New Sonic Movie redesign details surface

We are all aware the Sonic movie redesign was no easy feat. But to what extent?

Thanks to the interview the Argentinian fansite Sonic Team Argentina to Max Schneider, an artist who worked on the Sonic Movie we now know a little bit more than before.

Max Schneider, an Argentinian animator who worked on both the old and new Sonic design, plus some other big budget movies like Cats, gave to Sonic Team Argentina some interesting tidbits about the movie redesign process. The interview only puts the bullet points, not the whole dialogue they had, so we are going to show you the most interesting bits.

Sonic new design took 5 months to be made, since they had most part of the movie finished with the older design.

At first, Paramount was fully on board with the older design, as they were looking for a more realistic approach for Sonic, one that could be able to fit better with a live action setting, in a similar way as Ninja Turtles or Transformers did.

They were pretty confident that fans would dislike it, but regular public would like it, like they did with Ninja Turtles or Transformers so they went ahead with it. When the trailer came out and the public opinion was overwhelming negative all alarms went off.

Paramount Movie team had a huge meeting with Sega of America and quickly decided to change Sonic Model. Max also said our 5$ Million budget increase report is the closest to the real costs of the redesign, instead of what other sites had said.

There was no crunch on artists or animators, either.

About the redesign process, he said that work started with Sonic’s head. They put both movie design and games Modern Sonic heads side by side on a screen, to see what they could touch up to make them more similar. Last thing they changed was Sonic’s shoes.

The process included a complete redesign of Sonic, making a new rig, and then animate it all over again.

There are some recycled animations, but most of it is new. The animator also pointed out that the design and animation teams are completely separate and independant to each other, so they (the animators) only followed the producers and director wishes and had no say in the design. Design team dont either, they just follow orders too.

Last, but not least, Max said that the movie works really well, and that there are several easter eggs and interesting things for the fans to look for.

Thanks to Sonic Team Argentina for their interview.