Sonic Character Design Definition Topic

[Kuzu]

It really comes down to preference honestly, but I'll admit, I do like how Boom made the cast more visually distinct than before while still keeping their general designs the same as always, namely the noodle limbs and general facial structure. It really makes me curious as to what they'd do with the rest of the cast in similar instances. Even Knuckles doesn't look that off to me.

[Nepenthe]

A lot of old-school casts have similar body structures, similar to Sonic, as per style, but I don't think that completely eliminates species differentiation. Bugs and Daffy, along with Mickey and Donald, have pretty much the same body style as per Warner Bros. and Disney's respective art styles for more heroic characters. But it's next to impossible to confuse them with one another, as it would be with Sonic and Jet. Even animals in the same general scientific class, like Sonic and Knuckles, have enough differentiation in ears, spines, nose, eyes, abdominal shape, and tail at even a quick glance that I don't think I've ever said Knuckles is a hedgehog.

 

This is why I don't see the style as inherently limiting, because there are absolutely no rules that say a short animal must have Sonic's exact specifications. Heads can be square or oval in origin. Muzzles can be short or long, with different nose shapes and mouth styles in between (compare Knuckles' muzzle to the Werehog's). Chests can be large or nonexistent, with fur of different lengths and markings, and in turn they can balanced by different leg lengths or even legs with lizard-like curvatures. Eyes can be connected, separate, rounded, circular, pointed. You can have horns and spikes, thin tails, thick tails, fluffy tails, carrot tails, short tails, long tails, tail feathers. Characters can be striped, spotted, pointed, streaked, zigzagged, and flamed. Characters can wears sneakers, shoes, boots, skates, high heels, sandals, sports boots, and whatever else on their feet. Gloves can have large cuffs, small cuffs, straight cuffs, metallic banding, tongues, go up the sleeve. You can dress them in open shirts, closed shirts, dresses, pants, short shirts, capes, hats, belts, chains, vests. Color is limitless. Height is limitless. Weight is limitless.  It goes on and on and on.

 

And if one wanted to be excessively creative, you could mix and match these with different results depending upon the species in question. Give an owl Big's face but with Wave's beak, perhaps with head feathers reminiscent of Silver's forehead spikes. Add extra fur on the side of the face since owls have a lot of feathers. Make him tiny and squat, like a shorter Storm. Add arm feathers if daring, and markings and colors can literally be anything you want them to be. It's going to look unique but still within Sonic style. The point is, the fact that the differences seem minimal to you in the cast we have doesn't mean they aren't actually there, nor that these characteristics cannot be mixed and matched to one's heart's content and result in something that fits. (I might draw this critter.)

 

Of all the things that probably need to change or be thrown away in this series, Uekawa's style is the last thing on the list.

[VO.SUPER]

I don't think it's a confusing style, I think it's boring. The old style had more differences to it is what I mean; differences that were noticeable and immediately clicked in your head as, "this is a mysterious new character that surprises me. He looks vaguely like a Sonic character, but he stands out as something new, like Espio or Fang. Sure Uekawa has possibilities and I don't think his style is the problem, it's how he implements it in every design since the old days. It's true that with his style you have possibilities, but the man does not take advantage of any of them. He has become familiar and dull and much of the excitement of his designs is not there. At least with the new Boom designs, I feel that variety again which I haven't felt since the Adventure days, and this time I feel like these artists are actually taking advantage of the concept of Uekawa's style which the man hasn't done in forever. I'm tired of different species of characters like Jet, looking like he was a hedgehog with a beak and feathers in shoddy place of his spines. I'm tired of kid characters with the same round head and beady eyes like Marine and Cream. Yes, some of the Boom designs have been misses, like Lyric, but I can appreciate the ones that take the extra step to give a variety of shapes which Uekawa hasn't touched, and show that they can work with Sonic.

 

And the difference between the usage here and in the Looney Tunes is that while some designs are similar, most of them don't follow the same rules. Marvin the Martian looks like no other character, Road Runner looks like no other character, Tweety looks like no other; and it helps that many of them were designed by different people instead of just one person.

