If it were up to you, what color would you have the eyes of the characters?

[Your Vest Friend]

Well, yellow eyes would also co-ordinate with Shadow design-wise. The fact he was out for revenge in SA2 probably had some bearing on the colour choice for his eyes.

[Sega DogTagz]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that both are huge in body weight?

Ahh. I totally whiffed on a chance at a fat joke.

Eye color really isn't that important, unless there's some specific symbolism to or reason for it. I mean, do you even know, off the top of your head, what color Cream's, or Charmy's, or Wave's eyes are? I know I don't, but I could tell you a dozen other things about their design.

That’s not a very fair comparison. The importance of eye color to a picture would vary from character to character. While it has a more negligible impact on some of the lesser characters of the series, few would doubt the substantial impact of Shadow’s red eyes. He wouldn’t give off quite a menacing appearance without them.

Or you can look over to SATAM Eggy, whose eyes really sold the whole package.

Every detail on a character can be important and mean something (although it doesn’t have too). If people are really dedicated to their end product, as the people of Sonic Team have been from time to time, than every strand of hair/fur and every burst of color could have something behind it. A story, a gut feeling or anything really. Pushing away something like eye color as if it were ultimately trivial is a disservice to the creation.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Sega DogTagz

[DarkLight]

Well, yellow eyes would also co-ordinate with Shadow design-wise. The fact he was out for revenge in SA2 probably had some bearing on the colour choice for his eyes.

That's what I was thinking. His eyes complimented his inner rage for Maria's murder and the desire for blood.

Edited April 28, 2011 by DragonSoul

[Your Vest Friend]

Actually, thinking about it, it might be Vector who's amber-ish, I think Charmy's got brown eyes. Trust the Chaotix fanatic to get Cream and Wave's eye colours easy but get Charmy's eyes confused with someone else.

[Dark Qiviut]

Oh god, I don't even fucking care. Green, black, orange, zebra stripe, I don't fucking care, I've never cared, no one should care.

As someone majoring in design, little details can really increase interest of a character to a person's point of view. If you do this extra interest incorrectly, even those who've never taken a graphic design class will be bothered, and they won't know why.

Now, regarding the eyes, green works really well for Sonic, even when some old-fashioned elitists that we've all known disagreed. Take a look at Sonic's current blue skin and then his brilliant green eyes. Sonic's blue skin is very warm, probably with a little yellowish tint in it. His green eyes are also warm, but they're very alive! Green represents life, especially the bright green. It's alive, natural, and attractive. They work really well.

Regarding the trio, yes, I definitely remember Tails being orange to complement Sonic's blue. While that's really cool, orange poses a problem when it's side-by-side with the blue. When orange and blue touch each other, they vibrate and fight for control. This "fight" is why our eyes have trouble concentrating when looking at complementary colors with equal intensity. Sonic's blue and Tails's orange have equal saturation. This is likely why Tails's fur was dulled in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).

I've seen one idiot outside this site complain about Tails's fur color changing from orange to golden yellow following Sonic Adventure 2. If anything, yes, this alteration works. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are the three most recognizable Classic characters today and are really iconic. They're called "The Classic Trio" for a very good reason. Sonic Team, despite being a Japanese firm, apparently got this message and decided to make some more changes with the Uekawa design. Sonic's and Knuckles's fur/skin are primary; Tails's was secondary. ST wanted to retain this secondary trait while simultaneously match Sonic and Knuckles. So his orange color was highly altered into a golden yellow. Enough to retain the orange from his Classic and initial Modern characteristic, but fits better with Sonic and Knuckles regarding his primary hues.

This leads me to Tails's sky blue eyes. Remember this. It's not BLUE. It's SKY BLUE. It's a light, calm blue. Sky blue represents comfort, the sky, and nature itself. Tails is described as smart, cute, and innocent-looking. The light blue eyes indicate innocence and calm. These traits describe Tails well.

Just like Knuckles's purple. Contrary to what people think, Knuckles is very intelligent. His life is surrounded by mystique, tranquility, and isolation. Knuckles is shy, but has somewhat of a temper. Purple, particularly violet, can mean moody or violent. When looking at a gray-ish purple sky, it looks bleak and moody. That's part of Knuckles's ocular representation. But purple can mean pride, mystery, and mystique. Knuckles is surrounded by that. Moreover, Sonic's green eyes are bright; Knuckles's are dark purple. Despite sharing the same cool characteristics, they vibrate and treat each other as complements.

