Sketch 5 of 5!
I don’t know anything about either of these two characters. I was surprised to learn that Liza was an established character when I thought she was just a random background character in the Journey to the East story Arc.
In looking up reference online I saw an old panel where she had the little rings around the shoulders like Espio’s original design. I think its a bit of a downer that the redesign of Espio lost this unique detail but it paves the way for Liza to better stand out.
For the first four sketches I was using some Prismacolor grays on them this time around I didn’t have the markers with me when I finished the drawing so I thought this one being the last and containing two characters I’d throw some color on it.
This actually presented a lot more trouble than I anticipated mainly because I couldn’t find decent enough reference on the both of them. So details like their spikes and stuff, they may be wrong.
Sketch 4 of 5!
I like drawing Julie-Su so far because it gives me the challenge of drawing another echidna and that her tuft of hair is not entirely ridiculous and unSonic like. I try to keep in mind, whether this is successful or not so far, that I dont want to just draw Knuckles as a girl. I try to mix Julie-Su up by adjusting her face so she doesn’t have the low eyes like Knuckles and I like pushing her quills further back on her head. I don’t want to go nuts about it though and it end up changing the original design choices of the character.
I had known about Sonic Chronicles for over a year before I discovered they had new echidna designs. I firmly believe that IF there has to be other echidnas (and I personally LOVE the idea of a character really being the last of his kind) and IF there has to be other hedgehogs they should not be copies of Sonic and Knuckles. Amy Rose and Tikal are excellent examples of this! I was pumped to see that Bioware actually had a lot of imagination when it came to this. I like the gray echidna badguy, Imperantor Ig? I love that he has a tall or a long appearance and all the simple but flowing choices of his quills and fur are great. He isn’t Knuckles with a beard.
Shade was also intially exciting in that she isn’t Knuckles with a beard. Her quills do something entirely different from the established echidna look. I commend Bioware on their abilities to create unique echidnas!
The Last of their Kind Trivia-
I think it sucks when a character is created and a story is established to be the the last of their kind and then fifteen minutes later the female version shows up or, you know, a whole new planet of them shows up. I’ve got a few in my mind but can you add to this list?
(NOT) The Last of their kind-
1. Knuckles the Echidna
2. Superman
3. Jen (Dark Crystal)
Sketch 3 of 5!
This guy is tough to draw, I looked up reference and I cant determine what shape his body is supposed to be. Someone draws him big and perfectly round, someone draws him wide like the Kingpin, Spaz draws him with some strange but interesting pillar legs. I also can’t determine what shape his head is supposed to be. I think I ended up with a mixture of sorts that I find appealing but there is still much more that could be done to make sure I get a satisfying design that would allow him to exist in the Sonic style and could be drawn again and again from all angles.
If I remember correctly, and I’m not looking this up online to verify so someone let me know if this is right or wrong, I think Mogul’s first appearance was in the special Battle Royale issue? I think he had the Fearsome Five or Destructix or whatever they were called to do his bidding. I didn’t like him at all when I was a kid. I think he is really really gross on his own but his hole in chest actually makes him worse.
I like Mammoths though, as a kid I LOVED dinosaurs (I still love dinosaurs), and I hated prehistoric mammals except the wooly mammoth and the sabretooth tiger. Oh, and I kind of liked this one animal that was like a prehistoric Armadillo, it had a club tail I think like a Ankylosaurus which probably really helped me like it. I dont remember its name, someone help me out with that too.
I think its great that Mogul is a mammoth and I firmly believe in his potential as a character and the possibility of him having a satisfying visual design. I have some vague notion that he is kind of like Marvel’s Apocalypse in that he is ancient and powerful and I like this too.
