When did you first make fan art/fiction of Sonic?

[Dr. Victor]

How long did it take you to draft a fanfic or draw fan art? Months? Years? Days? Please, let me know.

[sonicDX]

I practised drawing mainly on Sonic characters, because they are fun to draw especially if you take a careful look on the comics, you can learn a lot of techniques on them (such as shading, cartoony anatomy and drawing movements). I've always drew Sonic when I was little, but it took me 10 years from knowing Sonic to start making 'more serious' fanart.

How long does it take, it obviously depends on what you are planning to do. If you make a full coloured image, it can take one-two week(s), if you are making it carefully. It also depends on how much time you'd like to spend on making the image. If you're just making practise sketches, you can do around 10 per day. I mainly made sketches, if you would like to see them you can check them here: http://expression-art.deviantart.com/gallery/58804727/Fan-Art

Fanfictions take much more time to write, if you take it serious, it can be weeks and months. You have to think of characters, the story itself, plot twists and a lot of other things, which need more focusing than drawing or painting.

[Flyinpenguin117]

Well, when I was a kid and first discovered Sonic, I'd often think up my own stories in my head. It was all pretty low-tier stuff, mostly ripping off some of my favorite sci-fi franchises (Halo, Star Wars, Battletech, 40k, etc.) and putting Sonic characters in the crossfire of galactic-level conflicts (Sonic X season 3 fueled that a lot). I didn't do much internet back then, and I didn't even know what fanfiction was, so obviously I never wrote anything down or publish it. But it was fun for me to think about. Still remember a lot of the various characters and storylines I came up with, but it would be so laughably bad that I could never write it. This is actually where I came up with Spike the creatively-named Hedgehog, who looked exactly like Spike the Porcupine from the new comics (not that I ever drew him, more on that later)

I first really became aware of fanfiction thanks to My Little Pony. Its internet popularity was in its height around the time I was 14-15, and I'd long gotten over Sonic. I finally made a Fanfiction account after reading a  violent,Tom Clancy-esque war fanfic, and wanted to collaborate with the author on a spinoff story of my own. He went on to join the army and the story went on permanent hiatus, but the idea of me actually getting into fanfiction was there.

Fast-forward another 3 years, I now hate MLP. For some reason I don't remember, I rewatched a few episodes of Sonic X. Kinda started getting me back into it. Not too much, but enough to get all those old stories back in my head. Out of curiosity, I go into DA and FF.net and read a few stories, just for the experience. A lot of them are pretty bad, but at least one fairly long one got much better of the years it was written. A couple months later, Destiny comes out and I play the shit out of it. And for some reason, that I will never understand, I think: What if Sonic and Destiny combined? And I start thinking about it. At first, I just think of a satirical story of Team Dark and Team Rose running Vault of Glass together, dying over and over again. Eventually, I came to the decision to actually try writing a real story out of it that I will take 100% seriously.

And after a few weeks at the keyboard (close to a month), and 6 years after discovering Sonic, my mind gives birth to Sonic Guardians. Both Destiny and Sonic X had enough lore vagrancy and space-time fuckery to make such a crossover plausibly work (the story is split into two parts taking place millions of years from each other). While it wasn't particularly good, I thought it was decent for my first real crack at fanfiction. I never finished it, though. Gave up after about a year, even though I only wrote 4 chapters.

I wrote a few other fics since then. Unlikely Friendship (a Shadow/Cream friendship fic) I wrote in about a month. It comes in at 6k words, and was actually pretty good, both compared to Guardians and in general, IMO. On the flipside of the coin, I wrote a pointless TailsxCream fluff fic in about 3 hours. Not particularly good, but the point was to see what I could write in one sitting, and pulled that off pretty well. But I haven't written anything in the year and a half since then, mostly because I'm lazy. Plenty of drafts, but I never see anything through.

21 hours ago, Tomazo said:

Fanfictions take much more time to write, if you take it serious, it can be weeks and months. You have to think of characters, the story itself, plot twists and a lot of other things, which need more focusing than drawing or painting.

I honestly don't imagine it taking much more time and effort than fanart. I'd actually assume it to be shorter to an experienced author, mainly since there's less technical skill involved. Writing is mostly a grueling process of trial and error and revision, rather than inspiration or innate talent, so forcing something out in a short amount of time isn't necessarily a bad thing. One-shot short stories can be written fairly quickly (Unlikely Friendship was only about a week's worth of actual effort with long spans of nothing between, thanks to my day job and chronic laziness), but even long, multi-chapter stories can go relatively quickly if you draft out a chapter-by-chapter synopsis beforehand. I took a creative writing college course, so I know I can hammer out short stories fairly quickly if I have an actual investment.

[sonicDX]

8 hours ago, Flyinpenguin117 said:

I honestly don't imagine it taking much more time and effort than fanart. I'd actually assume it to be shorter to an experienced author, mainly since there's less technical skill involved. Writing is mostly a grueling process of trial and error and revision, rather than inspiration or innate talent, so forcing something out in a short amount of time isn't necessarily a bad thing. One-shot short stories can be written fairly quickly (Unlikely Friendship was only about a week's worth of actual effort with long spans of nothing between, thanks to my day job and chronic laziness), but even long, multi-chapter stories can go relatively quickly if you draft out a chapter-by-chapter synopsis beforehand. I took a creative writing college course, so I know I can hammer out short stories fairly quickly if I have an actual investment.

In this case, you're a talented writer! I have my main focus on drawing and painting, although I love to write as well. For me, it takes more time to write a complete and enjoyable story.

[Flyinpenguin117]

1 hour ago, Tomazo said:

In this case, you're a talented writer! I have my main focus on drawing and painting, although I love to write as well. For me, it takes more time to write a complete and enjoyable story.

I wouldn't necessarily say that, since I've only written one decent fanfic. Can't draw worth a damn, though. Almost failed my 8th grade art class because of how bad I am at it.

[dwitefry666]

Oooh, the earliest 'fan art' i have is this:

Having studied this picture for way too long and comparing it to all the other Sonic pictures i have from childhood I've come to the conclusion that the only influence on it could possibly have been the first two games and the first Sonic the Hedgehog Yearbook (the hardback British annual from 1993) so it would have been at latest about November 1993, I would have been 7.   

It's a masterpiece is it not?  

[Scritch the Cat]

Fanart: Shortly after Sonic and Knuckles released.  It was of a fancharacter I have taken my name from.

Fanfiction: Shortly after Sonic Battle released.  Let's say no more on this.

[OmegaSonicX]

i remember drawing the blue blur since i was like 4 yrs old.

[Sonictrainer]

I used to trace Sonic from Spaz's Archie Sonic Comic Book covers and got an understanding of creating the shapes of Sonic's body.

Of course overtime I changed it up to make it look better on Modern Sonic and the other characters.

My Tails still needs work though...