[Nepenthe]

If you're tired of birds that look like Sonic, you can take solace in Storm and Wave. If you're tired of childish characters who look like Cream, you can take solace in Chip and Charmy. If you want interesting looking characters in general, why not pay note to Vector, Big, Omega, and even Silver? Why not note that Rouge and Blaze have different feminine body types within reason? What about the monsters of the day? I still think you're taking a few examples- of which you're ignoring the differences anyway- and applying them to every single character design across the whole and it's blatantly unfair. It's one thing if you're bored of the art streamlining, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to blame that on shit design.

 

And Bugs, Daffy, and Wile E. have roughly the same body types and head shapes. Lower-tier characters like Charlie Dog and Claude Cat can easily trace their roots back to Sylvester and Barnyard Dog. Ralph Wolf is literally just a Wile E. with a red nose. Plenty of mice characters looked gosh-darned the same, just different colors. The gopher brothers are the exact same; not even possessing a Chip and Dale-like differentiation. Despite being designed by different people, these characters were eventually streamlined into a style depending upon the director and era, to the point that they did look like they were drawn by one person during various shorts.

 

PS. I drew the owl:

 

[VO.SUPER]

If you're tired of birds that look like Sonic, you can take solace in Storm and Wave. If you're tired of childish characters who look like Cream, you can take solace in Chip and Charmy. If you want interesting looking characters in general, why not pay note to Vector, Big, and Omega? Why not note that Rouge and Blaze have different feminine body types within reason? What about the monsters of the day? I still think you're taking a few examples- of which you're ignoring the differences- and applying them to every single character design across the whole and it's blatantly unfair.

 

And Bugs, Daffy, and Wile E. have roughly the same body types and head shapes. Lower-tier characters like Charlie Dog and Claude Cat can easily trace their roots back to Sylvester and Barnyard Dog. Ralph Wolf is literally just a Wile E. with a red nose. Despite being designed by different people, these characters were eventually streamlined into a style depending upon the director and era, to the point that they did look like they were drawn by one person during various shorts.

 

PS. I drew the owl:

 

 

Wave looks like a small breasted Rouge with a beak. Charmy looks like a miniature Sonic and he still takes little advantage of being a be aside from those wings. Chip at least has a unique mouth that definitely helps him to stand out; and his twice as miniature body helps solidify a little more uniqueness to him. (I honestly forgot about him though; my bad.) And I pay attention to characters like Vector, Big, Omega, and even Storm. I like them, and wish we had more of them; I complain how I wish we had more like them. Just look at more of what I've been saying. I wish we had more characters like Chaos 0 with more designs for tubes and hands.

 

And lower tier characters like the ones you mentioned fell by the wayside because of their bland designs making it pointless to draw shorts of them anymore. Bugs, Daffy, and Wil E. were all drawn by Chuck Jones. It was Chuck who changed up their designs to match his style, and give them a rivalry. It's sort of like Sonic and Shadow (it only works once Silver) and that works.  

 

I like that Owl design, I wish Uekawa would do something like that, but I haven't seen that recently. And even then, I'd doubt he'd be a main character. Sure the man's style has a lot of room, but I don't see him doing anything with it with the anthros. 

 

He has done good with the deadly six at least. They are his best work I think he's done in a while. Though I'd like his heroes to look that varied. 

[Nepenthe]

Literally the only thing Wave has in similar with Rouge are the eyes, and even then her eyes are far more rounder anyway. The same doubly goes for Charmy who has a yellow-and-black striped bumblebee butt, stinger, antennae, and triangular nose to go along with his wings. :/ This is the thing; I'm not even sure you're aware of just how many differences between the characters exist between the ones you claim are nothing but carbon copies of one another. And note that I'm not ignoring your claim for more varied character design; rather I'm directly challenging that your assertions about the cast are unfairly simplified in an effort to express your frustration. Surely we can recognize the need for more variance in species and design mixing without saying characters who look more dissimilar than not are instead little more than retreads.

