Best/Worst Character Design

[Axl.EXE]

Best: Sonic Heroes Metal Sonic. The one with the white stripes on his spikes. <3

Worst: Classic Knuckles. I'm going to get a shitton of flak for this, but the original artwork for Knuckles just looked weird.

[redhellc]

I have to say that I really like sonic'c modern looks. I think in the adventure series you could see sonic's attitude in the design, but then after adventure 2 I think that felling was lost. Untill sonic unleashed when I started to see the new look I felt the felling coming back and in colors those artworks just yell attitude(that smile).

About silver I kinda like is futuristic design its nothing really special but I think it fits the character.

I don't actually dislike any character design but if I had to pick one...maybe mighty for reasons already stated above.

Edited September 12, 2011 by redhellc

[Milo]

I'll be honest: I've kinda been expecting this thread to appear soon.

In terms of worst, Eggman Nega and Metal Sonic 3.0 just scream character recolor. At least Shadow has different shoes and spikes that are curved differently, and Mighty is a different species. 06 Eggman is pretty bad too. I also didn't like the generic-looking robots from 06 and Unleashed. I was happy to see badniks and Eggpawns return once again.

In terms of best, some designs I like are Sonic's (both classic and modern) himself, Metal Sonic's (again, both classic and modern), and Knuckles's and Espio's modern designs. Metal Knuckles's (Sonic R) design is really cool as well, it's one of my favorites.

One character design I have recently started to like is Amy's modern design. I think I have to agree about her design being original, and in hacks of classic Sonic games with Amy playable in that design, to me it works for some reason. I think my favorite part of her design are her boots, designwise Sonic's shoes got nothing on those in terms of coolness IMO. Another design I've also recently started to like is Rouge's.

Edited October 10, 2011 by Zinos

[midori]

IMHO, worst: Chip, Shade, Froggy , Carrotia, Wendy, most non-game characters;

Best: Sonic, Merlina, Erazor, Chao, Tikal, Perfect Chaos, Caterkiller , Wave, Black Knight, Cosmo, Shahra... I think that's about it.

[Mangoaxe5]

Best Designs

Modern Sonic.

Modern Amy.

Classic Sally Acorn.

Fiona Fox new bad girl look adds alot to the character and tells us alot about her personality.

Blaze. I like Blaze's look, and I like how Sega didn't try to sex her up.

Robotnik's Satam design.

Worst Designs

Classic Amy. Sorry Amy fans, but outside of fanart, Classic Amy looks like a pink Sonic.

Tracy Yardley's Sally Acorn. I don't like how it looks like she has manface.

Rotor's season 2 Satam look. No just no!!!

Robotnik's AOSTH look. He looks like a reject Disney villain.

[E-25]

Best: Amy, Erazor, Sonic (the non-Classic US and non-SA1 megamouth), Rouge (except Heroes, way too much purple/pink that it clashed badly), Black Knight (especially those shoulder guards, ^^), and Dr. Eggman.

Worst: The obvious & intended recolors (Nega & 3.0, as well as Shadow).

[Vertekins]

BEST

Sonic from SatSR-onwards

All of these design aspects coalesce to form the best design of Sonic ever IMO.

- The eye ridges are not too prominent

- He's not too fat yet not too thin; His belly has an extremely slight bulge to it and it's in no way exaggerated

- The luminous quality to his emerald green irises just portrays his vivid energy to me. Of interesting note is that at least in Werehog form, they do glow slightly in darkness i.e when he is first turned into a Werehog and as he turns to look at Eggman, his eye in the shade of his thick arm actually glows

- The spines/quills are of perfect length and have the perfect curvature

- What I like about the legs is that they're not excessively thickened nearer the ankles like SA2 Sonic. Seriously, SA2 Sonic looks like his legs are severely atrophied at the 'thighs' which is not so much in this Sonic

- I kinda like the extremely slight curve at the 'toe' of his shoe

- And of course, the mouth being on only one side of the face. This depends on camera angle in the actual game i.e his mouth will switch sides on his muzzle to face the camera in Unleashed

- Nose isn't too long

- I think the hands are perfectly rendered too. Broad with somewhat thick, stubby fingers.