Let's look at Shadow's eyes. They're a bright, vibrant red. Red's one of the brightest colors on the color wheel, and it's the color people get attracted to the quickest. Red means passion, love, but also anger, warning, and blood. In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow was bloodthirsty and angry. You didn't want to tick him off.

I'll add more later.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Attitude Adjustment

[Diogenes]

That’s not a very fair comparison. The importance of eye color to a picture would vary from character to character. While it has a more negligible impact on some of the lesser characters of the series, few would doubt the substantial impact of Shadow’s red eyes. He wouldn’t give off quite a menacing appearance without them.

Well I didn't say it's entirely irrelevant. Shadow does have some justification for having a notable eye color, being an unnatural and evil-looking creature. But I think he would've worked just as well with anything in the red to yellow range, and I'd say his eye color is bound more by coherence with the rest of his design than by their symbolism on their own.

edit: Also these are brightly colored cartoon animals. Any symbolism in the eye color is dwarfed by that of their fur.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Diogenes

[DJ FLiGHTS]

Aren't Knuckles' eyes purple because of his love of grapes? :V

Jam, Amy's eyes are actually a lighter green than Sonic's. I suppose just to contrast Sonic a bit more, and keep them related (via being hedgehogs, not familial) at the same time. Just a guess...

[Blue Blood]

Aren't Knuckles' eyes purple because of his love of grapes? :V

Wouldn't that mean that Sonic loves mouldy chilli dogs?

[Aquaslash]

Eye color really isn't that important, unless there's some specific symbolism to or reason for it. I mean, do you even know, off the top of your head, what color Cream's, or Charmy's, or Wave's eyes are? I know I don't, but I could tell you a dozen other things about their design.

I have yet to look at the second page, so someone's probably beaten me to this but....

Hazel, Yellow, sky blue. In that order.

When picking eye colors for characters, I tend to take several factors in them. However, I will admit that color contrast in comparison to other characters wasn't one of them, and that color wheel post was way interesting. Both jet and Scourge are green with blue eyes, and Manic tends to be this way in fan art as well. All are obvious plays on Sonic.

One thing that needs to be considered is palette room though. Remember, these are game characters first and foremost, and since games tend to have limitations on shades, you can't go all crazy. This is the main reason that my Sonia sprites and art make her eyes the same color as her hair. I could have done hazel, but I don't think that would have stood out as much. Plus she gets the "Curtains Match the Window" deal which I don't think any Sonic character has. They usually aim for contrast with their fur color.

I'm pretty fine with the choices made on the active game characters. As for the comic game characters (Fang, Mighty, etc), I wish the artists were more strict with that. Bark once had red eyes which is actually a really good choice. Green works for him as well, but not blue (which he's had). No room in palette for blue at all. I've seen fang with blue and green. I'd try hazel for him. As for bean, I think he's got a pretty simple color scheme, so he has room for anything.

[DJ FLiGHTS]

Wouldn't that mean that Sonic loves mouldy chilli dogs?

His metabolism is so fast, it digests them with no problem!

[Vertekins]

Wouldn't that mean that Sonic loves mouldy chilli dogs?

I'll let you in on one thing; He seems to have no compunction against eating the Egg Dog from Eggmanland in Unleashed. That thing obviously has a mouldy bun if it's photo in the game is something to go by. Sonic Only gets 1 EXP from it through, a possible nod towards it's disgustingness on the count of it being mouldy.

Goes for the Sandwich? food item too. And the Canned Horror. It's absolutely gross how you can feed Sonic that shit. They're both rancid :X Seriously, am I the only one who found the requirements for the "Hungry Hungry Hedgehog" achievement a touch sadistic considering you have to feed Sonic mouldy and outright disgusting foods in order to get it?

On the subject of eye colour, I found Archie Eggman's real eyes in issue 200 weird when he drops his glasses. Leftover from his robotic shell being turned flesh and blood by the Bem?

