#blue arms

[blazehedgehog]

Have you ever had that experience when you share the same opinions with unsavory people? Like thinking that modern American animation is too sterilized and safe, but having to share that opinion with John K and his sycophants. (for the record I do not think this)

I mean, in my Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric review I expressed my distaste for Sonic's blue arms. About how, to me, every time I saw blue arms on Sonic the Hedgehog, it was from somebody who did not understand the visual design of the character.

If Sonic had blue arms, it was a sign of bootleg merchandise, or a crummy low-rent licensing deal, or, broadly speaking, just a symptom of garbage. If you get his colors wrong, you messed up.

But then Sega, in their endless, infinite wisdom, said "It's okay for Sonic to have blue arms sometimes."

Even in that image right there! Look! His arms blend into his body so you can't see them! You fools!

But you know who else shares that sentiment? Chris Chan, apparently. And I actually had people get on my case about "siding with Chris Chan." If you base your entire personality on only liking the opposite of what Chris Chan does you better stop breathing air, buddy. Because Chris Chan also does that.

And blue arms on Sonic is still dumb! Look at this garbage!!!

If you think this looks normal you straight up don't understand character design! I will die mad about this!

[notanothersonicblog]

Blue arm Sonic! Plus wrongly coloured (modern style) eyelids!

[ratintank]

lil gift for @tenya I wonder what they laughin’ about! :0

[ebachan]

Sonic Theory: Sonic’s Arms are naturally BLUE

Hi,

one thing that I could never wrap my head around was the argument—

Blue X Naked/Shaved/Beige arms

When Sonic Boom came, and people yelled and moaned about blue arms, I had to check Modern Sonic as I had no idea if his arms were blue or not. It really caught me off guard. And yes, Sonic’s arms are beige.

However, many people made a joke that Sonic just stopped shaving his arms. I always found this small change in the design as a nice detail, not important, and since the Fans Riot, I saw the fanbase as <insert whatever you want> ;-)

So, when they start talking and “criticizing” any new design or something about the game, I never take them seriously. In 9/10 cases, they are acting like little brats, not taking into account anything good (or just don’t care).

But enough of this rant. I have this theory (I’m sure somebody covered already, I just never read it XD) that Sonic’s Arms are blue, and he just shaves it or turned “bald“ on them for some reason.

In his Genesis Area, he had beige arms for one reason - to be seen as blue arms would blend in with the body, giving him possibly Rayman-vibes.

This sprite sheet is from SonicGalaxy site. Do you see how many times the arms could blend in with the body if they were blue? I bet designers wanted to make sure you can make out where his limbs are, and since his legs are under the body, they didn’t need to be beige.

Also, the animators had to know where the arms are, so different color helped them to avoid misplaced pixels :-D

Also, Sonic is with Amy the only character in Games that has beige arms. Everybody else has them covered with their signature color. So why? It’s not strange for animals to have multiple colored furs but that is reflected across the whole body - not just a single part (in most cases ;-)).

The “ultimate“ proof to this theory is hidden in Unleashed - yes, the Werehog.

If Sonic’s fur on his arms is beige, why are his Werehog’s Arms blue? The same shade as the rest of his body. The beige fur on his belly remained! So why not on his arms? The answer seems to be obvious - For whatever reasons, his arms are fur-less - showing bare skin, but if they weren’t, they would be blue.

This is the end of my theory ;-) It may be some genetic problem (like people going bald), or Sonic shaving his arms. I sure wouldn’t be surprised - If it’s CANON Sonic never takes his shoes off, this is possible too ;-)

But hey... if he never takes his shoes off, has he born with them? Are those shoes growing with him? Are they living being? If not, he had to take them down to get a bigger pair XD SatAM also confirms Sonic took his shoes off at the beginning, and Movie Sonic is taking them down too ;-)

I know this isn't about the movie, but it’s so much fun talking with you :-D

@movie-sonic-positivity @movie-robotnik-positivity

[aallnn77]

[Muffled reeing in the distance.]

[gaming-1up]

You know what’s funny Sega knows about Sonichu before Sonic Forces was a thing and before Aaron Webber took over the Sonic Social Media skip to 3:50

[blazehedgehog]

Why in your opinion do the humans have less of a body stigma compared to the anthropomorphic animals in Sonic? Notably, the developers elect that Sonic and his anthro animal friends should never have their gloves and shoes removed (not real animals ones like Flicky or Pocky), but Eggman does not have the same limitation so in the Olympics, his feet can be seen in some sports.

Because the animals aren't human. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Also, when you remove literally the only piece of clothing they wear, it's not only like stripping them literally naked, it's removing some of the only markers of their whole identity.

A character like Sonic is actually an incredibly simple design when you consider what a modern character looks like nowadays.

Sonic is mostly a solid color, made out of simple shapes. He is all silhouette. Maintaining those visual shapes is key to what he looks like. The white gloves against the blue body, the bright red of the shoes denoting where the "bottom" of Sonic is, the triangles that represent Sonic's ears, all of it subconsciously helps you orient the character in your head.

If you took Marcus's gloves off, you might not even notice. Take Sonic's gloves off, and it will be the only thing you notice. This is why some people got so bent out of shape about Sonic's blue arms.

