For as much as people tell me my characters remind them of Sonic, I’ve never given imitating Tyson Hesse/Classic Sonic style versions of my characters a try.
Sonic artist Tyson Hesse said he had no involvement in the Sonic Superstars opening animation, amid a negative social media reaction over claims of animation errors.
Hesse tweeted that the intro was produced "by a Japanese team" that used his internal character sheets from Sonic Origins, in an effort to correct a misattribution.
The animation replicated the aesthetic found in Origins and Sonic Mania, but attracted criticism by fans due to perceived choppy transitions and inconsistent drawings.
Despite the criticism, many others enjoyed the animation and the art style, which was initially misattributed to Hesse. In a reply to Sonic Stadium, he said, "I hadn’t seen any criticism, I had just woken up to a bunch of tweets giving me misdirected praise."
A thought just dawned on me this morning and I theorize the reason why so many people went up in arms in defense for the Sonic Movies was because they maybe thought my criticisms were being directed at Tyson Hesse by proxy?
So just want to clarify something here - if there was one western person who I'd absolutely, completely, 100% trust with Sonic
it'd be Tyson Hesse.
Literally everything this man touches is gold, I cannot stress enough how much I adore his work, Sonic or his own original stuff like Boxer Hockey and Diesel. I even bought the first Diesel issue from the original run over ten years ago!
It helps that not only does he speak and understand Japanese fluently, so the cross-communication between him and Sega must be much more stream-lined, but he also lived in Japan for a spin and his wife's half-japanese too I think?
He not only gets it from a cultural perspective but has the phenomenal amount of talent on top of just fundamentally understanding Sonic so well. If he were in charge of the movies from the get go instead of having to do damage control, I have zero doubt in my mind he would've knocked it out of the park and into the stratosphere where it'll dance in the constellations of mankind's best movie adaptations.
I trust this guy's work THAT much. I'm so happy he gets to work on it when he does!
Plus, it's super inspiring seeing someone from the fireball20xl days of internet fandom being so successful and well-regarded.
I feel like Sega/Sonic Team trying to make the "Everything is canon" thing super literal is a fool's errand, it just causes far more problems than it fixes
I do think trying to make everything fit neatly together is more trouble than its worth, especially when you have the Sonic Prime folks out there claiming the show is canonical to the games. It's a mess that entirely hinges on somebody like Ian Flynn putting in the work and being around to enforce consistency and create a path of least resistance. The moment they're gone, the whole thing is going to tangle up like a bundle of old Christmas lights.
But I will say this: with the way Sonic plots are usually written, having direct verifiable ties to past storylines is actually really nice. Making up excuses to revisit Green Hill Zone over and over is one thing, but Sonic Frontiers actually being able to say "here's how we connect to the greater Echidna lore for the first time in 22 years, and Sonic actively talks about the events of this world" is genuinely cool. I like the idea that it feels like a timeline and not just two decades of one-offs and nostalgia bait.
Tyson Hesse has posted new character sheets from #SonicDreamTeam's animated opening! Check them all out in our news story! #SonicNews #SonicTheHedgehog