#SONIC CHARACTER DESIGNER MOVIE#
#SONIC CHARACTER DESIGNER SERIES#

Ohshima was the character designer of Balan Wonderworld, with Naka as director, and with Arzest as developer. On July 23, 2020, it was announced that Ohshima was working with Yuji Naka, and they had founded Balan Company, Square Enix's action game brand.

#SONIC CHARACTER DESIGNER SERIES#

He also remained a fan of the Sonic series himself, having enjoyed games released after his departure from Sega like Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania, and Sonic Frontiers. During his time at these companies he has been involved with various games including Blinx: The Time Sweeper and its sequel, Yoshi's Island DS, the Nintendo 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey. He used to be credited under the nickname 'Big Island,' which is a literal translation of his family name.Īfter leaving Sonic Team in 1999, Ohshima formed an independent game company with former Sega employees called Artoon, and later Arzest, of which he is currently vice president. Whatever prompted Ohshima to embrace the hedgehog design was good, especially because the series as a whole continues to be a well-known fixture at this point in time.Ohshima gained notability at Sega for creating characters and playing integral roles in the development of games like Phantasy Star, Sonic the Hedgehog, NiGHTS into Dreams., Burning Rangers and Sonic Adventure. For what it's worth, some elements from the original designs still got implemented in the final release, such as the blue hair and the loops. One can speculate whether changing the theme of the whole game contributed to its success. With Sonic Frontiers having a continued presence in the market, it's quite entertaining to see how the titular hero has evolved from being a boy with spiky blue hair to becoming one of the most well-known icons in the industry today. Being able to see the main character's origins and inspirations will be a surprising discovery for a lot of fans of the series. So, this discovery of concept art comes as a bit of a shock to many gamers. 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. Naoto Ohshima had mentioned this bit of info in passing, previously implying that Sonic was originally meant to be a human boy. 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.

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.

#SONIC CHARACTER DESIGNER MOVIE#

RELATED: Sonic Movie Producers are Creating a 'Cinematic Universe'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. However, a new confirmation by a member of the Sonic team may shed light on the character's origins. While Sonic as a character has seen some minor redesigns that have transcended from video games to movies and television, he has always been known as a hedgehog through and through. With the franchise's longevity, the character has even crossed over to rival Nintendo's platforms, signifying his iconic nature. Sonic the Hedgehog has appeared in over 70 games on multiple platforms in his more than 30 years of existence. Since then, the blue bomber has had quite the history in the video game community, as well as penetrating the film industry with two Sonic the Hedgehog movies.

The first Sonic game was released in 1991 as Sega's way of competing with Nintendo's mascot, Mario. Early concept art images of Sonic the Hedgehog have revealed that the character wasn't originally meant to be a hedgehog.