The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

From the tweet, it sounds like he redesigned Chaos. That would be a big contribution to the game, so it makes the removal of his name from the end credits even more puzzling.

 

Naoto Oshima added some new concept art to his Twitter.



It sounds like from what he's saying that he drew the rough draft / sketch and Hoshino finalized it and turned it into this which Naoto Oshima thinks looks amazing.



He also drew concept art for the box art of Sonic Spinball.





And then there's this!



Words cannot express how happy I am to see this concept art and I'll explain why. I was actually going to make a thread about this. There is apparently some lost Sonic the Screensaver styled artwork that was never featured in Sonic the Screensaver and this happens to be one of them. These lost artworks were featured in some Japanese Sonic merchandise back in the 1990s such as stickers, posters, calendars, phone cards, pictures on various merchandise such as sewing boxes and bento boxes, pencil cases ect. This illustration in particular was in a set of Sega Freaks collectible cards and I have been trying to track down this illustration for ages. It saddens me greatly when there is beautiful artwork that is lost and I have never been able to get this illustration in good quality. I always find small hard to see images of it. There's another Sonic the Screensaver illustration that's lost art which was used in some merchandise as well that I'm also trying to track down. If I remember correctly, these illustrations were also used for the Sega magazine Harmony. I really hope that we can see more of these lost illustrations and also see the finalized colored variants as well. I'm hoping that they will be in the artbook that's coming out soon. In fact, back in 2011 Retro made a post about the Sega Freaks cards. It can be found here - https://www.sonicretro.org/tag/sega-freaks/ If anybody has these cards it would mean so much to me if we could get a closer picture or scan of the lost art which is the concept art that Naoto Oshima was kind enough to share. It makes me happy to finally see this image in good quality for the most part. I could never make out what was going on in the background because the only images I've ever found of this illustration have been extremely small.

I circled in red the finalized version of this illustration.



It would be great to find these pictures in good quality some day. It makes me wonder how much more Screensaver styled artwork is out there that we don't even know about. Another thing that's really interesting about this particular concept art illustration is that it looks awfully similar to this.



And here's some concept art of Sonic's red iconic sneakers lol.



Naoto Oshima mentions how they were inspired off of Micheal Jackson's shoes in the Bad music video and says that Micheal Jackson liked Sonic.

As for that Perfect Chaos concept art...Since he mentions redesigning it, maybe it's actually concept art for Sonic Generations? Because they changed Chaos' design slightly in that game. This is just a wild guess though so I'm probably wrong lol.

Here's the other lost Screensaver Styled illustration. It was used as a Calendar.



Another interesting thing I've noticed with the Sonic the Screensaver illustrations is that sometimes there is subtle various differences between the ones released in Screensaver versus the ones used for Merchandise.

For example, here's an illustration of Sonic standing by a jukebox which was used for a puzzle.



And here's the one used in Screensaver.



Both are similar with a similar pose but they are a little different. The jukebox's design is different in the puzzle version, Sonic lacks his bowtie, and his pose is slightly different such as his hands. In the Screensaver version he's also looking upwards a little more and is facing the other way. I find it interesting how there's little differences like this and what makes me sad is that a lot of the nice art used for only merchandise is lost to time because they were never released in high quality. I'm really hoping that a lot of the lost art will make it's way into the upcoming artbook.

The one piece of lost art that I really want in good quality is this.



I want to see a high quality version where it's not sunfaded and not cropped. I think this piece of art is beautiful and it's kind of a shame that it's kind of lost. It was in magazines back when Sonic CD was still in production and was also used as a Japanese scratch and sniff postcard where it apparently smelled like citrus.

 

heh

Anyway, interesting that he prefers the final piece. It's iconic for sure but I prefer Sonic's pose in his original sketch. Feels way more dynamic and tense, like Sonic's just about to clock Metal with an uppercut. The way he's posed in the final combined with whatever that glow on his hand is supposed to be just makes me think that he's fist-pumping at a rave.

 

Interesting how it looks like Metal has a tail in that picture. Was that a mistake or was that part of his initial design?

At the same time though it looks like Sonic has an exhaust pipe, so who knows.

 

The Video Game History Foundation just archived a floppy with Sonic Adventure character art that was sent to media on July 3rd, 1999

 

They were made for that magazine - Sega's internal newsletter thing that we don't have clear pictures of.

It's why so many of those images are themed around celebrations or events that occurred in the early-90s. Harmony was published every month or so (I'm not sure there was a strict schedule).


i.e. a big "1993" suggests the January 1993 issue.



