Favorite Sonic Design?

[Juliyet]

Sonic The Hedgehog has had massive character redesigns over the years and I'm curious which version of him y'all are savvy to. There's probably been several other specific ones or slight updates (modern sonic definitely had some design adjustments over the years) not mentioned on the list, so feel to be more specific with the reply.

For me I've always liked Modern Sonic. Definitely a bit biased as that's the one I grew up with, but he's so sleek and so late 90s core, and I really like his surfer energy. Classic Sonic is a fine version too, but he's a little stock Mickey-esque to me. Modern Sonic feels a lot more his own thing.

Was gonna make a post about this in the controversial opinions thread, but I figured this would make a good discussion in of itself.

 

[Princess Viola]

Classic Sonic because that's the design used in the good Sonic games.

There I said it.

 

[Rainbow Cloud]

Though my first introduction to Sonic was in the classic era and I'm a big fan of his classic design my favourite is the modern design. The Adventure games are my two favourite Sonic games and the modern design which was introduced with them kind of just feels like the perfect fit for the art style and aesthetics for that era in the series. Sonic's taller and slightly older more teenage appearance works well with the shift towards the more serious/darker stories and more realistic looking environments of some the locations in the Adventure era and later games. They probably could have left Sonic's eyes as they were with the classic design but I liked the change to giving the characters different eye colours.

 

[Queen Of Space]

@Skylor_Starblight i found the perfect thread for you :3

Imo my favorite sonic design is probably Modern sonic or Movie sonic. Modern sonic (more specifically frontiers) has such a cool vibe to him
Movie sonic is perfect for his personality a hyper ADHD riddled teen/pre-teen. It’s the only design that would work for this version

 

[Skylor_Starblight]

Honestly, it's hard to pick a favourite design. Each of them have their own charm to them.

JP/EU Classic Sonic is good, it IS the original after all. The gloves are obviously there because that was the standard video game mascot attire back then. The red shoes being (I believe) a reference to Michael Jackson works really well not just as a reference but as something to break up the calm and cold colours of the rest of his body, something for your eyes to be drawn to. Despite this, his modern interpretation isn't really anything great. The shade of blue used feels like an incredibly weird choice considering it hearkens back to Sonic 1 (And CD ) but a lot less grey. Sonic 3&K by FAR has the best Classic Sonic design, THE ideal Classic Sonic. The shade of blue used, the shading of the sprite, the personality of his sprite with the little smirk in the idle is just great.

American Classic Sonic is probably one of the first things you think of when Classic Sonic is mentioned but I really don't like him too much. His whole design was based on a misinterpretation that the original US box artists made when looking at the Sonic 1 sprite. But I can agree that his spin ball being like a buzzsaw is pretty sick. I will also admit his personality in the cartoons is pretty good.

PEAK PEAK Classic Sonic is Tyson Hesse/OVA/Toei Sonic. Yes, I know lumping these 3 together is weird considering they're so different, but I can do what I want :3

The low poly Classic Sonics seen in Jam and R (and probably other places) are honestly amazing. He is filled with the whimsy. As for the Blast, 3D Blast and X-Treme models, he looks okay, just a bit too round.

Now here comes the complicated part in terms of distinction. Modern Sonic and Adventure Sonic. While, yes, the adventure games box art use the Modern Sonic we all know, the models sure as hell don't. It may be my bias speaking, but I don't like Adventure Sonic. His idle pose tries to emulate Classic Sonic's arms to the side but he just ends up feeling like hes scrunched up. The pose really doesn't work well with Adventure Sonic's proportions.

Yet again, bias, but Sonic's Heroes and Shadow model is pretty good. His muzzle and arms make him look like he has jaundice, but overall its a pretty good design. The plastic-y texture in-game is meh, not the best but I'm nostalgic. He does feel more childish in this model though than in the Adventure duo.

Sonic's Advance design is peak Modern Sonic imo. Perfectly proportioned and perfect colour scheme.

Sonic's 06 model is, well...his 06 model. Big meh. Realistic proportions like THAT just ain't it for a fantastical creature such as him.

The Rush trilogy (or quadrilogy if you count Gens 3DS) Sonic model feels good. It's a good low-poly Modern Sonic.

