Post Your Old Sonic Characters and Art Thread

[TideKai]

Hey, everyone! I just had this fun idea for a thread and thought maybe I could post it and we could all have a little fun!

I'm sure everyone knows that the Sonic fandom is known for (probably a bit infamously) the vast amounts of fan characters. I know they tend to get a lot of flack, but let's be honest...who among us hasn't made a fan character when we were a little kid? I know when I was younger, I had an absolute mountain of bad characters that I made. Instead of focusing so negatively, I think it'd be fun to share some of the old artwork and characters we drew as kids and look back on them in a more fun, light-hearted way. And I think it would be really cool to see some of you guys redraw it or even redesign it.

I'll go first! This is probably one of my oldest fan characters, Liberty the Cat. She was one of my favorites to draw and I made so many comics and stories around her. She was pretty much the Sonic counterpart in my stories. She was the main hero, was really speedy, had two other friends that were a lot like Team Hero...She was pretty much really similar to Sonic, except she wasn't as cool, haha. Here are some drawings of her I made when I was about 12.

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Yeah, I did draw eyelashes showing through hair when I was a kid. Not sure why...

I tried to take a crack at redesigning her. I kind of messed up on it, but I hope it still looks okay.

Spoiler

I'd love to see more examples from the members here on the SSMB! 

[Diogenes]

These aren't the oldest fan characters I've had, but they're the two that I hung onto for the longest. Also probably the only two with old art I could stomach looking at...

Nerus

The original:

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The initial concept was something along the lines of, what if a dark chao mutated into a humanoid like Chaos. I didn't see him as an evil version of Chaos or anything; he was less a Sonic fan character and more an "original" character that was heavily Sonic-inspired. He was basically just a slimy shapeshifting Chaotic Stupid asshole. At some point I started moving him even further away from Sonic, making his design more monstrous, trying to come up with an actual backstory (apparently at one point I was thinking of making his name an acronym, "Non-Earth Race, Unknown Species", so he was some sort of alien?), I think I was briefly calling him Nerus the Virus but I don't think I ever sat down and figured out what that was supposed to mean.

The redesign:

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I can't really see Nerus as a viable Sonic character; the original idea is pretty much unsalvageable and I only moved him further away from Sonic over time. I still have an attachment to the rough design and cathartically sociopathic personality though, so I'd kinda hate to ditch him entirely. Let's just say he's some kind of mutant swamp beast, like if a crocodile could mate with a slime mold.

Diogenes

The original:

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Part lynx, part unspecified other cat, all wish fulfillment self insert. A pretty stereotypical bookish mage, physically weak but practically unmatched in magical talent. His "gimmick" was that he could craft very specialized spells, even on the fly, which basically just meant pulling solutions out of his ass. He also had a "super mode" that was essentially just unlimited mana so...yeah he could basically just flip into god mode and magic away any problem, if I had ever actually used him for much.

The redesign:

Spoiler

Like Nerus, I never really saw him as a part of the Sonic universe, just Sonic-inspired. Unlike Nerus, I could rework him into a more or less reasonable fan character (though not really the kind of character I'd want introduced to the series, at this point). I'd link him to the Storybook games and make him some kind of book wizard; he'd be able to travel between the storybook worlds and draw magic from their contents. Maybe even make him a villain, some kind of interdimensional looter, stealing bits and pieces from storybook worlds to make his own spellbook. Feels like an appropriate "punishment" for a character that was barely a step above being a god moder no matter how much I wanted to spin him as the poor reluctant hero.