You mess with the way these colors mix and sit on top of each other and the whole thing breaks. That simplicity is a very delicate balance that must be maintained. He was designed to look an extremely specific way on purpose and he's not a person you can just throw a different jacket on.

This is also why for Smash Bros., the licensed characters often have so few alt costumes. It's not just Sonic, after all. Changing what Pac-man looks like isn't just a simple costume change.

When your house is built using only four bricks, changing or removing one of those bricks might spell disaster unless you go slowly and plan carefully.

Now you mentioned Eggman, and that Eggman doesn't have those limitations. He's still a cartoon character, just like Sonic, right? Yes, but Eggman also has a history of being a more complex design and much closer to humanoid in silhouette. He's also had a larger history of looking more different across interpretations, so there's more wiggle room to change his look compared to Sonic. Borrowing an image from Kotaku:

And, obviously, this isn't even all of Eggman's looks. Right from some of the earliest interpretations, there has been a history of portraying this guy having varying costumes and proportions. It's more a part of his identity.

But the longer Sonic is Sonic, the more set in stone his visual identity is. It's all about precedent and not changing what already works. That is how businesses operate. If it's making money, preserve that momentum as much as possible.

And, historically, Sonic is the immutable star, while Sega has always been a lot more willing to mess around with Eggman.

[blazehedgehog]

Seriously, why people get too upset about simple, trivial things like green eyes or blue arms?

These characters get a single, individual, iconic look. Part of the reason they resonate with people is because of that design. Mario looks like Mario, forever.

Even if you portray him in a different art style, he still looks like Mario.

There are immutable elements that make him Mario: the shape of his hat, the curly black mustache, the overalls, the white gloves, etc. That's how you know it's Mario. That is his character design, with an emphasis on character. It's part of who Mario is as a person. It is his identity. It is what makes him iconic.

Just like how you know a friend or a family member by their favorite foods or their taste in movies, we connect to a character by the way they look. We'll never know them personally, because they aren't people, but we know the immutable facts of how they look and that forms our attachment to them.

When you change that, you are changing their identity. Imagine if you bond with an uncle over the fact he loves cars, and then suddenly you go to his house one day and he doesn't know what cars are and he doesn't like them. That thing you shared is gone now. That's not going to just roll off of a person.

Similarly, if you change a character's iconic look, you are potentially breaking the bond people share with that character. That can be a dangerous prospect.

I've spoken about this occasionally before, but I think success can be and maybe often is an accident. This is where the idea of the "one hit wonder" comes from. Somebody gets it right one time and they can never replicate that success. Because their success was an accident. Which is fine! It happens to a lot of people! It's sort of like winning the lottery! You still got famous, you still got a lot of money, and there's no shame in that. But it was still an accident.

Changing the iconic look of a character has to be a delicate, carefully considered thing. Being iconic means the character itself is "an icon" -- a symbol of power. Something people draw a kind of strength or inspiration from. It's not something to be discarded lightly. Being an icon is one of the most meaningful definitions a thing can attain. Changing that is not "trivial."

And with regards to Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega has been clumsy about a lot of things, to put it lightly. So when they change things about how he looks, they are threatening his identity.

That's just the start of it. It also creates a hard dividing line where people can attach these changes to other problems inherent in the character. It's the Robotnik vs. Eggman debate. They changed his name to Eggman, I stopped liking the games as much after they did that, ergo, they never should have changed his name to Eggman. The change is what made it bad. Even though that's not necessarily true.

And for me, personally, blue arms upsets me because for the longest time, the number one easiest way to spot a bootleg Sonic was by the blue arms. It screamed "I do not care about being right." It's like those old episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where they had animation errors with duplicate turtles on screen at the same time, or the wrong voice was coming out of an incorrectly colored turtle.

That kind of stuff is an error. The colors are wrong. These characters are designed to look a certain way, that's what makes them iconic, and straying from that is considered incorrect.

By allowing Sonic to be rendered with blue arms, Sega is legitimizing decades of ugly, nasty, cheap, maybe even harmful stuff. It says, like a lot of things Sega has done with Sonic over the years, that maybe they don't really care. Or at the very least, don't really understand. It's more than "It's different, and I don't like things that are different." It's genuinely bad for the brand.

Which leads to the worst part in all of this, and that these changes create discourse. More than a dividing line for fans to say, "changing from Robotnik to Eggman is when everything went wrong", it creates division in the fandom, because you inevitably get people who say "I think the blue arms are better, actually." And now suddenly we have discussion, and people have opinions on things that never mattered before today. The people who say they like Sonic's blue arms never even considered an alternative before and would have remained perfectly content if things were never changed.

But now they have an option. Pandora's box has been opened. You've created a splinter. And that means people will, inevitably, argue. Because, no matter what it is, somebody on the internet is always wrong. Taste is subjective. Even if it's objectively harmful to the brand, or bends rules of good character design practices, people will still say "but I like it and you are wrong."

And when people are told they are wrong, they often take it personally, especially for things that are so subjective. Nintendo just decides one day that Mario is barefoot now, and that immediately escalates in to "What are you, a weirdo who likes feet?" "What do you mean weirdo?" etc.

Retaining iconic designs matter a lot more than I think some people realize.