Wonder what the reason for shipping all of those materials over is for. Maybe I'm looking into it too much, but I wonder if this is a result of SoA being established as the new Sonic HQ from a couple of years ago.
This might sound silly to many of you, but how do we go ahead and upload stuff to the wiki? I shared those Sonic manga scans and the Sonic X model sheets but I don't think no one uploaded them to it. I remember trying it a while ago and finding out I didn't have access to it. Asking since I have more stuff coming.
I actually went through the same issue when I first started sharing stuff on the Wiki lol. XD I had an admin help me set up an account. Your Wiki account and forum account are two separate things. They used to be linked together but aren't anymore. I was planning to add the Sonic X stuff you shared to the Wiki and I still can if you want or if you want to add it that's fine too. Reading that post Aaron shared made me so extremely excited and happy to see more artwork you have no idea. I'm actually trying really hard not to get my hopes up too high though because I don't want to be let down. Last time Aaron said he found two binders of Sonic Adventure concept art and still has yet to share it with us and in one of the livestreams a while back he said that he'd post the Sonic Mania official artwork (E3 and SXSW Posters, Vinyl Soundtrack art ect) on Twitter and never did. We still don't have good clean scans or original images for Sonic Mania and it saddens me greatly. The fact that he says "Someday" tells me that we might not be seeing anything anytime soon which I don't understand. This is the kind of stuff that should have been in that disappointing Cook and Becker art book. I don't understand why Sega seems a little hesitant about sharing old concept art. It's not like they are going to utilize any of the old concepts, or designs especially if it's for the classic games. I'm really hoping that they do share and release all of the artwork in those boxes. If they archived it into an art book I would totally buy it. Just don't have it done by Cook and Becker lol. That's a lot of concept art that they are sending. I'm personally hoping to see more concept art for the classic games especially for Sonic CD and Sonic 3. I want to see those Sonic 3 level concept arts featured in that old MTV video. I know they still exist because some of them were shown at the 20th anniversary event at Tokyo Joypolis and some of the others were shown in the Cook and Becker art book for Sonic 2. A lot of the concept art for Sonic 3 were recycled Sonic 2 concepts. I also want to see more Sonic 2 stuff like the time travel concepts and level maps shown by Yasuhara at that gaming event a few months back.
It's totally cool if you upload the stuff I shared, thanks for that! In the meantime I'll get help in setting up the account.
Man, I mean I get why he probably tells us this stuff before actually get the okay to release (drumming up interest in order to make a better argument as to why it should be released I imagine), but it's just such a tease I almost wish he wouldn't. I remember when he found those binders full of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 concept art. Really was looking forward to those, but we haven't gotten a single update on them since. Still, I'm glad there's at least someone over at Sega who actually cares about this stuff yet, and as long as long as he's around there I'm sure it'll get out eventually. It'll be worth the long wait I'm sure.
I thought for sure that SA concept art would appear in the Sonic Art Book, but only a few images appeared. How on earth did Sega give that book approval? I personally hope Sega scan up all this artwork and then make it as unlockables for collecting Red Star Rings and Gold Medals in future Sonic games. I'd much rather see concept art released in a digital form (especially because the Sonic Art Book did a bad job of presenting the art often obscuring it by the book spine, or placing it too small on the page). In an interview, it was said the Mania Team got lots of concept art for the original games. I am surprised they didn't include it as unlockables for the Gold Medals.
Yeah, the C&B Sonic artbook was pretty disappointing. Hell, I have a theory that Webber showed those three binders of SA2 art/storyboards because he was hoping to have them included in that artbook, but SEGA or C&B or whoever else that was responsible had no interest in them at all and turned them down. It's always a bitch when companies are being so stingy about sharing concept art. You know what I think would be ideal? Concept art books released for each separate game, maybe two games combined if there's not enough concept art for one game to warrant a whole book. They could also go the extra mile and make separate books entirely dedicated to cutscene storyboards. I for one would love storyboards of SA 1 & 2 and Heroes, especially considering how cool the Heroes storyboards look from what we've seen in Mega Collection Plus. If Studio Ghibli films could get stuff like this, I don't see why Sonic cannot. They can offer both physical and digital Kindle versions for these as well. Part of me actually wants to believe that SEGA decided to start off kinda minimal and tame with the C&B book to test the waters, see if people would want to buy a Sonic artbook in the first place. Once they saw that yes, people do want a Sonic artbook, maybe they could consider my idea and go all out this time. Maybe. That would also be a good option, but there's always those pesky little issues like compression and resolution. I'm STILL pissed off that the DS version of Colors had to be the one to get unlockable concept art, which means it's only available like this. Gross. Maybe they won't repeat the same mistake again in future games, but I don't trust like that.
