Weird Official Sonic Art

[Big Panda]

Sonic has had many different pieces of official art produced for him, and not all of them are particularly flawless. Lets talk and chortle about them!

I was always fascinated by the old American VHS boxart. Particularly since they were all completely different from what we got here in the UK.

What the hell is up with Tails there? Wrong shoe colour, one tail, and just generally off-model.

[Forte-Metallix]

I know this is beating a dead horse, but...
 

Spoiler

 

 

The late 90s-mid 2000's were dark times to be an Archie fan.

 

 

[Osmium]

I think I'm gonna like this topic. 

Let's get this obvious one out of the way 

His spines are bloody toothpicks, his nose looks like it was sat on, and his shoes look squashed also. Also the nike smile always looked completely awful in 3D art. 

Here's another strange one to me at least: The US Sonic 3 box art 

The reason? I don't believe this was drawn by Greg Martin. It doesn't look like his normal style at all. All of Sonic's US features are greatly exaggerated, his muzzle looks more vertically compressed, his pupils are more of a contrasted size than usual, his limbs look thicker, and his body is more round. Who made this art anyway? I can't find out who did this one. 

Speaking of Sonic 3, here's another odd one 

This is another one with a mystery artist, and I've never seen anything else with Sonic drawn in this style. The spines actually resemble a mohawk more than most western art, and he looks like a combination of western and Asian style. I actually like that Knuckles in the corner though. 

More European stuff: 

This is the French comic Sonic Adventures. Sonic has the mohawk but looks better than in the DiC cartoons, Amy has the StC spine style and Robotnik looks like AostH except with more round eyes and the cone part is less exaggerated. 

Last one I'll post right now. Because this one is hilarious looking 

Comes from that old Sonic 1 manga. Fangs aside, Archie wasn't the first printed media to just put Sonic's face on a spinning ball to simulate the rolling attack. To be fair, the rolling attack is drawn more normally in the rest of it. 

Yeah, I know all these were relatively tame compared to some of the shit out there (that will inevitably make it into this topic) but these are strange.  

[Tracker_TD]

There's something very off about this art from Japan's SEGA MAGA. Those spikes, man. Guess they were still deciding how to depict Modern from the front.

While not particularly bad, the existence of an official human Sonic by the designer of Hatsune Miku, KEI, is something I'm probably never going to get the chance to bring up on here otherwise, so have at it. Also Tails is a girl here, because of course. 

...I actually have one of the SeHa light novels where human Sonic appears. He uh, shouts at something I guess? 

Since I mentioned Miku I'm also obligated to mention the opposite to the above; that is, Sonic artist Yuji Uekawa's take on Hatsune Miku, for the Project DIVA extend pre-order album. Another thing I own for some reason! 

 

[Cyrus]

This will always be my favorite cause of its self aware weirdness and how Oshima's kinda poking fun at his own style and western Sonic art of the time

This is my l e a s t favorite image of Knuckles ever though, appropriately made for my least favorite classic game. That mouth tho. (spoilering for size, this is the only high quality scan I could find)

Spoiler

 

[Tracker_TD]

8 minutes ago, ShroomZed said:

This is another one with a mystery artist, and I've never seen anything else with Sonic drawn in this style. The spines actually resemble a mohawk more than most western art, and he looks like a combination of western and Asian style. I actually like that Knuckles in the corner though. 

Sonic 3's EU boxart was by Duncan Gutteridge; I've got a print of the Knuckles art! 

[Osmium]

Also very quickly this gem has to be shown 

Sonic and Robotnik are both looking poorly here but the fuck is up with Tails? He doesn't even remotely fit in, and his muzzle looks squeezed out like taffy. 

 

[Forte-Metallix]

Speaking of magazine covers, I'd be remissed if I didn't show this one off:

>Sonic's spines

>Knuckles wearing a wife-beater (Egg-beater?) and having shaved his arms and torso

>AoStH Robotnik

>BLOOD

I know Australia's notorious for everything wanting to kill you, but this is just messed up!

[Dejimon11]

I'd like to forget that this exist 

Seriously everything about this is really off. 

[Pawn]

38 minutes ago, Cyrus said:

This is my l e a s t favorite image of Knuckles ever though, appropriately made for my least favorite classic game. That mouth tho. (spoilering for size, this is the only high quality scan I could find)

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Swingin' enchilada

 

LOL, that was a weird one. I had this poster up on my wall for years as a child. It was free with a magazine and some kid was actually thoughtful enough to give it to me.

