Sonic Character Design Definition Topic

[VO.SUPER]

Well, to be fair, at the time Shadow was pretty much the second main character of the franchise, so it made sense that in a multiple storyline game, he'd be one of the major players. 

[Diogenes]

It's not just that he's a major character, but one of the themes '06 tried to use was connecting the hedgehogs as representations of past, present, and future. That implies some underlying "sameness" to them, and there's definitely a sameness in how Sonic and Shadow look...so if Silver looked too different, it would feel like they took a step towards making that connection and then suddenly turned away from it.

[Soniman]

Here's a thought, do we even know if Lyric is from the same world as Sonic? If no, then he's on the same level as the Deadly Six and Black Arms. 

 

Whoa now forget Lyric, how are the Black Arms and the D6 anywhere near the same level????

[Gabz Girl]

Round shapes and noodle limbs define a Sonic character to me. Even the Deadly Six, who didn't look like your average Sonic character, had these characteristics even if they are from another world. Of course there are exceptions like the MOTW gang and Black Arms who are vastly different because they are monsters, aliens etc.

 

*ugly Fleetway characters*

 

 

You forgot this one too. She's an ugly bugger. =P

 

 

Seriously, Archie and Fleetway had some seriously out of place characters, but it was unbelievable that a comic like Archie as late as 2012 still had characters who looked out of place in the comic. Luckily that has all changed now since the reboot.

[VO.SUPER]

It's not just that he's a major character, but one of the themes '06 tried to use was connecting the hedgehogs as representations of past, present, and future. That implies some underlying "sameness" to them, and there's definitely a sameness in how Sonic and Shadow look...so if Silver looked too different, it would feel like they took a step towards making that connection and then suddenly turned away from it.

 

The problem with that is that Shadow and Sonic both come from the same time, and neither of them have the same amount of connection to these events that Silver does aside from being there. 

 

Either way, I don't know why I'm bringing this Sonic 06 talk up so much. My point is, is that Silver could've at least have been more uniquely designed. 

 

Another character that should've looked different is Jet. He looks like green Sonic with a beak, what happened to Bean or the battle bird armada?

[Diogenes]

The problem with that is that Shadow and Sonic both come from the same time,

No they don't. Shadow's from 50 years ago.

[Gabz Girl]

The problem with Silver's design is that it looks bloody ridiculous. If they had made him look more like some of his concept art with the funky thin quills or the MUCH smaller pot leaf quills then maybe I would have taken him more seriously. B/ At least Shadow looks cool...

[Vertekins]

Seriously, Archie and Fleetway had some seriously out of place characters, but it was unbelievable that a comic like Archie as late as 2012 still had characters who looked out of place in the comic. Luckily that has all changed now since the reboot.

 

I still find it hilarious how Archie's idea of designing Sonic's and Tails' mom's was taking Sonic and Tails and putting a wig, dress, boobs and eyelashes on them;

 

 

It's pure laziness. Bernadette got a notably better design later on but Rosemary always looked pretty bad.

[VO.SUPER]

Yeah, I never understood why anyone ever thought the wig design was good. Would it have killed someone to think with these designs, maybe make bernadette purple, with less quills, a more curvaceous body; but why that stupid wig that clashes with everything in the design?

[Vertekins]

Yeah, I never understood why anyone ever thought the wig design was good. Would it have killed someone to think with these designs, maybe make bernadette purple, with less quills, a more curvaceous body; but why that stupid wig that clashes with everything in the design?

 

Well Penders created and designed Bernie. Doesn't that explain a lot?

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Yeah, I never understood why anyone ever thought the wig design was good. Would it have killed someone to think with these designs, maybe make bernadette purple, with less quills, a more curvaceous body; but why that stupid wig that clashes with everything in the design?

 

Well considering that many Western cartoon animals (especially females) tended to have humanlike hair stuck on animalish bodies (or just looked like humans with animal parts stuck on), it wouldn't be that big of a stretch that they followed that philosophy instead of the Sonic "change quill/existing fur into a hair-esque style" now would it?

[VO.SUPER]

Point taken, point taken. 

 

I may rag on how samey a lot of Uewaka's designs are, but he knows how to make them appealing vs Penders slop where he adds a million details on the same mold to the point where they look like mutations of the characters.

 

Ah well, at least Boom is coming to help add some variety. I'm sure that with Sonic Team supervising the design process there was some careful consideration to find a balance. And from what I've seen of NPC design, and Sticks, I'm liking it so far.