- Oh, and I think he's the perfect shade of blue. He certainly looks a lighter blue than previous Sonic's, who definately had darker blue fur

This design is also incredibly cute IMO. He's so short and such and has a sweet grin. I think one of the SatSR renders best showed this. Just...d'awww! -

Vector

What's fairly unique about Vector is that a non-fan could tell what species he is instantly because he's so distinct. This is an aspect that many other characters don't have. Could you tell that Amy is a Hedgehog, Knuckles an Echidna or Storm an Albatross? Yeah there's a lot of Sonic characters who's species you can identify fairly easily but IMO, Vector is the easiest to identify.

It's not only that, his design proves that reptiles such as crocodillians can be done in Sonic-style and still look distinctly different from other Sonic characters yet not to the point that they're alien. Vector still looks like an incredibly original character as far as Sonic characters go. And his design is still endearing and awesome.

Sonic the Werehog

Extremely interesting take on Sonic. Using an upside-down triangle to form his girth in the main body and giving him those ludicrous arms that epitomize the Werehog's whimsy in all of their hugeness, stretchiness and the way they're used to slap foes silly as well as navigate, extending comically when he grabs ledges and bars and swings. The ginormous hands contribute too to the Werehog's whimsy.

The eyes are intimidatingly shaped yet still Sonic. It's hard to put my finger on but the combination of his intact mind, furriness especially on the quills, comically proportioned short legs and muscularity make him like a big cuddly plush far more than a killing machine. And yet there is still something all-round tough about the Werehog. It's a perfect combination of silliness and toughness that design.

WORST

Princess Elise III and all the humans from '06.

Oh god, where to start? For one, if Unleashed has taught me anything, it's that the surroundings should ADAPT to Sonic in order to ensure that there's no uncanny valley factor of a 3 foot tall blue hedgehog anthrope fraternizing with humans. The fact that Elise and the humans look like photo-realistic real people contributes to SONIC '06's cringeworthiness and the fact that the golden rule about Sonic's world adapting to him has been utterly ignored in favor of an already lame premise ("What if Sonic were real?")

Photo-realistic humans have no place in a Sonic game, they clash horribly with Sonic and co. Eggman, Maria, Gerald, The President, GUN Commander and GUN Soldiers are exempt because they still don't quite have that photo-realistic thing down that truly sets them so different from Sonic and Co. The humans in Unleashed were brilliantly designed and highly endearing, so they're exempt too.

Sally Acorn.

She doesn't even look like a Sonic character! Seeing her, Sonic and Tails together in SatAM looks odd because she's so fundamentally different. It's as if the artist who originally designed her had practically no grasp of Sonic character design (Noodly arms and legs, huge eyes that are 'cycloptic' in certain species, their main bodies composed of circles, huge hands and feet in comparison to overall body size). Not only that but she is practically naked. In the Sonic series, I believe it's set that naked male anthropes with the exception of shoes and gloves are acceptable in Sonic's culture (Though Darkspine may be an exception as he wears neither) whilst female naked anthropes are more like a taboo.

Whatsmore, later on in the comics run, artists like Axer and Spaz tended to give Sally very...ahem...lady-like anatomy. At some points she even had what appeared to be the developed body of a young human woman. Sonic IS NOT a furry franchise in the respect that it utilizes animals that are extremely human-esque and this is why Sally sticks out and her design is bad. You can adapt Ricky without turning it into a character who is not particularly Sonic-esque.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Verte

[Mangoaxe5]

I find it funny that people complain about Sally being naked yet they have no problem with the male characters not wearing clothes. Double standards much?

Also Sally's covered in fur so she's not naked.

