - her clearly defined ass.