These sorts of things occasionally turn up on Japanese auction sites, but it's a mixture of English speakers not knowing/understanding and sellers unwilling to ship internationally.

 

Ohshima is beginning to need his own thread. xD

Today a drawing of Nights and another one of Sonic (he even has said what you were talking about, that these illustrations were the covers of the newsletters):

 

A few English words written in Japanese that I can translate:
"American comic *somethingsomething*"
"Tan tatatata Superman intro!"
"Planets *somethingsomething*"

Shame that the scans crop out some stuff.

 

So, my supposedly Eu Rev 01 copy of Sonic 1 came in the mail today. So I put it in the Mega Drive, switched it on and what I got was Sonic 1 Rev 00... Fuck.



Now, this is where it gets wierd. I took a closer look at the cartridge and could see "NOT FOR RESALE" blending through the cartridge label.


Great, I bought either a relabeled American version of Sonic 1 or a bootleg. The box also 'feels' a lot different, as well as the colours:



Left: 'Made in Japan' relabel/bootleg(?) - Right: Standard 'Made in China' release




Sorry for barrage of huge images, but I have no Idea whether this is a bootleg, reproduction copy or a simple relabel.

-----[Edit]-----

The video doesn't show up for some reason, I guess I'll just post a link:

Link text (wow so original)

 

My Sonic 1 EU cart has "not for resale" bleeding through. And if I gently peel of the EU label, it has the Genesis version underneath.

My Sonic 1 cart was a pack in with the Mega Drive.

 

For the record:

http://info.sonicretro.org/File:SonicAdventure_Art_PromotionalSonic.png
http://info.sonicretro.org/File:SonicAdventure_Art_PromotionalSonicChao.png
http://info.sonicretro.org/File:SonicAdventure_Art_PromotionalSonicKnuckles.png

that's the contents. Although there's an ISO in the package that isn't playing nice - can't quite be bothered with that one right now.


I've got more mileage out of that Dragon Force art CD uploaded by the same user. Always good to see these things.



Incidentally that third image with Knuckles - the fact Knuckles' glove clips through Sonic's shoe has been bugging me for years.

 

That's redundant. =P


By the way, gotta love how the Spanish blurb translates Sonic's name and also calls him a porcupine.

 

If you look at the right of the label on the cart, you can see a slither of the orange US label. My cart's slightly damaged, with a tiny tear on that side of the label. No other label is visible underneath. The letter 'P' is draw on it, though. It's always puzzled me what that meant. 'PAL'? 'Pirate'? Who knows.

Spoiler

The box I have is in the style of the second one you linked: the list of patents is missing from the back of the box.

 

Huh, I suppose it's another one of those cases of SEGA "lowering production costs".
Though I wonder how they came to the thought of relabeling NTSC-U copies of Sonic 1.

 

Shun Nakamura, seemingly inspired by Ohshima tweeting old Sonic sketches, just tweeted what appears to be some Sonic 2006 concept art or storyboard:



https://xcancel.com/Nakamura_ShunR/status/850212301592449029

 

Naoto Oshima just posted some new and really interesting concept art!





These next two concept art illustrations he says was an idea that ended up becoming scrapped and unused in the end. It looks like possible Special Stage ideas and I think it might have been Sonic CD related but I am unsure. The reason I say that is because one of the Sonic sketches matches some of the unused sprites found in Sonic CD.





In the very first illustration on the upper left hand side there is a drawing of Sonic showing him from behind and it looks very similar to these unused sprites found in Sonic CD.





The drawing of Sonic not only looks similar to these unused sprites but also similar to a familiar pose in the Sonic CD opening animation.







In the first illustration on the bottom right there is a drawing of Sonic jumping off of a ledge and it looks similar to this unused sprite found in Sonic CD. Not one hundred percent identical, but similar.



Then there's this bizarre and freaky but hilarious drawing. He says he has no idea what purpose for drawing this was lol.



This illustration he said he drew on the corner of the enemy design page and thinks it may have been the base for the final box art cover illustration. You know the one. The iconic Sonic pose.





For this illustration he said the following - "????????????????????????????????
???????????1??
??????????????
?????????????????"

"While thinking about Sonic development, I was thinking about the design image of flyers.
One plan of rough design at that time.
I wanted to make it cheeky and cool.
Copy etc. It is all my temporary image."



EDIT: Naoto Oshima just posted this new illustration on his Twitter.



"????????????????????????????????"

"I graffiti a Super Sonic. At the time of Sonic Adventure."

 

Ohohoho, what are those?