 

 

Well considering that many Western cartoon animals (especially females) tended to have humanlike hair stuck on animalish bodies (or just looked like humans with animal parts stuck on), it wouldn't be that big of a stretch that they followed that philosophy instead of the Sonic "change quill/existing fur into a hair-esque style" now would it?

 

 

Yeah, the problem with that was that our animal characters at the time had more realistic colors and the wigs were meant to match that. 

 

But Sonic characters have always had some of the wackiest colors in existence for their anthros, and a lot of the wigging just looks wrong at times. (Though with Sally's redesign, I thought the artists at Archie were very clever to make the brown hair be an extension of her backs highlights.)

 

And in the case of Sonic characters where their hair is very visible in their spines it makes no sense. For instance, why give Julie-Sue the wig if you gave her the dreadlocks. Why give Bernadette the wig when you gave her the spines. The spine are the characters hair!

[Sparky]

Would it look weird because you have the image of Silver ingrained in your mind, or because his final design was that good?

It would look off because the entire game is centered around:

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG

SILVER THE HEDGEHOG

 

If it was 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG

VENICE THE MINK

then it would just not fit together right. 

 

Sonic '06 is centered around the three of them primarily, and because Sonic and Shadow are already very similar, Silver being different would just not feel right at all. If Silver was made completely different, like as a character called Venice the Mink with different proportions and without Chaos Control and stuff, then the game would have to be centered around just Sonic and Venice, without Shadow having equal focus.  

 

It's like you have 2 sets of 3 of things. One is a blue pencil, a black pencil, and a grey pencil. The other is a blue pencil, a black pencil, and a pen. Which feels more "right"? 

 

I probably did a horrible job at wording this.

[VO.SUPER]

To be frank, Venice's near final design doesn't look so different from Silver. He's got a weird jaw, but that's it. (And he still had that stupid pot leaf.) And throughout most of his design history, he still has that Sonic body and head.

 

And in the end, it probably wouldn't have been more than a little nag that he happens to be the standout of the group. Silver stands out plenty already with that potleaf on the his forehead.

 

The main issue though is, whether he was a mink or a hedgehog, he still had that Sonic mold, but I will concede that in that case, it had a lackluster thematic importance of being there.

[LongcrierCat]

Now I really want to see some fanart that attempts to "fix" Lyric's design.  ("Fix" in quotes because it's contentious as to whether he needs it.)  I too feel that Lyric's design is just a bit off, but it's hard to put my finger on just why.  Smooth out the scales on his belly and add some line edges to his markings, perhaps, and give his face a slightly less exaggerated structure...

You rang? 

 

I think more in Retro Sonic aesthetics, bear with me here. I've been really cool with what I've seen from Boom, but I'm a little less of a Sega!Sonic purist than some would be comfortable with as is. 

[Sparky]

To be frank, Venice's near final design doesn't look so different from Silver. He's got a weird jaw, but that's it. (And he still had that stupid pot leaf.) And throughout most of his design history, he still has that Sonic body and head.

 

And in the end, it probably wouldn't have been more than a little nag that he happens to be the standout of the group. Silver stands out plenty already with that potleaf on the his forehead.

 

The main issue though is, whether he was a mink or a hedgehog, he still had that Sonic mold, but I will concede that in that case, it had a lackluster thematic importance of being there.

I think that near final design was when he was decided to be Silver the Hedgehog. 

[Salamander]

You rang? 

 

I think more in Retro Sonic aesthetics, bear with me here. I've been really cool with what I've seen from Boom, but I'm a little less of a Sega!Sonic purist than some would be comfortable with as is. 

 

I really like how you've done Lyric's head in your version.  It strikes me as being a lot closer to what I'd expect from Sonic character design.  ...Maybe because it's somewhat Vector-esque?

[LongcrierCat]

Aye, I'm a rather big fan of Genesis Vector's design.

[Mauro Fonseca]

 

Simple, rounder shapes. Calls to mind Ub Iwerks.

 

 

Angular, almost polygonal head. Calls to mind Milt Kahl.

 

This not to mention the machinery itself. Sonic machinery tends to go either 80's cyberpunk or modern sci-fi mech construction. Lyric is pseudo-beep-boop-steampunk.

