Sonic Fan Film Concepts- Sonic

Original 800+ world essay on how I feel Sonic should look/behave.... typos included. Full view the concepts if you want to read all the tiny text!

HI, it's SEGAMew again! I finally finished two pages of concept artwork for Sonic. I try keeping him as close as possible to his current modern look as depicted in Sonic 4, Colors, Black Knight etc. I picked this because I feel like SEGA is trying to slowly redesign Sonic back to his Classic days where he is shorter and more "round" if you get my drift. The Sonic artworks used for Sonic Adventure up til about Sonic the Hedgehog '06 shown him with longer legs and arms and the body is more triangular than circular. As you can in my drawings of Sonic's body, it still has a bit of triangleness, but also has a hint of roundness from the good ol' days.

I placed Sonic's mouth to the side because well... I find that like very iconic with Sonic, as iconic as his strange cyloptic eye. One of the first things I noticed with Sonic's earlier 3D models is that his mouth is placed in the middle. I assume it's due to the graphical limitations and the possible headaches if it were animated to the side. When I saw how the CGI cutscenes are like in Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colors, he looks amazing with the side mouth... so adorable in the Night of the Werehog short. But all in all, this is really a personal preference. Since Sonic started out with his mouth to the side and SEGA is now having their animation teams animate Sonic's mouth to the side, it would be a good idea to go with CGing him with his mouth to the side. Of course if he's whistling or something, his mouth magically shifts to the middle... XD

Sonic always had pretty noticible eyelashes, especially in the Sonic X anime and Sonic '06. It's really up to you if you want that tiny little lash point (noted in the concept art) to be included on Sonic's model or not. Some people may find it to make Sonic less masculine (though it's really really noticable in Sonic X, thicker/larger than how I drew it). And as I mentioned in the last email, blue eyelids. Though you CAN go with peach eyelids as a throwback to how Classic Sonic's eyelids are. SEGA decided with blue eyelids like in the mid 2000's for whatever reason (probably to look more appealing). And lastly on the subject of eyes, the middle blue part between the eyes should shift all the way down if he's blinking or winking (as demostrated in the drawing).

Oh and as for eye color, people are going to complain about that no matter what, so we can skip the discussion on it XD

Shoes I redesigned slightly. I can't tell if it's a real improvement or not because Sonic already has a fairly cool set of sneakers. The wrap strip on his shoe is a strap, and it hooks to that buckle. I made the buckle more like a rectangular block (probably drew it too big though in Concept Page 2 though). Shininess on the top front of the shoes, and I increased the size of the heel end of the shoes to be comparible to the size of the heels of that of (my) running shoes. For added detail, we can have some scuffs and skid marks at the tip and end of the sole, and al over the bottom of the sole. The SEGA logo at the bottom heel end of the shoe is optional. I put it there just like a regular shoe company would.

For spikes, I never understood the texture used for it by SEGA. Anyway if we really want to add a bit of texture, I can imagine very VERY subtle spikey fur on the surface. If his spines get a bit disheveled, then the spikey fur would be slightly more pronounced. Another idea that crosses my mind is that each of those blob of spines actually consists of millions of fine spikes compressed together.... but I don't imagine you would want to render something like that XD Oh and often times people draw his buckle on the inside side of his shoes... which is wrong, outside is the way to go~

Sonic's ears are triangular, they have depth. And they don't pin back and do all sorts of crazy things like a dog would (even though a lot of people like to draw Sonic's ears pin back on various occassions to add emotion). They can wiggle/turn as if picking up on a far away sound though. Or twitch in annoyance.

Aaaaand Sonic is about 3'3" tall. You can make him a bit taller in the movie... but if the movie is based on Sonic 1 where most people see him younger in, we may want to keep him around that height of 3'3".


And I think that's it for now. Feel free to ask me any questions on whatever @__@ When it comes to Sonic's appearances, I can be a bit picky (but I definately don't let Sonic's looks steer me away from trying out his latest games! ) Sorry if I was a bit too indepth, I hate boring people >.> Oh yeah and if there's anything specific you want me to draw, let me know!

-SEGAMew
Sent: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 6:26 PM

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Here is page three of concept artwork =3 I didn't really add too much. Most of the alterations are for his shoes since they change between games more than Sonic himself for some reason.

For his shoes, I added another designing bit to his heel area. Doesn't really serve too much of a purpose other than aesthetics. It is visible on only the "outside" side of his shoe. The bottom of his shoes are where most of the changes lie. I moved the SEGA logo to the middle part of the shoe since in my last design, most shoe companies would not place their logo on the part of the shoe that will wear down the quickest. The middle area of the shoe bottom is also raised higher than the actual treads, so little to no scuff marks are visible in that area (there are some on the SEGA logo though since Sonic is bound to run on all sorts of uneven terrain). I shrunk down the buckle since I drew them too huge in the last page. Giant buckles do look awkward.

For Sonic's teeth, it is kinda difficult to render the SA/SA2 stylized teeth dipicted on the 2D artwork. So we'll just settle on the normal flat teeth with small canines. I'm told that Silver from Sonic '06 game has these same type of teeth shown on his model, so we'll go with that.

For how the eyes look, I'm not sure what eye style suits Sonic the best since it's one of those details you don't see Sonic display on your TV often when playing his games. I randomly drew an eye and slap some green on it, but I'm sure almost anything works. We can go for the Sonic '06 eyes if you wish.

For the running animation, the arms flung back behind him as he runs like he's going to jump off a cliff and fly will do. I'm sure he swings him arms some as he builds up momentum before going to that point, but yeah. It would be neat to see him do his Sonic CD's Super Peel Out/Figure 8 run sometime during the movie though.

Hmmm yeah, I think that's what I have to say in terms of these small changes. Nothing too ground breaking, just going over details I have yet to go over. If there's anything you like me to draw in more detail, let me know

-SEGAMew
Sent: Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 6:40 AM



And there you have it. I understand it's impossible to see any of the details in all of the leaked/revealed content roaming around the Internets.

Edit: Wow I totally forgot about how I never understood the plasticy texture of Sonic SEGA likes to give him.