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Roach's endless sprite parade

My first impressions of it are that the head kind of looks a little bit too far back (so it looks a bit like he's pushing his chest forwards or such), the visible middle spike on the head looks a little bit "odd" to me (the top of it drops 1 pixel every pixel while the bottom remains at the same height, for 7 horizontal pixels in a row, which makes it look kind of triangle-like rather than rounded to me), and it sort of looks like his right leg is straight while his left leg isn't, though I know that the latter is just because of perspective and such.

If I have to be nitpicky, his nose looks kind of... weird. The shine on the top of it sort of just looks like part of the eye behind it, and the whitness at the end of it looks off compared to the darker-coloured outline edges around all of the other colours.
And the darkish-greyish spot under the left half of Sonic's eye (meaning the one towards the right of the image) also looks off to me, as it has a colour that I wouldn't really associate with neither the eye nor the muzzle, but I get that having it be whiter could make the muzzle look too slim, while having it "skin-coloured-er" would make the muzzle look too thick. I know that there's probably not much that can be done about this bit, but the long dark strip of colour there still looks a little weird to me.


But other than that, it looks very nice in my opinion (though I can't quite remember what F. Sonic's equivalent standing frame looks like, so I'm just giving my thoughts on what I think of that sprite on its own).

Kinda fixed
 
Honestly, I'm sorta sad. Sonic was initially made to have cute elements that act as a foil to his attitude. Eggman was designed in the exact same way, with his goofy looks that conflict with his serious and threatening traits. Later iterations of Sonic make him a one-note laid-back cool dude, and right now Eggman is always written as a complete goofball. On top of that, whenever Classic Sonic is revisited by SEGA he's made overly cutesy, because Modern Sonic's already "the cool one".

Basically, what I'm trying to say with that long-winded paragraph is that I dislike that it's starting to lean really far into the Adventure-onward direction, because he doesn't really have nearly as many cute elements anymore.
 
Sonic never seemed all that cutesy to me, at least not in his default frames. His teetering, knockback, and death frames were given the cutesy element, while his default were more on the serious side. Even in Sonic 1 he was always a pretty determined and serious looking dude. Looking at these Sonic 1 sprites, MotorRoach's most recent incarnation of Sonic is pretty close. The biggest difference between the two would probably be the position of the arms.

KPy26fT.png
 
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Maybe if the spikes were more rounded like old fsonic it would look less like adventure. Though personally I don't mind the more adventure direction just cause it looks better than the old sprite anyway.
 
Sonic never seemed all that cutesy to me, at least not in his default frames. His teetering, knockback, and death frames were given the cutesy element, while his default were more on the serious side. Even in Sonic 1 he was always a pretty determined and serious looking dude. Looking at these Sonic 1 sprites, MotorRoach's most recent incarnation of Sonic is pretty close. The biggest difference between the two would probably be the position of the arms.

Sonic 1's are a bit on the serious side... but mostly in the facial expression. Which is fine, since that's what reads personality; the rest of him can look decently cute. Comparatively Roach's quill shapes & proportions are incredibly exaggerated in the "sleek & cool" direction.

If you still don't agree with me, I like citing this early Sonic 1 concept art as an example of what I'm talking about:
GrzAzFt.png


He's obviously showing brash & rude personality, but the design itself is cute. Basically, it's like North American box-art Kirby (just not as extreme).
 
Ha, not sure I've seen that specific concept art before, but I love it. Point taken.

Either way, I think Roach should continue the current look and see where it ends up. Maybe afterwards he (she?) could try a version more similar to that concept art. Keep the determined expression and the definition on the hands, but make the other features more cute and rounded.
 
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Before this thread turns into a discussion about how retro Sonic should look like, I will say that he shifted between the cute and cool look back and forth pretty often between his artworks from its given time period.

FkSnxi6.png


I personally felt that giving him the "cooler" looking proportioning would make better use of the size of his sprite, better match some of AJ's later artworks, and I'd rather let Tails be the cute one in this game. To do something like what Salt is suggesting, I'd have the change Sonic's proportions drastically to match the reference artwork that was posted, or just make him look a lot shorter, which would feel even more radical of a change than what I'm doing right now.

Not to say that the cuter iterations and concept artworks of Sonic are any less valid, but honestly, this is the part of Sonic's design that will get inevitably subjective. All of them are just "Sonic" as each other, and everyone will have their own view on how they think Sonic would look better. So far, just about everyone I've shown this, from both inside and outside the SRB2 community, happened to prefer the "cooler" look.
 