[MizukiMoon]

Well as I'm not allowed to say black (even though IMO, black is best suited for all characters), I'm gonna say dark brown. I absolutely despise the coloured eyes every Sonic character is equiped with nowadays, and in my honest opinion, black eyes look a whole look classier than coloured =/ I wouldn't mind seeing very dark brown (for obvious reasons =P), because correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't some of the old classic artwork show some of the characters having brown mixed in with the blacks of their eyes? I thought that looked alright still, too bad it never actually would become reality now though, it's not like they're just gonna randomly change the character's eye colours lol

[Darth Sonikku]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I'm not sure what eye color I'd want each character to have. Considering that there is a whole butt-load of characters (60 characters total?), I'm not really sure where to start.

However, when I saw the preview images and whatnot for Sonic Adventure when I was young, I was amazed at how they looked. I was especially amazed that the artists changed their eye color from black (from the genesis games) to dark green, cool blue, etc. Ever since then, I haven't really complained about their eye colors. I think they look just fine.

[EXshad]

If it were up to me, I'd give Sonic a beautiful hue of "can't give a shit if I tried", Tails a radiant shade of "why do people care in the first place", and Knuckles would have "if you care about this shit this much, you need to go outside and get a life" eyes.

It would be glorious if I was in charge.

Alright, I kid, I kid the eye colors are fine by me, they correspond nicely with the characters, and the emotions they convey. For example, Silver and Blaze have firey yellow eyes, fitting with the future they hail from, and the other characters have eyes that match their skin/fur/feather color. But seriously, beyond that, I truly cannot give a shit.

Edited April 29, 2011 by EXshad

[Flyboy Fox]

I love the eye colours they have at the moment. Particularly the triple threat. I wouldn't change a thing for any of them.

Sonic's vibrant emerald green show his enthusiasm and love of wide open space, whilst perhaps hinting at his connection to chaos energy (the greatest symbol of which is the very green Master Emerald).

Tails' almost-Caribbean blue eyes are innocent and peaceful yet also bring to mind wide open skies over an ocean, describing his love of flight.

Knuckles' purple orbs set him aside as a loner with few peers, and speak of his strength but also his sense of mysticism.

They are all perfect.

(I am actually what most would describe as a 'classics fan', but I have only praise for the decision to add coloured irises. Eyes are one of the most important physical characteristics of a person, real or fictional, realistic or cartoony, to me. The eyes can make a character.)

[SBR2]

This is the only fanbase who stops and thinks about Eye Color.

But any way I like the Modern designs Eye Color myself people always say they look souless but personally I think the black void like eyes are far more souless.

[Durarara]

Yeah, I think the 'magic and mystery' part mostly Knuckle's connection to the Master Emerald.

For Shadow, I find it interesting that his eyes are red, when usually red is symbolic of rage (like the Red World Ring in SatSR) or passion and energy, and blood. Those are the only symbols I know for red.

Edited April 29, 2011 by Durarara

[Octarine]

I'm pretty horrible about eyes in the real world (seriously, I have trouble remembering my best friends' eye colours), so I can't say it particularly matters to me what any Sonic character's eyes look like. When I can be bothered to pay attention I usually prefer coloured eyes to black ones, but it's not a pressing issue for me, and I certainly can't claim to care about which colour goes with each character. I can remember Sonic = green, Knuckles = violet, Tails = blue and Shadow = red off the top of my head, but that's really only because those are the characters who appear most often and have their eye colours discussed the most. I mean, I couldn't tell you the colour of Vector's eyes without looking it up, and he's my favourite character.

[CanofEpicSauce]

[Marlbenos]

Green seems to work well for Sonic...Or they wouldn't have changed it. Personally I prefer green eyes Sonic, but I've gotten so used to seeing classic Sonic with black eyes that if someone went back and edited the Sonic 1/2/3&K sprites to have green eyes it'd confuse me. XD I don't understand the latest commotion about Classic Sonic's eyes not being the correct shade of black in Generations...Classic Sonic came back! There's no pleasing some people...

[Aquaslash]

Dude, it's an art thread. If you've got nothing useful to say, then GTFO.

[Flyboy Fox]

Okay, first of all that is spam. Macro posts, along with one-word posts and flaming, are not allowed. Sometimes we let image posts slide if they're particularly funny or witty. This is not one of those times.

Secondly, enough of this, already. You ask "Who fucking cares?" and the answer is "Quite a few people, apparently." If you're not one of them, that is absolutely fine. No one is forcing you into this thread. Just stop derailing it for the people who do find it interesting. That goes for ALL the "NO1CURR!!1!" squad.

