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Early Concept Art Reveals Sonic Original Design Wasn’t Based on a Hedgehog

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

According to a tweet made by original Sonic character designer Naoto Ohshima, Sonic was originally meant to be a human boy with spiky blue hair. Sonic the Hedgehog was also originally an action game about twin brothers who protect the dream world from Nightmare World's boss character, who was known as Thirteen. While the concept art attached to the tweet accurately depicts Ohshima's description, no further information was provided about how they ended up with the current design.

Naoto Ohshima had mentioned this bit of info in passing, previously implying that Sonic was originally meant to be a human boy. However, he had also stated before that no images of Sonic's human form existed and that the old concept art was only line drawings. So, this discovery of concept art comes as a bit of a shock to many gamers. Being able to see the main character's origins and inspirations will be a surprising discovery for a lot of fans of the series.

 

Toots

Gold Member
I would be interesting to know why they went from real humans to anthropomorphized hedgehog.
Was it an artistic or marketing decision ?

Anyway I bet Michael Jackson would have made his contribution to Sonic 3 ost public if Sonic was two little boys instead of a ground squirrel
 
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I would be interesting to know why they went from real humans to anthropomorphized hedgehog.
Was it an artistic or marketing decision ?

Anyway I bet Michael Jackson would have made his contribution to Sonic 3 ost public if Sonic was two little boys instead of a ground squirrel
Probably because it was too "cutesy" and similar to Mario. Sonic always had edge despite being a Mickey-Mouse, while these kids give me Strawberry Shortcake/Sanrio vibes, definitely not what SEGA wanted.
 
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Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
Many years ago I read that there was some sort of contest to come up with the design for sonic if I recall correctly. I'm not buying this twin brother story.
 
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