It'd be interesting to know how much music theory has actually been put into these tracks. I've always thought Fist Bump was originally composed on piano while Escape from the City was either written with a full band in mind or in a jam session with Jun's friends. Windmill Isle is a great tune to hum along to. It's scary to think that ultimately music is just maths, even though that's not the point here.
Maybe Tom Fry (or whoever had the idea of adding him) just saw Ray in the comics and said "cool, let's put that in". I think it was just yet another nod to Sonic fans, rather than something in SEGA's official list of updates for the Sonic brand or anything.
It almost seems like that would entail intracompany communication and also the community stuff he was doing before? :O
The Archie Sonic wiki mentions Ray's jacket outfit as being designed by Jonathan Grey. This would've been months after Sonic Heroes' release, so I'm pretty sure it was just done to spice him up as there wasn't much to his design before. Something I also forgot to mention in my original post about Ray's design evolution would be in the unfortunately scrapped issue #294: This cover was done by Tyson Hesse, so I guess that could explain how it was brought over to Sonic Mania.
I was taking a gander through the JP Sonic Adventure guide on a whim and found out more interesting stuff. Including why the Egg Walker has its weakness. According to the text, the "ankles" have balancers on them in order to stabilize the mech's center of gravity. This explains why the main body tips sideways when Tails attacks those blue disc things. ZERO's part is also mildly interesting; According to the text, ZERO's designation is E-100 α (Alpha), is an iteration of the Egg Robo E-Series and is different from others in the E-Series in that he does not have an animal inside him.
Aleah Baker was responsible for the final Ray design used in the Archie series: https://www.deviantart.com/kureejiilea/art/Ray-the-Flying-Squirrel-Jitters-concept-350406154 Interestingly, at least one other shoe design was considered for Ray in Sonic Mania Plus (5 seconds in):
That cover is bitter sweet. Two issues away from a Mighty and Ray story and we go from that to them being permanently banned from the IDW comics. Maybe down the line IDW will make a classic series like the Archie Mega Drive comics (another thing we never got to see completed). Damn it Archie/Sega you couldn't just drop Mega Drive 3 and issue #293 (or give them 7 more issues to wrap up the series proper)? Both were 1 issue away from completing their arcs which oddly were both classic Sonic centric
Indeed, IIRC he's referred to as E-100 in one of the proto level selects, and the autodemo's font has a character for alpha in it.
Weird. At 2:15 (and the default thumbnail) in the video, we see a western-looking Tails design circa '93 with similar black banding/buckles around Tails' gloves (and socks) as the prototype Knuckles! Was this image of Tails a Greg Martin design?
Not sure if there was a dedicated topic on here but... He lives! https://twitter.com/sagara7791/status/1292734072930754560 https://twitter.com/yuuken81/status/1292265198938517507 We don't yet know who was responsible for the work or who paid for it but... What a job!
Always found it annoying that Tom Fry talks about how there was no C&P for Mighty and Ray, but their in-game sprites are traces of Sonic's a lot of the time. :/ Their promotional art and unique animations are all totally original and inject tons of personality (like Ray's monkey bar swing or Mighty's push) but they look way too much like Sonic a lot of the time. Encore me with these two looks so jarring. It's especially bad for Ray as the majority of his sprites make him look larger than he actually is.
I honestly can't believe the Sonic Statue is restored. how amazing! Dave Lutty has got to get back out there and see his boy.
Am I the only one who liked Mighty's Mania sprites? I even like his shade of brick red. Just unfortunate how Mighty's palette breaks after going Super, then his sprites look like garbage til the next act. I guess I don't mind if Mighty shares some sprites with Sonic because he always has, so I just didn't expect any different here. But I love Mania Mighty, if I'm not playing as him I'm using the mod manager to make him my partner. Ray though... Ray needs to be shorter and needs a non traced sprite set. He looks kinda ugly in Mania. Plus I think there was a disconnect or something, Mania Adventures Ray is Tails height but his in game art is Sonic height. Hopefully if they show up again at least Ray has some new sprites (honestly I'd like the next 2D Sonic to have a more drawn look).
Sonic, Ray and Mighty were all the same height in SegaSonic the Hedgehog. In Ohshima's depiction (circa 1991-1992) Sonic and Ray are the same height, but Mighty is taller than both of them. These design tweaks weren't taken into account with SegaSonic the Hedgehog. In Chaotix, Mighty's key character art is based off of this image, with the longer torso instead of Sonic's circular torso, but the in-game sprites were still just edits of Sonic (the new shoes have been implemented though) so he is slightly shorter than Knuckles. On the title screen, Mighty is about the same height as Knuckles, maybe ever so slightly taller. As we know, Knuckles is officially slightly taller than Sonic, and has been since the classic era.
That concept art seems to imply that Mighty's legs should be skin-colored, though. The Chaotix title screen and character art still depict him with black legs like his SegaSonic design. Which is awfully ironic, considering that the Chaotix ending gave Sonic skin-colored legs
The skin legs are infinitely more cursed than blue arms, seriously I'll take blue arms any day of the week over those cursed legs.
At a very early stage, Mighty had black arms and non-black legs. Two pieces of art in the Chaotix manual also show him with flesh coloured legs. His tail colour is inconsistent too - in SegaSonic it's black, in Gale Racer it's flesh coloured and in Chaotix and Sonic Mania's sprites it's flesh coloured on top and black underneath. The thing with Mighty though, was the idea that his skin was literally black, or is it just artistic license to convey that those parts of his body are in shadow due to his shell? My assumption was the latter. Having said that though, there is an animation in SegaSonic where he loses his shell if he falls off the edge, and his body is still black. It's a bit of a Looney Tunes style gag, so perhaps shouldn't be taken too seriously. That is one of Greg Martin's. I believe this image was shared by Buyatari a few years ago: The straps were always part of his design though. Sega of America dropped the shoe straps around 1994 when they updated their style guide to resemble the DiC cartoon version of Tails (and AoSTH Robotnik). Speaking of which! This caused a bit of a stir on Twitter recently. Ohshima said before the white parts aren't socks - "It's all shoes" - well, it turns out that the Japanese text on the Sonic style guide seen in Sonic Jam and the SA2 birthday pack explains it. They're actually boots folded down. So the white parts are the inner lining. Which also explains the deal with the zipper on Classic Vector's boots! Please excuse the poor MS Paint:
