Sonic Social Media Shenanigans (This totally just happened...)

I was curious how long the internship would last. As far as internships go, a year is a pretty long amount of time! I hope his departure was on his own terms.

He definitely brought a lot of cred from around these parts to the official goings-on of Sega and softened some of the worst blows and increased the best moments. Any PR/Marketing/Social Media position he moves on to will be absolutely lucky to have him. Not surprised he won't be coming back as site staff considering he lived and breathed the franchise for over a year, but I hope he'll pop in from time to time.

Good on you, man. Best of luck.

 

He mentioned that in a tweet a while ago: https://twitter.com/gene_hf/status/936792706482712576

Wishing the best for him as well. A lot of you Retro folk are fun people, and naturally, it was great to see Gene as a part of the official staff. I'll miss him too, as well as his own Sonic related tweets on the side of the official Sonic Twitter.

If he does return as a staff member here eventually, that would be a day worthy of another party thread, I think. />

 

I won't lie, I actually went to go check Gene's profile. I really hadn't noticed that he hadn't been around for over three months.

 

With all that hard-earned cash, first, he's gonna buy himself a pool.
… get it?

Best of luck in your future endeavors, dude. : O

 

Aaron Webber on Twitter:

"I'm looking to reach out to a few more highly-talented Sonic fan artists in the future. Who are some of your favorites?"

https://twitter.com/RubyEclipse/status/938880852766867456

Could it be Sonic Mania 2 or a new 3D Sonic made by fans?

 

I assume it's a broadening of scope for the project we already know Aaron is organising - in order to get high quality art made for the social media, he's been taking in fandom artists and letting them get feedback from Sonic Team to make sure they understand the house style(s) and don't misrepresent the characters. This results in SEGA commissioning them to make seasonal stuff like the Halloween pictures both this and last year, and the Easter picture this year.

It does eventually let you get closer to the games once you've built up a rapport with Sonic Team, but it's not nearly that quick of a turnaround and probably doesn't involve working on in-game stuff or concept art. For example, I'm pretty sure the Sonic Mania promotional character images that ended up on the boxart and in the manual were made by the same person who's been helping out for a while.

 

From what I know, Tom Fry was one of the main Mania artists who did most of the cover art, with Kieran Gates contributing additional promo art. Both of which managed to produce a similar consistent style that matched the classic artwork. However, both of these dudes were a big part of the main Mania team.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had done other promo art before though, this would be nice to know at some point.

I think you're right regarding the constant feedback, as Tom Fry had mentioned he was in quite close contact with Kazuyuki Hoshino and possibly others throughout Mania's development time, getting advice and feedback on various styles and designs.

One example being the juggling Buzzsaw crabs in Press Garden. Tom originally designed them to have normal eyes in their main body, but Hoshino suggested giving them googly eyes that stuck out instead, giving them the look that they have now.

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iZgvhg4bjuw
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iZgvhg4bjuw

 

https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/947709853362937856

In the New Years video, the Eggmobile sprites are actually an edit of the Sonic Mania Eggmobile (from Hydrocity Act 1s boss) done by local user Dolphman. Guess its shading fit better with the other sprites than the Sonic Mania shading did. :v:

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QXeN8CBySs0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QXeN8CBySs0

 

I'm glad they removed that small Sonic-graphic from their thumbnails... that's all.

 

https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/951519837351591936

The best possible way they could have reacted to the Ugandan Knuckles meme, imo.

 

This meme is so damn weird in the way it evolved.

First it was just Knuckles drawn that way for a YouTuber's video, then that was turned into Knuckles Sings which was around for about a year, then VR Chat came along and a model for that Knuckles was made and then the Ugandan stuff happened along with Blue Knuckles models.

 

Now I know why they didn't give Knuckles a Tribal/Caribbean/African accent.

As for the Meme, I heard the guys behind the Ugandan movie "Who Killed Captain Alex" approved of this meme.

 

I always wonder where the Sonic Franchise would be with out Aaron. While some people may not appreciate that Sonic's official online status is just posting memes, i think it has been instrumental in people becoming interested in Sonic again and putting more trust in the brand. Im sure one of the the only reason's Forces did as well as it did and even had lots of hype around it was because Aaron had laid the groundwork 2 years prior and helped make a bond from the creative heads to the core fanbase. Not to mention the amount of questions that have been answered on the streams

 

Agreed. Aaron's efforts are the best thing to happen to Sonic in forever in conjunction with Sonic Mania's release. He single-handedly made the brand popular again.

 

http://youtu.be/T4g9UJ1Ccdk?t=375

japanese black stig is going to ruin the sonic toaster and social media accounts

 

There's a poll asking what feature from past Sonic games was your favorite. Chao gardens, custom characters, 2p mode and time attack are the options.

https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/991383566545108993?s=19

 

Huh. This is super interesting. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Intriguing that they have two Classic Sonic options there and two options related to the 3D games (though I guess technically all four could be applied to any Sonic game really). Wondering if this poll will have much influence? The choice between "Customisable character" and "Chao Garden" reads to me like comparing Forces to Adventure as Sonic Team potentially shapes their next game. Wouldn't be surprised if after Forces they're struggling with ideas and have no fucking clue what to do next. So I guess this is their preliminary research?

Voting Chao Garden because I feel it's my duty to do so. Seems to be winning by a landslide at the moment with 64% after ~14K votes so hopefully this poll achieves something.

 

Yep, it's more interesting after reading that Famitsu interview where Iizuka said he hasn't thought about the future of Sonic or Sonic Mania following the release of Sonic Mania Plus and that plans haven't been made yet.

So this might be the start of seeing how they'll tackle the next game after Plus and the Racing game.