[Diogenes]

I find it funny that people complain about Sally being naked yet they have no problem with the male characters not wearing clothes. Double standards much?

Yeah, kind of. But it's an established design standard, not anything sexist.

[Vertekins]

I find it funny that people complain about Sally being naked yet they have no problem with the male characters not wearing clothes. Double standards much?

Maybe It's because the male characters don't have anything to show?

Also Sally's covered in fur so she's not naked.

I still find, as does many others, that Sally's anatomy is still as close as you can get to showing nudity in a female Sonic character. She has extremely defined 'shapes'.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Verte

[Mangoaxe5]

It bugs me when I go on sites and see people call Sally a whore, or a slut just because she wears no pants.

If you're going to attack a fictional character then you have to come up with a better reason.I also don't see how Sally's design shows anything.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Darkfox

[Marcello]

Maybe It's because the male characters don't have anything to show?

Well, to be fair neither do Cream or Marine.

Or Blaze

[Vertekins]

It bugs me when I go on sites and see people call Sally a whore, or a slut just because she wears no pants.

If you're going to attack a fictional character then you have to come up with a better reason.

I've called Sally a whore or slut....where? Please don't put words in my mouth. If I have issue with Sally's design, it comes down to the human-esque aspect to her epitomized in Axer's and Spaz's work that is so contrary to typical Sonic character design NOT a criticism of Sally's character in regards to her nudity because frankly, NO-ONE in-universe considers Sally slutty or whorish or considers her 'nudity' out-of-the-norm. It just looks out-of-style and suggestive when it comes to Sonic character design from a real world viewpoint.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Verte

[DarkLight]

It bugs me when I go on sites and see people call Sally a whore, or a slut just because she wears no pants.

If you're going to attack a fictional character then you have to come up with a better reason.

Why do I get the feeling you're mostly referring to the Sega forums?

Also, nobody here called Sally 'slutty' or a 'whore' so I don't get why you brought up anyway.

[Tornado]

For god sake's people, Shadow was supposed to be similar to Sonic's design!

Thats what I mean. It was the very purpose of character people!

Is this supposed to mean something, or... what? Because when we're talking about character designs by themselves, justfications used in-game for those designs are absolutely meaningless.

You mean he is worst? I hate when people compare Sonic characters to DBZ.

It would help if the series didn't spend a good 5 (arguably 8) years of its life being made up of generic Shonen rejects for characters and storylines.

I hate even more when they compare Shadow and Silver to Sonic.

Yes they are all hedgehogs but they are different (especialy Silver). Now lets look at Mighty... People say that his design is unique. For what? Because he is Aramdillo? He is basically recolor of Sonic people.

Mighty literally is a Sonic recolor in the games he appeared in, and very few people will actually say otherwise. Mighty's creation, however, was completely different from Shadow's. Mighty wasn't designed 10 years after the franchise was started as an official "Original Character, Do Not Steal;" so the comparison between the two absolutely doesn't apply, let alone apply as an excuse to justify the laziness of Shadow or Silver.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Tornado

[Marcello]

I think Spaz draws Sally fine. I see what you (Edit: Verte) mean and all, but I don't think it's all that bad. Butler on the other hand... He draws her creepy. Bates draws her best.

Don't recall who Axer is at the moment.

Edited September 12, 2011 by MarcelloF

[Mangoaxe5]

I was talking about people in general who use Sally's design as a means to attack the character.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Darkfox

[Vertekins]

Mighty is fairly unique is his design laziness. They took Sonic's Crackers sprites and spruced them up to make Mighty's sprites in Chaotix with very very few alterations. Note that Sonic's arm is missing in a lot of these. This is because the arm is missing in the sprite data within Crackers coding, you can't actually see many of these in normal Crackers gameplay;

So Mighty was not only a carbon copy of Sonic sprite-wise in Chaotix, he also didn't entirely have a unique personality as a result because of this sponging off of Sonic mannerisms in his sprites in Chaotix.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Verte

[DarkLight]

I was talking about people on deviantart who use Sally's design as a means to attack the character.