Lastly:

[The Weeb with No Name]

Pink.

Fuck, I don't know. What kind of thread is this?

[Sega DogTagz]

No reason we should limit this discussion to just the furry little animals of this franchise.

God knows it was refreshing to actually see the sexy beast behind those shades. The blue eyes Eggman sports in 06 are a wild shift from the red orbs that he has graced in nearly every other medium. Still, I found the idea of him having blue eyes oddly..... entrancing. It lends a "human" quality to the doctor in a time where he really needed it. Before, where I would always imagine him with his visors sternly squished on his face, I can now see the person behind the specs. Its weird. It was a look at a side of Eggman that we never really were granted access too. It was like glancing at an old friend who always wears a hat who suddenly decided to go cap-less. It was jarring but at the same time interesting. A new take on something I thought I knew. Same guy, but all my preconceptions get shattered.

I mean........ Good lord he has legit eyes behind those glasses. I always assumed he did, but actually seeing them like that.... suffice to say, I was not wearing a helmet during my first encounter with blue eyes there and my wall still has the distinctive stain of brain residue to this very day.

I have to give props where props are due, so I'll state that is was mostly the steps Eggman has made as a character post 06 (Unleashed/Colors) that really helped me to appreciate his (game) character. That being said, it has been a bit of a comfort to actually be able to visualize the eyes that he uses to look out at the world. It's a small touch we'll likely never see again, but it really helps me to establish him as a character.

Edited April 30, 2011 by Sega DogTagz

[Your Vest Friend]

Well, to give something that answers the topic title (the only other person who did that being...Master Board, I think? Edit: And those who discussed the blue eyes vs red eyes of Eggman, like DogTagz above [who posted while I was typing...yeah, I took that long]), how about some colours for scrapped/unused characters?

Mighty - I can see him most with blue eyes. He's supposed to be a more pacifistic character even in official media, so the colour of serenity would suit him. Also, given his down to earthness, brown/hazel could work.

Ray - He's even more of a blue eyes kid than Mighty (not blue clothes though. That decision in Archie was just...bleh), for the same reasons as Tails. His would probably be a much paler blue though, to represent the white colour used for cowardice.

Fang - Oh, he's a tough one. I mean, what eye colour do you give to a shameless bounty hunter? Red for blood? Brown for being absolute dirt? Given that he tends to work with jewels, you could even give whatever colour he'd get a lustrous shine.

Bean - Depends on what you think his personality he has. If he's about the same as an average Sonic character, any colour could work. If you go by Archie personality, he could be bright green, yellow, orange, bright red...any colour that's bold and statement-making. Archie's choice of light blue seemed like unnecessary overkill given that two other characters have the same mid-green fur or feathers/light blue eye combo for very specific reasons. At least they could have made them electric blue, possibly with cool streaks for the veins. Maybe he could even have two eye colours!

Bark - Based on Archie Bark, I'm inclined to disagree with Master Board; I think blue would be a good choice for him. Not only is he a polar bear who lives in a cold climate naturally, he has a very calm, icy demeanour which a red eye colour wouldn't exactly come off as fitting with. If game Bark isn't like that, and possibly if we think there's just far too many blues at this point, he could probably have grey eyes for a similar effect.

Tiara - I'm inclined to believe that Tiara would have been the green-eyed female love interest if Amy hasn't been shipped into shape in Sonic Adventure. I'd still say that'd be the best colour for her. If not that, maybe pink for the lulz.

Speedy - NOT BLUE (They were red in Archie, but emphasis just to make sure). In fact, given that I always thought he was more sombre in Tails Adventures, he could possibly be a rare case of rocking the black eyes. If that wouldn't go down so well, he could have yellow eyes for a similar reason to Jet having blue eyes.

Wendy Witchcart - Blood red/swamp green...even though they're already blue in canon (a witch did it).

Carrotia - No reason that orange eyes wouldn't suit her. Energy, kiddish hyperness...and the colour of carrots.

Fockewulf - ...Um, he's really not very identifiable. Pass.

Bearenger - Eh, dark brown, sandy brown, red, dark green, I'm looking at colours which match up with Ruin Wood, those colours go with him.

And, I most likely missed a load.

Edited April 30, 2011 by VEDJ-F