Sonic Channel Redesign

[big_smile]

Sonic Channel has been redesigned with several new sections. Thankfully, the site dispenses with the previous Flash interface making it accessible to machine translators.

The creator’s interview section from the old Sonic Team website has been revived, although the interviews that were previously posted haven’t been republished. The section does, however, contain an all-new interview with Yuji Uekawa.

The USA studio section provides a regular selection of assorted comments and thoughts from Sonic Team’s USA studio.

A poll section has also been added, which is currently asking visitors to select their favourite Sonic character. Surprisingly, the list includes some of the more obscure members of the Sonic cast, such as Ray, Mighty, Fang, Bark and Bean.

The existing character section has been updated with a profile and artwork for Super Sonic.

[Baba O'Reily]

Instead of looking like the fin on a bitchin' Camaro, those quills just look silly.

[Light Speed]

I think it is just because he is sposed to be falling in that picture. At least I think he is supposed to be falling.

[Brazillian Cara]

Who cares? It's the first Super Sonic REAL artwork we've seen in a long time.
At least we know Bark, Bean and all the others weren't totally forgotten by Sega.

[FlashTHD]

Funny quills or not, that'd be a much better choice of art for Super Sonic's page in the encyclopedia than a screenshot of his somewhat polygonal model from SA1.

It's a little hard to tell, but that looks like some new CG art on the monitor and pinned on the wall.

[SegaSonic]

Funny quills? those are Super Sonic's real quills!!

Im glad they returned his upward style quills as seen in Sonic 2 and 3. unlike the shadow style quills Super sonic had in SA1 and SA2.

[Light Speed]

Eh, I liked the Super Sonic from SA1 and SA2 the best I think. The Super Sonic sprite in S3&K was fine, but I think that would look quite strange in 3D.

[Frieza2000]

That is the worst looking Super Sonic I've ever seen. His expression is weak and those quills look like boomerangs. They're too thick, too few, too stiff, too rounded, and bent in the wrong place. It looks more like he's slowly descending.

[chriscaffee]

It's not fantastic, but it's okay I guess. Better than just those images of his face from Shuffle.

[Omni Hunter]

I guess so, but the top quill doesn't go up in any game that I remember. At least he looks somewhat "meaner", which is all the better.

[Professor Machenstein]

At least that Super Sonic doesn't have that strange superfluous side-quill that Shadow has in Sonic X. That always annoyed the hell out of me.

[chriscaffee]

I guess so, but the top quill doesn't go up in any game that I remember. At least he looks somewhat "meaner", which is all the better.

Regular Sonic's quills will do that when he is falling in Heroes, so it's probably a nod to that.

[Menander]

This is the most pleasing render of Sonic I've seen in quite some time. It seems just so slightly tweaked from the Riders one, in which Sonic seems to almost have shoulders. I hope this is a sign of things to come?

Also, almost all the character profile art looks a little off. Some of the characters seem really squashed into those little circles. Look at the regular Sonic profile, for example. Do they not have the original Sonic Adventure guy doing these anymore? Or has he just gotten worse?

[Tsuyoshi-kun]

I don't know about that Sonic one, but I know all the other character images on Sonic Channel are done by Uekawa Yuji. I think Green Gibbon! said it best when he noted;

If we're talking about Uekawa's Sonic Adventure designs, they were excellent, and a much-needed breath of fresh air. By now they've gone stale, though... the newer illustrations (such as for the Sonic Advance games) have completely lost the pizazz they had in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. They're just dead, there's no energy in them.

I stand by this statement.

[James McGeachie]

Is the Sonic Advance artwork actually by Uekawa? I always figured it was by someone else but just based on Uekawa's style. It's very similar, but right from the beginning the Advance artwork has felt soulless to me.

[SegaSonic]

Im not saying that his design is better or worse, all Im saying is that originally Super Sonic quills all went up. And its good sign if they want to bring it to the "roots"

but you know, Sonic lost his edge after SA2, all theres now is to wait and see what happens in the next gen one.

[DackAttac]

I'm really just wondering if the problem with the official drawings is that the novelty wore off, or if the poses went from ass-kick mode to "Hi there, neighbor!" standby. Of course, the mediocre drawings have also been affixed to mediocre material for the most part.

I'd agree it's a nice render. For all its mellow and smile, there's still some edge to it. Meanwhile, all of the Riders material has kind of faded from memory. Not because I didn't enjoy the game, but more because it has as much bearing on the overall saga as my pants have on global warming.

[chriscaffee]

Im not saying that his design is better or worse, all Im saying is that originally Super Sonic quills all went up. And its good sign if they want to bring it to the "roots"

but you know, Sonic lost his edge after SA2, all theres now is to wait and see what happens in the next gen one.

The top quill still wasn't bent like that in the old games.

Oh and here is a bigger version, probably edited from wallpaper.

[Baba O'Reily]

Even if he's falling, you'd think they could have come up with a better pose than that.

[smiths32]

I think it's that angry expression that ruins it.

[Kishi]

I think his expression is moderate enough. At the very least, it isn't Shadow-level "Aren't I threatening?" stuff.

My beef with it, which I've only noticed with this larger version, is the wonky way his leg is bent.

[Locit]

Agreed. His right foot seems all... wonky, methinks. Should be pointing to his right more. As it is, it kinda looks like he twisted it and it's dangling awkwardly. And another vote for the top quill bein' weird.

[Protodude]

I think his leg looks fine in the smaller pic, but it definitly looks awkward in the bigger one.

[chriscaffee]

I'm not feeling the concave stomach myself.

[Arcade]

Im not saying that his design is better or worse, all Im saying is that originally Super Sonic quills all went up. And its good sign if they want to bring it to the "roots"

but you know, Sonic lost his edge after SA2, all theres now is to wait and see what happens in the next gen one.

I hope that where the same whith Eggman robots, the Doc has been watching to much anime lately and coping designs…

I don’t want to see Sonic fighting a Gundam, I want to see Eggman/Robotnik robots (Or Badnicks) that at least are similar to the Genesis ones.