Well, they did the same with Sonic Generations 3DS which also had exclusive concept art. But with Nintendo Switch, it looks like the days of exclusive handheld games are over. All the consoles are in HD (including Switch), so there shouldn't be any resolution issues.
I actually provided some rare merchandise art for the C&B book that didn't make it for print. I know other collectors did the same as well. They gave us credit towards the end of the book which was cool but I wondered what happened. It's like the goal of the book changed from "let's make it the ultimate collection of art" to "lets focus on how Sonic's art style has evolved throughout the years and here's a couple of never-before-seen artwork." Not sure if this was decided by C&B or mandated by Sega. On Instagram, C&B expressed interest in doing a revision or another book just focused on rare art, but who knows if Sega is going to take their offer.
Having documents and concept art be part of a commercial game brings up a different set of limitations: http://kobun20.interordi.com/2015/09/06/the-lost-legacy/ I'd rather have different small books/magazines be released with these things. Oh god, please not again. This should be done by a team that at least doesn't half-copy their accompanying text from Wikipedia.
This is such a great idea! I was always thinking the same thing to myself. I would totally buy an art book for individual games like "The art of Sonic 1", "The Art of Sonic CD", ect. I really do hope that they actually share this artwork with us and it's not going to be like the Sonic Adventure binders again. It almost makes me wish that Aaron wouldn't even say anything to us at all about it. It's like dangling a chocolate bar in front of a small child and then telling them sorry you can't have any. I don't want to have to wait several years for Sega to get off their high horse about sharing concept art either because that just really sucks. I am hoping that we do get more Sonic art books in the future but I really want the next art book to be in higher quality and not done the way Cook and Becker handled it. (Wrong dates and information, concept art listed under a particular game when it came from another, small images, rare art spread across the spine ect) Ideally it would just be nice if they just scanned everything and shared it online but I doubt they'll do that.
I think they could split the art books up by era and get away with it. Like the Art of the Genesis era, the art of the dreamcast era, the art of the pre generations era, the art of the post generations era. That'd probably be about even right?
The Mediawiki software has always had a high barrier for entry because it's awkwardly designed - you're not the first (and won't be the last) to ask this question. Although there is a topic. Treat the Sonic Retro wiki as an entirely separate entity - it needs its own account, and you register one like you would on any other online thing. It's preferable if you use the same name as on these forums so that we know who you are, but as said, there's no direct connection anymore. To upload files, you go here. Also a good idea to read this. The best piece of advice is to watch what other people do on the recent changes page. The bad news is that adjusting to the wiki's syntax and how things work can be a bit daunting. The good news is pretty much every respectible wiki (including the four we maintain) uses the same software, so you only need to learn this once. If registering an account doesn't work for whatever reason, let this topic know the details.
That doesn't really count. The images that were omitted contained "offensive" content. So they wouldn't have been released it in a book either. A Sonic artbook is always going to be a niche product, so there'll be space limitations in a book/magazine. Which means either the art will be placed at a small size to fit more on each page. Or more likely they'll omit lots of stuff. With a game, they can put as much concept art as they want. And now that all the consoles are HD, it will all be present in full screen, crisp high definition.
Personally, I just think they should post the art on a dedicated section of their website. We're going to scan and repost the art either way, and issues with space, resolution, etc. are no longer factors.
Those were published in the Mega Man artbook, they were just removed from the game's gallery. And then there was another instance of a cigarrette that got pixelated. This means that there's already a few joke images that would have been censored/omitted from the margins of the concept art we already have, and I'd rather make sure that we get 100% of the integrity of what gets released.
That's a good point about ESBR ratings acting as a censor to artwork on game discs. However, Sega is less paranoid about Sonic. After all they had concept art of Amy, Cream and Big drinking in a tropical bar on Sonic Mega Collection Plus.
Here's some 'other knowledge' for the (probably) one other person who was curious about this. So I was curious; what happens on the savegame clock in Sonic Heroes if you play more than 99 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds? The above, which should actually be 100:05:14 but for the hours remaining at 99 whilst the minutes and seconds roll over as normal. There. That's a thing you know now.