Edited September 12, 2011 by DarkLightDragon

[azoo]

Sonic, Eggman, Blaze, Knuckles and Big are the best designed characters as of right now, in my opinion. Notably the first three.

I think the current Tails is kind of odd though, because he has such a flat snout, and there's just something strange about the current shape of his entire head; muzzle, mouth placement, way the hairs stick up, ear shape, just about everything. Dunno why, it just doesn't really feel right to me. Silver's also a kind of ugly design, if not only for the fact that Silver could really use his cockatoo-spikes being streamlined back like in the earlier designs. And although I mostly like Knuckles' current look, he could also benefit from a bit of a bigger snout as well. Tails and Knuckles just both look better with bigger snouts.

Everyone else has pretty good designs, though, so I don't have anything specific to say about them.

[Kuzu]

Don't really know why people get on Shadow's case so much for being a recolor, I mean yeah its lazy design, but let's face the facts, almost every character has the body structure as Sonic, with details such as head shape, species, shoes, and Colors scheme separating them. I don't see anyone getting on Amy's case, when she's also a hedgehog with a similar body structure to Sonic, hell she even has the same eye color as him, just a darker hue.

Anyway I'd say the best designs are:

Sonic:

Specifically his current modern design, its a nice blend of classic and modern that brings out both his badassery and his adorableness.

Eggman:

Sexy Fatman, his proportions are so off that its just hilarious to see him move and animate(And I detest his 06 designs for getting rid of it).

Knuckles: The small details like his extended snout, rounder head, and fangs just make him seem like someone who's been raised in the wild, as it should show. My only gripe would be that sometimes his fist are out of proportion with the rest of his body making him look awkward, this seems to have been rectified though.

Big:

Possibly the least sonicy of all the characters, he lacks any thing from the standard character design, and is awesome because of it.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Shadic93

[Chooch]

If we're restricted to only game characters then Mephiles is easily one of the worst. He actually looks better as a Shadow recolor than he does normally.

Non-game characters I have to go with Sally. To this day she still doesn't look like a Sonic character at all. As sexy and smooth as Rouge is she still manages to cover her self up and look more in vein with the other Sonic character designs than Sally.

[Kuzu]

If we're restricted to only game characters then Mephiles is easily one of the worst. He actually looks better as a Shadow recolor than he does normally.

Kind of hard to be appealing when ur a puddle, or are you talking about the crystal form?

Non-game characters I have to go with Sally. To this day she still doesn't look like a Sonic character at all. As sexy and smooth as Rouge is she still manages to cover her self up and look more in vein with the other Sonic character designs than Sally.

That's the thing Sally was never designed like a traditional Sonic character, doesn't make it any better though.

[Chooch]

Yes I'm talking about the crystal form. Not sure why you ever thought I'd be referring to the puddle of goop.

[Your Vest Friend]

What gets me about the Archie designs (And it IS Archie, not just SatAM) is that the (partially) naked form of a female seems to be used only on the rebellious, significant females that play an important role. As far as I know, the most notable (partially) naked females have been Sally (naked in first appearance before getting a vest), Bunnie (if you look back to #3, she WAS naked before being roboticised. Might have been retconned to her top half having a leotard, but she definitely had a bare top half in her debut), Julie-Su (she wears nothing to cover her crotch), Hershey (while she lost significance, she was important to Endgame, as well as an important part of Geoffrey's character) and Fiona (when she was younger and very much a Robotnik rebel). The only race where the females have been shown mostly naked are the Rainbow Valley folk...I guess the comic have different standards for reptiles then? *shrug*

Still, a weird trend. :/

Edit: Ah, I forgot Barby of the Downunda lot.

Edited September 12, 2011 by VEDJ-F