Oh, and here's one from Sonic the Comic:

They were really hot on replicating any piece of official art they could when it came out, including Sonic 3D's rather bizarre looking European box art.

[Osmium]

10 minutes ago, Pawn said:

LOL, that was a weird one. I had this poster up on my wall for years as a child. It was free with a magazine and some kid was actually thoughtful enough to give it to me.

Oh, and here's one from Sonic the Comic:

They were really hot on replicating any piece of official art they could when it came out, including Sonic 3D's rather bizarre looking European box art.

Yeah Sonic looked really strange through that whole time.  

[SonikkuForever]

3 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

There's something very off about this art from Japan's SEGA MAGA. Those spikes, man. Guess they were still deciding how to depict Modern from the front.

I've never seen that one before! I actually kind of like it.

When it comes to ugly, poor Knuckles seems to get the short end of the stick. This mutated artwork, from a French SEGA magazine, takes the cake:

 

American artists weren't much better. Sonic and Tails didn't fare very well in this magazine, but Knux looks particularly constipated:

 

This one's not too bad, just interesting. WAY before Archie's crossover arc, this picture was in a magazine to promote a business deal between Sega and Capcom (IIRC). Mega Man looks a little deformed in 90's SOA style.

 

 

 

Also, American children's books of the early 90's were often "illustrated" with cut-and-paste stock art. The results can be rather amusing.

From a Sonic & Knuckles children's book, here's stock-art Knuckles punching AoSTH Robotnik in the gut.

 

 

I have no idea what's going on here. It looks like Robotnik has finally defeated Sonic and Knuckles with his flatulence.

[Big Panda]

This art of Sonic is reused pretty frequently on DVD/VHS covers of the DiC shows, and I have to know how do you mess up as badly as to get the number of fingers wrong on one hand?

[Osmium]

Alright, it was only a matter of time before someone went through the early StC issues 

Spoiler

 

 

[Big Panda]

Ahhh yes, the good old days of when nobody knew what the fuck Sonic's spines looked like from the back.

[SonikkuForever]

The Sonic Dance Power CDs were released exclusively in the Netherlands and had nothing to do with Sonic, except for some pretty strange cover artwork:

          

 

   

 

 

As OP mentioned earlier, the American VHS artwork tends to be abysmal for some reason. Sonic's Song is probably the worst. Poor Sonic was drawn with floppy "mohawk" spikes, arms growing out of the sides of his head, and a bizarre cross-eyed expression.

 

 

[Flyinpenguin117]

I just can't get over how out-of-place Cream looks in this

 

[Person]

Sonic petting Tails

Sonic's.....weird fucking eye.

I don't know what this Tails is even supposed to be.

Tails attempting to get into the X-Games.

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I'm glad this series has gone on long enough where there's a trove of really weird, stupid art that was produced.

[Flyinpenguin117]

44 minutes ago, Person said:

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Its like nobody knows what a samurai is anymore...

[Darinian]

2 hours ago, Person said:

 

I don't know what this Tails is even supposed to be.

 

Obviously it's the sickest air guitar solo the world has ever seen.

[Solister]

This is the cover of "Sonic O Fantástico". It's the Sonic Christmas Blast equivalent here in Brazil. 

[Big Panda]

Another piece that's been recycled plenty of times on the DiC stuff.

[Osmium]

Time to revive this topic 

This one is absolutely hideous, probably one of the worst front-profile Sonics I've ever seen. 

Reminds me of this one, which is nearly as bad looking. 

Speaking of Dave Manak though, most of his art was pretty bad anyway. 

Why is his muzzle streched so far out? He often drew Sonic at this awful angle too. Dave Manak's art isn't even ugly in a charming cartoony way either, it's just sloppily drawn and an eyesore. 

[Big Panda]

I thought Dave's art was pretty decent in the early days when he first started. But he suffered the same inflection as Penders where his art somehow continued to get worse over time.

[SBR2]

41 minutes ago, ShroomZed said:

Speaking of Dave Manak though, most of his art was pretty bad anyway. 

You're saying words but it's like they don't make sense in the order you arranged them in. Did you have a stroke?