If nation of origin was of any importance, I'm actually surprised a comment hasn't been made about how Sonic Underground (which as memory serves, often duels with Sonic X for being most disliked) was made in France. :P I've looked at the animation studio's work... their 2D work looks fairly solid, but their 3D is hit or miss. So, I'm cautiously optimistic, as mentioned before. At the moment I'm just hoping that whatever the official designs are, they look as good as some of the cooler looking ones done by fans; the main issue is, can these fan designs really hold water when translated from a 2D to 3D medium? It seems much easier to draw wonderful 2D work, whereas CGI animation is a definite hit or miss with aesthetics. At least, that's been my experience; if not for a few good uses of it, SyFy movies and their ilk would have ruined the name of CGI for me…
And Luxembourg, where Studio 352 is. A friend worked a few weeks there years ago and brought me many Sonic Underground model sheets.
Model sheets I can only imagine they were a bit liberal with, given how often weird shots of Underground show up on Awkward Sonic Photos But yeah, I don't really think the fact the animation's being done in France is necessarily a strike against it - not this early in the game.
I have something like 400 model sheets (Characters like Sonic and his siblings, Aleena, Knuckles, Bartleby, Sleet & Dingo and lots of background characters ; backgrounds ; objects and stuff) I've already scanned a few ones like Manic, Sonia and Queen Aleena. If you need some others, I can scan them (just not everything, it would take a lot of time) and I'd open a new thread.
Speaking of concept art, I can only imagine what sort of designs the cast went through to reach what we can see by the silhouettes. I really hope the production sheets and such get unearthed at some point after the show's release. It's always a shame how many pieces of concept art seem to just vanish and are never seen again, with the only reason we know such artwork existed at all being word of mouth telling us how many designs character x went through. I can presume they originally wanted to go for a style true to the games and it somehow evolved into what we see in the teaser image. My biggest question is why SEGA would approve such a change, especially with Knuckles; after all, for a while SEGA seemed very fond of uniformity in design (Archie and Fleetway changing character designs Adventure's release as the best example I could think of)… I suppose maybe they're relaxing their strictness now? That would be my only guess, because otherwise that would mean they're planning on similar redesigns for the game models themselves, and that seems like a radical move when the recent approach seems to have been to keeps things simple and rebuild Sonic's reputation rather than try anything radical. Redesigns not often going over well, I don't see why they'd change the game character designs around all of a sudden, which leads me to think they're just becoming less strict. The most interesting theory I've heard of, however, is that those are not the literal silhouettes of the characters, but might be how they imagine themselves; a shadow is considered an extension of one's soul in various superstitions, after all. That would definitely explain Knuckles’ silhouette, as he would want to see himself as strong and capable of fulfilling his duties, while Tails would also make sense given the wrench (representing his handiness and thus, his desire to be an asset to his team). Assuming Sonic's wearing a jacket… I guess that'd symbolize him being a rebel? The “shadows reflect their desires and not what they actually look like” theory definitely explains Knuckles, I think, but it isn't as adequate for the other three as they are harder to interpret. Ultimately this is why I'm cautiously optimistic. Overall I can't wait until release date, because then hindsight will become 20/20.
So if people are somehow panicking that the voice acting is going to be terrible... There you go, confirmed by the man himself. Also, if that isn't enough for some people. Spoiler Damn it Skyler.
"Rôle", huh. Well, okay, the little circumflex doesn't really alter the meaning of "role" or anything, but still. Odd.
The ratio of males playing female voices, versus females voicing males, is pretty one-sided towards the latter as far as I know, so this would be interesting if Pollock can pull off Amy. I haven't heard any other voices he's done besides Eggman, but I have no doubt he'd make an honest effort.
ALL THESE YEARS I NEVER KNEW *jumps out window* *cat noises* In all seriousness, Mike Pollock is definitely talented. O: I mean, I knew he was anyway, but wow, I never would have guessed he voiced her all that time.
Ella was quite possibly the best character of that god forsaken show solely because of the dub. Not even kidding.
X wasn't really all that bad. A lack of focus on the game characters, a woeful dub and sometimes dodgy animation were it's downfalls. But it was still fairly enjoyable on the whole. Boom is going to be an entirely different sort of show, this time with SEGA America and a Western studio at the helm. I'm interested, but the characters designs could very easily put me off.
I just liked how it was full of easter eggs and nods to other series. Decoe and Bocoe from another anime, things seemingly from Thunderbirds or Gundam, and a scouter from Dragon Ball Z among tonnes of other stuff.
I didn't notice if there were any easter eggs/cameos from other series in Sonic X, but then again, I haven't watched much Anime in my life. I really should stop being picky and dive into any of the ones that seem interesting. Also, the fan art still spawning from this thing keeps getting better, and cuter in this case. Spoiler