Rocket the Eevee, Sonichu style (WIP)

So for those of you who don't know, before I was on Sonic Stadium, I was on the Nuzlocke Forums. And on the Nuzlocke Forums, I had this storylocke series called Secrets of Aetherai, and the first entry was a Let's Go Eevee nuzlocke subtitled Ori's Gift. The protagonist, of course, was my starter, an Eevee named Rocket. Due to a series of oddly specific circumstances that would be awkward to explain in full, I'm currently working on a full-on rewrite of Ori's Gift, intended to be published on my website, which currently does not exist yet because I have health issues and want to settle those first before making a major financial decision such as purchasing a web domain.

Long story short, I had the idea (inspired by CourtneySNT's redesigns of various Sonichu characters) to draw Rocket and my other nuzlocke characters as they would appear as Sonic characters... and this is my current WIP on Rocket. The colored version was my first try, but he didn't look enough like Rocket to pass as the same character, and besides, the pose was bland. I decided to draw the second take with Rocket reading a book, since it seemed a logical pose to find him in (Ori's Gift had a series of 'Rocket's Notebook' segments that were basically Rocket giving in-universe loredumps). While there are more Mobian elements such as the ear tips and belly pattern that aren't found on the normal Rocket, this version still looks a lot more like Rocket than the first take.

I still haven't decided if Rocket is going to have fingered gloves or mittens. Granted, he's based on a species without thumbs, but most Mobians are based on species without thumbs and still have visible fingers. Audino, I just feel like mittens might be cuter?