 

Also, Bugs was solidified by Tex Avery, and Daffy was developed by a whole host of people including Clampett, Tashlin, and Mckimson. Only Wile E. was specifically created by Jones years later, but before then Bugs and Daffy still were pear-headed, pear-bodied characters with noodly limbs. Their streamlining into Chuck's style only solidifies just how similar their bases are. 

 

It's also completely irrelevant that the lower-tiered characters fell by the wayside. Heck, most of them have had more appearances- even during the Golden Age- than some of these Sonic characters we're talking about. The point is that they exist and are a testament to how extremely cheap Warner Bros. style could get at times as well. Furthermore, if I as a non-professional artist can sit here and crank out an owl in a style you insist is inherently limited by the main artist in just half an hour by doing nothing but mixing existing character attributes, surely actual pros could've done a better fucking job with Ralph and the gophers with a more expressive style and more development time than that.

[VO.SUPER]

 

Literally the only thing Wave has in similar with Rouge are the eyes, and even then her eyes are far more rounder anyway. The same doubly goes for Charmy who has a yellow-and-black striped bumblebee butt, stinger, antennae, and triangular nose to go along with his wings. :/ This is the thing; I'm not even sure you're aware of just how many differences between the characters exist between the ones you claim are nothing but carbon copies of one another. And note that I'm not ignoring your claim for more varied character design; rather I'm directly challenging that your assertions about the casts are unfairly simplified in an effort to express your frustration. Surely we can recognize the need for more variance in species and design mixing without saying characters who look more dissimilar than not are little more than recolors.

 

Also, Bugs was solidified by Tex Avery, and Daffy was developed by a whole host of people including Clampett, Tashlin, and Mckimson. Only Wile E. was specifically created by Jones years later, and before then Bugs and Daffy still were pear-headed, pear-bodied characters with noodly limbs. Their streamlining into Chuck's style only solidifies just how similar their bases are. 

 

It also completely irrelevant that the lower-tiered characters fell by the wayside. Heck, most of them have had more appearances- even during the Golden Age- than some of these Sonic characters we're talking about. The point is that they exist and are a testament to how extremely cheap Warner Bros. style could get at times as well. Furthermore, if I as a non-professional artist can sit here and crank out an owl in a style you insist is inherently limited by the main artist in just half an hour by doing nothing but mixing existing character attributes, surely actual pros could've done a better fucking job with Ralph and the gophers with a more expressive style and more development time than that.

 

 

I'm not saying they're recolors. That's a disservice for sure. I just think they're not varied enough. They look too similar to each other. If it comes like that, then let me say plain and clear: I don't think they are recolors, just too similar to each other in ways that I find unremarkable. I find it dull, uninteresting and nothing that says, "wow; what a unique and creative character." 

 

Yes, but the designs of Bugs and Daffy when they became rivals was popularized by Jones. The design you talk about was the one he drew up. Daffy in his original appearance, only had a slight look similar to Bugs and likewise on the rabbit. Yes, they were pears, but Daffy was a thicker and shorter one in his original appearance, with a head that looked attached to his body like the head of a bowling pin. Bugs always looked taller than Daffy and was at the least slimmer than Daffy; his head was always a pear shape as well. 

 

That's easy to do with shorts that you crank out in the span of months vs games that have to be done in years. 

 

I don't mean that he can't, I don't think he would think of it. That's just how I read the man. But you seem to think I'm saying the style is at fault; I'm saying the man is. It may be his style, but I don't think he uses it as well as he used to. I feel he is uninspired and not taking advantage of the great style he does have. It's one of the reasons I'm digging the recent Archie comics for at least giving us a more varied design of characters while trying to keep in line with Uekawa's style. 

[Tsukine]

If you're tired of birds that look like Sonic, you can take solace in Storm and Wave. If you're tired of childish characters who look like Cream, you can take solace in Chip and Charmy. If you want interesting looking characters in general, why not pay note to Vector, Big, Omega, and even Silver? Why not note that Rouge and Blaze have different feminine body types within reason? What about the monsters of the day? I still think you're taking a few examples- of which you're ignoring the differences anyway- and applying them to every single character design across the whole and it's blatantly unfair. It's one thing if you're bored of the art streamlining, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to blame that on shit design.