I really like the artistic liberties taken with Sonic's posture and demeanor. The only thing that gives me pause about the sprite is the position of Sonic's head, which is more of a technical than a creative criticism -- for some reason it just seems off-skeleton, as if it was shoved too far back from the rest of the sprite.


As for the debate between cool vs cute, I think this strikes a good balance. I've always preferred the softer appearance of Sonic's Japanese design, but I think the extra edge that the American artwork emphasized is a useful contrast and would really show off his personality in SRB2's 3D space. This is just a great idea, IMO.
 
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Of course this is all subjective. But if you're asking for opinions, then I gave my reasons why I don't like it as much as the existing Sonic.

(Actually I would cite that artwork as exactly what I'm talking about, and I think it fits the description of what I'd call a perfect balance vs what I posted, buuut this is starting to derail.)
 
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Ok so I am very happy about these sprites i hope these characters are playable someday and which one are you most likey to make into a Character? [please say bean or mighty or charmy]
 
My only criticism is that his quills should be just a little bit shorter and more "cut off". What I mean by that is that I'm not a fan of the way they extend all the way to the point of being one pixel wide. I also think the left side of his head could use some form of "brow" rather than directly transitioning from ear to eye. Other than that, it looks amazing! I didn't think you could possibly make Sonic better than what you did with FSonic, but you've proven me wrong! What really makes it great is how the actual fingers and proper head shape actually make it seem even closer to some of AJ's later artwork for the game.

szoom.png


One thing I've never liked about FSonic's non-sprite artwork (Character select portrait, level complete sign) is that it always felt too "soft", sticking too close to the style in which FSonic's actual sprites were drawn rather than actually imitating AJ's artwork that wasn't constrained by the on-model consistency requirements of 8-directional character sprites.
 
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I figured I'd make a few edits to show what I was talking about earlier. I'm aware that this does make him look a bit less "cool", but it's more accurate to AJ's art (Note the brow, eye shine, and smaller third quill), is slightly closer in appearance to FSonic (Making it a bit more familiar), and leans less towards Sonic's modern design (Less of a departure from previous sprites). I'm not a very good spriter so some areas might look a bit off, but this is more of a couple of suggestions and ideas than anything.

fJQOqGd.png


If you're wondering why I got rid of the highlight on his forehead, I felt like it wasn't very necessary as it rarely ever appeared in AJ's non-sprite artwork and makes him look a bit too shiny. Not to mention Chuckles (Post-2.1 Knuckles) didn't have those highlights, one of many reasons why he still looks great to this day.

These are all suggestions of course, and for all I know you're already too far in the process to make changes like these, but I would like to know your thoughts on this. Here is a comparison of the original and my edit.

HxBl3on.png
 
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I like the balance of your sprite, but I think it basically comes down to preference. Your edits are mainly intended to round out Sonic's features, whereas Roach's original intentionally emphasized the edge/cool factor. Personally, I feel like the changes are small enough and Sonic's canon is so vapid that either sprite could easily pass as official.
 
I like the balance of your sprite, but I think it basically comes down to preference. Your edits are mainly intended to round out Sonic's features, whereas Roach's original intentionally emphasized the edge/cool factor. Personally, I feel like the changes are small enough and Sonic's canon is so vapid that either sprite could easily pass as official.

While it is indeed true that Sonic's design has always been changing and that there is no singular "classic" or "modern" design (Though Sonic's modern design has been quite consistent since Unleashed) I think it's important to consider the history of SRB2's art style in particular.

For the past nearly 20 years, people have associated SRB2's art style with AJ's rounder, shorter-quilled Sonic. Roach's sprite is excellent and nearly nails the concept of what a more "improved" version of AJ's later art would look like, but deviates too far from AJ's quill shape and other, smaller details. While FSonic was too round and soft, this new sprite goes a tiny bit over in the other direction. Already in this thread alone there has been a lot of mixed reception. Most can agree that it's quite the departure, whether that be a good thing or not.

When making this edit, my main idea was "A compromise between Roach's sprite and AJ's proportions/features". Notice that besides the head position, quill shape and added/tweaked details such as the eye highlights and brow, the sprite is mostly left untouched because everything else is already pretty much perfect.
 
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I really like both versions. GuyWithThePie, maybe with Roach's approval you could continue your stylized version based off his sprites. Then we'd have two additional unique and excellent versions of Sonic for the game.
 
I already discussed and provided edits at length as to my opinion on this topic in the private forums.
 
I'm all fine with an alternate version with shorter spikes being done by someone else, or any other takes in modifying my design, really... of course, I have to finish the sprites first lol

Anyhow, here's a Mighty in the meantime:

dmfPrc5.png
 
Awesome Mighty dude! If i were to choose, right colour scheme is much nicer imo
 

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