An image of Sonic the Hedgehog with red running shoes is spreading online along with the claim that this is the redesigned character that will appear in the forthcoming movie.
The image in question can be seen below.
In April 2019, the first trailer for the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie was released, which was immediately criticized for the way that the main protagonist of the film, Sonic, appeared.
A few days later in May 2019, director Jeff Fowler announced that since the sharp online criticism, Sonic would be redesigned.
Since that announcement, a number of fan designs have started to spread online. While many were created just for fun, some appear to have been misinterpreted as an “official” redesign that will appear in the live action movie that is scheduled to be released in 2020.
One particular image, above, began to spread online along with the claim that this is the new Sonic character. However, it is not. At the time of writing, Paramount Pictures nor anyone else involved in the upcoming move have released the official redesign for Sonic.
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The more eagle eyed viewer would have seen the web address at the bottom right of this image, damirgmartin.com, which leads to a website for a Croatian digital artist called Damir Martin. Martin has posted his own “fan” interpretation of Sonic onto the website ArtStation along with many notes related to his own design.
I’ll might create a “making of” blog entry where I’ll dive bit deeper behind creative decisions and share what I learned while I was making this character. For example, The ribbed suit design is not done by chance. It’s inspired by “Sega” logo.
As such, no this image isn’t an official redesign for Sonic the Hedgehog.