 

And Bugs, Daffy, and Wile E. have roughly the same body types and head shapes. Lower-tier characters like Charlie Dog and Claude Cat can easily trace their roots back to Sylvester and Barnyard Dog. Ralph Wolf is literally just a Wile E. with a red nose. Plenty of mice characters looked gosh-darned the same, just different colors. The gopher brothers are the exact same; not even possessing a Chip and Dale-like differentiation. Despite being designed by different people, these characters were eventually streamlined into a style depending upon the director and era, to the point that they did look like they were drawn by one person during various shorts.

 

PS. I drew the owl:

 

Thats some really amazing work on the character there.

 

I'm guessing the problem here is that while some of us like Uekawa's style, others are more keen on the cartoony style with really exagerated proportions and distinctive silluetes which is what Sonic Booms and Lost World (deadly six) went for.

But thats the thing really, Uekawa has its own style and way of doing things which leans more on the anime side I think, while if you go for the cartoon side then you're bound to get diferent results like we did in unleashed for example or now in Sonic Boom, but to be honest I think this is all down to a person's taste more than anything else. Because while one can argue that Uekawa's designs don't have that much variety then one can also argue how cartoon's might lack consistency because all the characters are so diferent from eachother. They have their share of contrasting points but they also have their share of common points and we really have to keep that in mind as they're both good valid styles only they have their diferences which is what makes them what they are, distinct styles.

[Phos]

Nepenthe, your thread have too much word (By the way I think I'ma bump it).  But more seriously, going to have to disagree on Chip, at least in so far as he fits in with the regular cast.  Chip actually looks a lot more like the incidental animals from the Genesis games and those random promo bits that I don't think were associated with anything in particular.  Why?  Mostly the the more defined joints.  
 
To an extent I think of the Sonic style as having simple shapes like most any cartoony style, but then not filling in the details as much as many other styles.  Unlike most styles, parts of the guide shapes remain as part of the finished character's silhouette, kind of like a monocoque versus a body on frame. Draw some circles, don't draw the rest of the owl.  This is part of why I don't dig the Boom Knuckles design, he looks too fleshy.  
 
Lyrics armor breaks his design for me more than his snakeness (The detailing is wrong, but that's a whole nother problem), the mechanical design looks way out of line, like someone stuck a transformer into Mechwarrior... Which actually happened once and it ended with the owner of Robotech sueing FASA.  Short version: FASA used a bunch of Macross miniatures when they first launched battletech because it was cheaper than building their own molds, and Jetfire is just a VF-1 Valkyrie.  LongcrierCat's version goes a long way to fixing it.  
 

 
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.

The franchise's mechanical design tends to remind me of art deco stylings, which is interesting, because when the Tornado was introduced, that was the sort of airplane which was contemporary at the same time as art deco itself.  I suppose it only makes sense, that would be about when the Bolshevik revolution took place and it's not like there aren't enough comparisons to communism as it is.  

[Dantemustdie00]

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. 

Yeah, this design fits a lot more with the Sonic Universe then what they put in, I never like it when the stray too much from Uekawa's style, this is especially said for a lot of designs in the earlier Archie and Fleetway comics.

[Mauro Fonseca]

The franchise's mechanical design tends to remind me of art deco stylings, which is interesting, because when the Tornado was introduced, that was the sort of airplane which was contemporary at the same time as art deco itself.  I suppose it only makes sense, that would be about when the Bolshevik revolution took place and it's not like there aren't enough comparisons to communism as it is.  

 

Wasn't the original Tornado specifically a WWII soviet plane? Regardless it depends on era. CD had lots of rounded mechanical designs reminescent of Masamune Shirow, as did Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Sonic 1's meanwhile almost seem Osamu Tezuka-ish. Adventure 2 to 06 had (with the exception of Heroes, and even then you had those red ones with giant lasers in later levels) a very modern-anime mechanical design to them (06 still feels to me could pass as being the same world, mechanically, as Metal Gear Solid 4) while Unleashed-Generations had a more current day, toyish-forms with mechanical work and bright neons feel.