Sonic the Hedgehog fans are redesigning his live-action look — with great results

Sonic the Hedgehog’s leaked, live-action movie form is polarizing at best. Paramount Pictures’ unique interpretation of Sega’s Blue Blur has prompted fans and fan artists of all kind to take their own stab at what CGI Sonic could, and maybe even should, look like. And, perhaps unfortunately for us, we’re really liking what we’re seeing so far.

Freelance illustrator LadyGT uploaded perhaps the most-shared Sonic edit on social media yesterday, not long after the leak. They first redesigned another image of Sonic that’s said to be from the live-action film, a full-body shot where the hedgehog is standing upright. While they maintained the texture of his fur, LadyGT otherwise reworked Sonic’s proportions to better match what he looks like in his games.

Rules: Take away those furry white hands and blue arms; replace them with white gloves and tan limbs. Trade in those Nikes; give Sonic his oversized buckled shoes and droopy socks.

LadyGT later took a crack at the Sonic we see in the leaked branding deck, with his arms extended and his eyebrows so bizarrely prominent. Again, all it took for the artist to make Sonic look more accurate was thinning him out a little and exaggerating his features.

This slight tweak is also nice; it comes from Thirsty4MACACO on Twitter, and adds a gentle beige to Sonic’s arms. That’s one of those things you may not otherwise notice about the Hollywood design — Sonic has tan arms and a tan stomach! He’s not all blue, folks.

It turns out that it’s Hollywood Sonic’s eyes that really make a difference for a lot of fans. You’ve probably noticed that Sonic has a single white shared between his two eyes, a strange-but-important feature. IGN’s Tom Marks zeroed in on that for his take, which separates Sonic’s more normal pair of eyes into the bizarro cyclopean thing he has going on.

And here’s one more edit that offers a take on Sonic that most of us would likely not think of. “I’m not saying the Sonic movie should hire me but I’m saying that if you give him human legs you have to cover them,” tweeted the artist Woodlouse. And perhaps that’s true, because this outfit is baller.

One last piece of advice for all fan artists out there: Please do not follow in Polygon video producer Brian David Gilbert’s steps. See below for a truly cursed image.

Regardless of the plausibility or quality of these edits, the truth remains that Paramount and Sega have decided on what Sonic looks like, and it won’t be any of those looks above. Maybe we’ll just get used to it by the time Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters on Nov. 8, 2019.