[Tsukine]

Lyric's problem is probably how it leans more on the realistic side while Sonic stuff is usually more simple and cartoony, like what LongcrierCat did, it's a lot more simple in comparsion but it works a lot better in the Sonic universe.

 

Also guys, those weird quills on Silver's forehead are suposed to resemble a japanese maple leaf, not a pot leaf. *captain obvious to the rescue*

[Remynaka]

 Lyric looks like a reject from Jax's game, The snake thing in Tails Adventure should've been a design point for BRB. Matter of fact, the boom's NPC's should've ALL been designed with the normal sonic look in mind. Not rejects from some old forgotten loony toons show. None of them look like Sonic characters even within Boom's own design. Take any number of those random npcs and show them to people.. you'll NEVER get " Oh is that a sonic character" out of em. Minus Sticks ofcourse.. who was purposely made to fit in with sonic's looks. Why couldn't the rest of those npcs follow the same pattern instead of going to the boring halfassed american cartoon look? 

[Salamander]

Conscious differentiation between main characters and NPCs, I suspect.

[VO.SUPER]

 Lyric looks like a reject from Jax's game, The snake thing in Tails Adventure should've been a design point for BRB. Matter of fact, the boom's NPC's should've ALL been designed with the normal sonic look in mind. Not rejects from some old forgotten loony toons show. None of them look like Sonic characters even within Boom's own design. Take any number of those random npcs and show them to people.. you'll NEVER get " Oh is that a sonic character" out of em. Minus Sticks ofcourse.. who was purposely made to fit in with sonic's looks. Why couldn't the rest of those npcs follow the same pattern instead of going to the boring halfassed american cartoon look? 

 

Bullshit. The only reason Sticks looks like a Sonic character is because she shares the same body and head mold as Sonic. It's impossible to escape that design because Uekawa has become lazy with his designing in recent years, making every new character follow the same body without any differences, and I bet you that if he actually did these NPCs, no one would say that they look un-Sonic like. 

 

I'll admit that Lyric doesn't follow any of the design of Sonic characters, but the rest of the NPCs look like they follow it correctly. They are simple shapes that can be easily broken down, and they are given vibrant color schemes as well. It's either that or have every character be the same size as Sonic, have the same body shape as Sonic, and same head shape too. 

[Nepenthe]

It's inaccurate to say that everyone has the same body type or that Uekawa's lazy. I feel like that's just extrapolating hedgehog design onto the rest of the species without taking into account any real analysis. There's subtle and obvious differentiation in head shape, chest shape, arm shape, muzzle shape, proportions, markings, eyes, and other details that the style isn't actually locked into specific shapes (your character's head doesn't have to be a perfect circle), rather in specific ways of drawing line (but it does have to conform to simple geometry and perspective), and in that vain the shapes and proportions for Sega character design are actually potentially endless. (Did anyone reference my topic in here? No, I don't think anyone referenced my topic. You guys don't love me.)

[VO.SUPER]

It's inaccurate to say that everyone has the same body type or that Uekawa's lazy. I feel like that's just extrapolating hedgehog design onto the rest of the species without taking into account any real analysis. There's subtle and obvious differentiation in head shape, chest shape, arm shape, muzzle shape, proportions, markings, eyes, and other details that the style isn't actually locked into specific shapes (your character's head doesn't have to be a perfect circle), rather in specific ways of drawing line (but it does have to conform to simple geometry and perspective), and in that vain the shapes and proportions for Sega character design are actually potentially endless. (Did anyone reference my topic in here? No, I don't think anyone referenced my topic. You guys don't love me.)

 

I admit that it is subtle differentiation, though I don't think it's particularly varied, especially with the more recent characters, even with the subtle stuff. And I believe the design is restricting in many ways, especially with varied species of characters when many look so similar in form.

 

In Unleashed we are given a plethora of not just designs, but shapes in the cartoony human characters who all look very unique with one another, but with the SEGA Sonic cast there is little I find that makes me say, these are all different species, many of them look like they were cut from the same gene pool. I mean, sure I can tell that they're a little different, but I don't really feel like I'm looking at a different species when going from characters like Sonic to Knuckles, etc. It's just boring to me.

 

All the same, I prefer the original designs because while  there were a lot of similarities between characters, there were varied designs, shapes, and heads, all things considered. I could really feel like these characters were from different species and whatever similarities they had was usually just the art style. It helps that most of the characters were drawn up by different people instead of just one person, but it helped all the same to making a varied cast of characters for the time.