Nowhere NEAR enough Dragon Quest.
It HARDLY looks like Knuckles.
You shittin' me? It looks just like Knuckles with a Tails tuff on his forehead, blue shoes, and red boxing gloves.
Why did you even say it's a Knuckles recolor? Because it has dreads?
His dreads, proportions, face, hands, and body type. In other words, 80% of him.
And on KOTE's improvement, just because the sprite has white goggles, does it means it's a Tails ripoff? Is Tails a Tai Kamiya ripoff because he used goggles in Sonic Riders?
He also spliced it together to make it even MORE original when piled up on the same, already unoriginal character. It's like dumping trash on a salted wound.
That's just a bad excuse to complain, and I talked to KOTE, he told me he DIDN'T think of Tails when doing it. Also, Amy uses BOOTS, not SHOES. Not to mention her boots are in a very different shape compared to the shoes.
Even if he didn't, they still look like them; too much so for comfort, really. And Sonic Advance also had Amy wear boots the size of normal shoes, and if memory serves, Dr. Pepper's Amy does the same. Hell, Sonic Labyrinth called the slowing down shoes "Speed Down Boots" if I recall correctly.
The character may not be totally original, but seriously, it's HARD to make a totally original Sonic character. Yet, KOTE tries to make it look more unique and you keep saying it's unoriginal. And why you're telling the guy to not waste his time making the character? It's his problem, he can make it if he wants, and making a WAD character will surely improve his spriting skills.
Well, lets take Hinote for example; she obviously shares traits with Blaze, both being a cat, being purple, and having fire capabilities, but they look nothing alike apart from that. Hinote has a form of style mostly her own, unlike greenie here. Hell, just look at Big and Vector; they look NOTHING like anybody else, and Big is a cat like Blaze. Even Metal Sonic, who was designed to look like Sonic, has so many things to set it apart from Sonic that Metal Sonic is still quite unique regardless of being a "copy".
Even if he's improving his spriting capabilities, there's no need to make the over 100 (120? 150?) sprites needed for this guy, and he might as well just try making misc sprites of other designs before finally making something that others may like. I suggest talking it over with other critics (probably best not to talk to me at first, obviously), try other things, try other species, but don't try to make a large wad without even making something that original. Just start slow; you do NOT need to make a huge project like a char wad with a design like this.
On the "No one's gonna play with this" part, I disagree with you. Just because you won't play with this character, doesn't means others won't. I've already seen some characters from the releases section in servers that I didn't think that people would play with them, that includes the fan characters from the section. I've even seen people playing with TDsunshine's Tails Doll, and you see it's not even that effortful. ThunderNova is pretty much putting effort on his character, even not being a totally excellent spriter, so people may play with the character, and they may not.
That's because they're children using them, and we all know how tasteless we were when WE were children. I know I was...
If you are so bugged with the character, you should stop telling the guy to give up on it and tell him how to improve the character since you say it's so unoriginal. Like, the planned name for the character is not very original, you could try suggesting a better name to the character. But if you don't like the character and don't want to help with suggesting improvements, then just ignore it, it's not like you HAVE to play or help with this green echidna character.
Or I could just say to scrap it and do something else, like a new char design, because this just isn't going anywhere. But you know what, I suppose I can try saying something. I don't know how effective this advice will be, since I honestly don't find most fancharacters original at all, but...
First off, don't use any normal character for a base. Just imagine a mostly blank canvas (E, nothing but basic proportions if you're making a"normal" Sonic character, but feeling free to make any liberties) and start from there. Picking a pre-existing species is okay if you can deviate from the species tropes enough (See Sonic compared to modern day Amy), but a new species may prove to be an interesting venture. Never, ever, EVER splice species parts and dub it as a new one, like "Hedgefox" or some crap like that. When defining the appearance, try to stray from something too crazy. Nobody with even a small amount of taste want to play as a guy with spikes comparable to Super Saiyan 42. Clothing is an optional affair, but it can help make that character seem more individual. I honestly can't comment much on this, but I prefer more basic designs over more busy ones, and those fit the Sonic series more.
And When coming up with an ability, it can't be godmoddy, nor can it be incredibly name. This is difficult, but your abilities and stats are an extension of your character. They must not feel like "Sonic with X" or "Nitemare 1.09 with X skin" or whatever, it should feel more individualized for them, and distance them more from your typical Sonic characters. Like I said, nobody wants to play as ANOTHER D-Jumper if they don't try to bring anything new to the table. Hell, Senku is actually more of a D-Jump then a wall jump; it actually spawns a spring if you're close to the wall and a flag makes you "re"spin so you can use the ability again. Simple things like that can actually add a lot to a character.
But like I said, I dunno how much this advice will actually help. Hell, I can't even come up with a good name for this guy. I'm honestly better at complaining then helping, as you have clearly noticed.
goddamn it took me about half an hour to write this