Current Modern Sonic is pretty good too. He really does just feel like Sonic in his prime. The green eyes are supposed to allude to Green Hill and honestly, it works well with its subtlety. The limbs are the perfect length and his usual idle stance is good. Forces and Frontiers honestly made him worse with his shorter quills. Long quills FTW!!! But yeah, no real notes other than him just feeling like the perfect 3D Sonic.

His outfit in RIders is honestly the best outfit Sonic has ever appeared in. It should be his only outfit.

Boom Sonic is..fine. The proportions are weirdly lanky but it weirdly works. The sports tape feels a little bit over the top but the bandanna is a perfect addition, Modern Sonic needs something like that cough cough Riders glasses cough cough. The blue arms really aren't as bad as the fanbase said they were back when the designs were revealed, they work well with Boom Sonic and make him feel older.

Prime Sonic is really just a slight model change, and I'll admit. It's pretty mid. He feels almost uncanny because its Modern Sonic...but it's not, ya get me? He just feels wrong.

Movie Sonic, OH BOY MOVIE SONIC. All 3 things we've seen him in have slight differences in the models. Overall though, he is very expressive and by far the most expressive of all the Sonics. Which makes sense considering he is, well, MOVIE Sonic. They'd be pretty shitty movies if he wasn't incredibly expressive.

Overall, I can't really pinpoint a favourite since they (almost) all have their own merits and downfalls.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

I think that Modern Sonic is, in general, the ideal baseline that all the other designs should be working from. The design is sleek and lanky to effectively communicate his speed and "Cool Teen Energy", the longer limbs are good for posing, and I feel like the slightly more detailed eyes work best for such a design. So that's, like, the best one, but I think a lot of the others both do something effective that helps them in some subtle ways.

• Boom Sonic
  • Slightly shaggier quills help make him look more windswept, which once again helps to communicate his speed and the idea that he's running everywhere and his "hair" is getting blown about from it.
  • The bandanna is a nice little touch to help the visual interest of the design without muddying the silhouette, and conveniently helps separate the head from the shoulders (which must be nice for animation purposes) without needing to give Sonic a neck, which always has a huge chance of looking weird. I just really wish they'd chosen a different colour besides "soiled brown".
  • The blue arms are also fine actually. Good, even. They help streamline his design by simplifying the colour space, while the fact that he's operating in 3D space means that greater freedom of posing and dynamic shading means that it's a lot harder to lose his arms by overlapping the blue on his body (plus the fact that he's still got the tan belly for contrast if the arms do cross that space)
• Movie Sonic is really just an incredibly effective rendition of the cartoony design into a more realistic artstyle without losing the distinctive factors that make Sonic "Sonic".
  • Blue arms are once again effective for the same reasons that they were in the Boom design (honestly it really does kinda feel like they should just move to blue arms in the modern design (it'd probably help get rid of that disgusting seam on his shoulder, too))
  • Elongating and separating his eyes really opens up the range of expressions he's able to convey, especially when considering the motion capture that's almost certainly at play for mapping Ben Schwartz's face as he performs his lines. Having his muzzle extend up between his eyes ever-so-slightly also invokes the classic mono-eye look without actually needing to bring in the additional work that would come from mapping expressions for such a facial structure. It's neat!
• CD, the OVA, and pretty much everything Tyson Hesse has ever done also do some incredibly fun things with the way his quills are drawn, being generally much looser in their structure, and letting them just kinda shift and distort in shape to whatever makes a given pose or expression look best. It's really neat and I feel like other 2D Sonic media should take more cues from this, less stringent adherence to being perfectly on-model at all times.
• The Riders outfit is honestly the best thing Sonic has ever worn. The shoes are fantastic, and the shades are just such a natural addition for somebody moving at such high-speeds. They keep the wind out of your eyes! Could probably do with being widened a bit to cover more vertical space. Boy's got big ol' eyes.
• The Soap Shoes are also fantastic, I've literally never played Sonic Frontiers without them, but the pattern around the grind-plate does kinda make them look weird sometimes. They're cool but could maybe do with a pattern adjustment.
• Classic Sonic is also a design that exists.