My Sonic CD Art Contest Entry

So Sega has given us the get go to publish our entries for the Sonic CD art contest they set up some time back, with the results being shown on their blog later today. I got e-mailed this morning that I was one of the 50 UK winners! This means I'll be getting a copy of the soundtrack sent in the post! Here's my entry..

..and now you'll know why I wrote so much about the hidden art from the sound test in my previous article! because that was such an inspirational and bizarre element from the game, I decided to pay tribute to it in my entry. It's a re-creation of this art from the game below, with references to most of the other hidden pics too, see if you can spot them!

I guess it was a bit of a risk picking this scene as I wasn't sure if the judges would even recognise it, or if it would even be in the new re-release, although it turns out that not only is it still in, but the Taxman even went to the effort of animating the DJ Robotnik and sticking him on the soundtrack select screen! How cool is that?

You'll notice the creature from that one artwork that inspired a character out of me is also hiding within the image. Well I had to go one step further and remake the entire picture didn't I?

Obviously this wasn't entered into the contest, that would be pushing it! I only put this together yesterday for a laugh really. But really, the only way to experience this image is for it to have the music with it, in particular what played with it on the American version of the game so er...here you go!

UPDATE: Sega have uploaded all the winners to their Flickr account here. Some truly amazing pieces in there, check it out.

Another display of Sonic Art, this time in a French magazine.

So there is another show of art celebrating Sonic's 20th anniversary, but in this case rather than an exhibit this a collection of art produced for French magazine 'Amusement'. Also unlike the Generation exhibit in the US, many of these are photography and digital illustration based rather than paintings and sculptures. For example these two illustrations representing classic and modern Sonic and pop culture from their eras (or the years 1991 and 2011 to be particular).

So classic gets the Terminator, Michael Jackson, a Mega Drive controller, Silence of the Lambs and Nirvana, whereas modern gets Justin Bieber, Avatar, a Wii remote and a Facebook 'like' button? And you thought having green eyes was modern Sonic's biggest problem! Haha, I kid. Still, it's mighty clever is it not?

See more examples after the jump!

Let's Go to the "Sonic Generation" Art Show in Philadelphia!

When Gagaman wrote about the "Sonic Generation" fan art show in Philadelphia, PA, I knew I had to make the long trek to check it out. Grabbing my old near-broken digital camera (my new one is being repaired), I headed out into the tepid weather and braved the 9 minute subway ride to the Brave New Worlds comic book shop. The show, which is actually rather small despite the spiffy website, features various renditions of Sonic, Tails and Eggman from a variety of artists. Located in the outer lobby of Brave New Worlds, the gallery takes up what usually would have been a blank wall.

Sonic Generations Art Show in Philadelphia from December 2nd!

Wow, Sega have been really pulling out the stocks for Sonic 20th anniversary. As far as events in America go, there was the Generations of Skate, the one-day Sonic themed playground build, and most recently Sonic returning in balloon form to Macy's Day Parade. Before the year is over there is yet one more event to check out!

From December 2nd onwards till the end of the month in Philadelphia, PA there will be a Sonic Generations Art Show featuring unique paintings, illustrations and sculptures inspired by the blue rodent! While there have been video game art shows like I am 8-Bit before, there were normally focused on the likes of Mario, Pac Man and other 80s icons little to no Sonic inspired art, but now his getting a show all to himself!

There are more examples of the art that will be on display at the website, as well as an address to go hunt it down when it's on if you live near there. If anyone goes there please send us some photos and impressions!

JSRF Gets Larger Than Life

The world of Jet Set Radio merchandise is a small one. Even the most avid collector could only fill a single shelf with what Sega has to offer. Thankfully a company thought outside the shelf by applying the JSRF license to large-format repositionable wall graphics!


LTL Prints, the company responsible, was founded in late 2008 by by entrepreneurs Kendall Schoenrock and Carsten Petzold. Taken from their own "about" page: "We set out to create a platform for creative expression that would bring larger-than-life repositionable wall graphics to empty walls everywhere," according to LTLprints founder Kendall Schoenrock. "And we are working with the worlds' premier artists, designers, and brands to literally CREATE a new medium."


VP of Marketing John Doffing was nice enough to get me in touch with Kendall and Carsten, and I was surprised to find out that both LTL Prints and myself are located within in the same city (Philadelphia)! What more, I was a short ten minute subway ride from their HQ! So taking an extended lunch break, I headed on over to LTL Prints. Once there, I was greeted by Kendall and Carsten and was able to have a look about. The printer they use is enormous, think "the grand piano of printers", while the walls of their office was covered in a variety of images available on their online catalog.

Robotnik Painting by Milton Knight

(Copy and paste from my personal blog, because it's relevant here too)

Well lookie here what showed up in the post today! A painting of Dr.Robotnik by Milton Knight that I purchased from him just last week! I bought a frame for it and it's currently sitting proud above my computer. He had three different pieces of art for sale on his website although I'm not sure if the other two are still available. Either way it's my first piece of original artwork by a professional animator (one who I've talked about on here many times before, mainly for his work on the 90's Sonic cartoon) so I'm happy. Oh yeah, and i contributed a little bit to his Robotnik Toy Chest page. :)

Here's a clip of the man sketching out a quick Robotnik for an extra on the American Sonic DVD. Look how expressive his drawing is in such a quick sketch!

Sega Art Book of Sheer Beauty Part 3: Wallpapers!

The same images you just saw the scans of, but now as wallpapers. They are all 1280 X 1024, so if they're too big just shrink and if they're too small, sorry! I could maybe make bigger sized versions of some of them if anyone wants them, but for now these will do.

More wallpapers after the jump!

Japanese Sega Art Book of Sheer Beauty Part 2: Scans!

As I promised here are some full scale scans from that wonderful Sega game illustrations book.

Here's a scanned example of one of the pages, which not only contains all that lovely felt-tip pen colored art from Sonic 1, but also talks of the characters' "charming and saucy nature". Hmm. No doubt the PAL Sonic 1 box art was nicer, though. More scans after the jump.

Japanese Sega Art Book of Sheer Beauty

Now, video game art books are by no means a rare thing in Japan, but Sega ones seem to be few and far between. However, I manged to find this one on Ebay some time ago and won it for about £12. The book contains a variety of artwork from many Mega Drive and Game Gear games, starring the main front cover art as full page spends and littered with character art from the lovely full colour manuals they got over there. More after the jump.